Make way for coneflowers!

Echinacea (coneflowers) have become one of the mainstays of the summer garden, their bold, daisy-petalled blooms around a central golden cone embodying the spirit of the season, while attracting bees and butterflies alike. In recent years there have been hundreds of new introductions, with all manner of strange floral configurations and colours, from citrus-green and neon-pink to screaming scarlet.

Many are bred from a variety of American species and while they may look ravishing in bloom, not all are easy to establish, particularly if conditions are not to their liking. With some highly bred varieties, blooms often prove too heavy for their stems, especially on rich soils, or after heavy rain, requiring staking. The most trustworthy coneflower for UK conditions is

E. purpurea, and varieties bred directly from it. Reliably perennial, the stout stems carry the blooms well. Echinacea need a moist, but well-drained soil, in sun and look ravishing mingled with those other American high-season performers, helenium, gaillardia and rudbeckia.

Remove spent stems to keep them flowering.

Now's the time to plant out echinacea varieties from pots, or sow seeds for next year, particularly if you need a quite a few plants. While many varieties are best propagated vegetatively from root cuttings, some are available to grow from seed. Those bought in pots will give a few flowers now, but they take a year to settle in and build up the energy to bloom with gusto.

Grown from seed sown now, young plantlets can be planted out in late autumn to produce young plants that will start to flower in summer next year and beyond. After sowing, lightly cover seed – it needs light for germination – and keep moist until seedlings establish. Plant seedlings into module trays or 7.5cm (3in) pots and grow on, planting them out in autumn.