A taste of America
From Cranberry Cup Cake to Cinnamon Candy – these colourful coneflowers are guaranteed to give you...
TOMATO Soup and Strawberry Shortcake, Double Scoop Bubblegum and Cranberry Cupcake, Mac ’n’ Cheese, Summer Salsa, Milk-shake and Cinnamon Candy: no, not some popular dishes from a 1950s-style American diner but a tasty spread of coneflowers inspired by food from across the pond.
The evocative, US-leaning names given to many coneflowers certainly provide a big clue as to where they originate and hint at the colour of their flowers. Yet they reveal much more. Such bold names are only ever bestowed on plants that are capable of making a big impact.
In my opinion, no other group of perennials light up the garden in late summer like coneflowers. These clump-forming, statuesque plants produce masses of large, daisy- like flowers in many bold shades from June until the first frosts, usually hitting their peak at some point during late summer.
Closely related to marigolds, dahlias and sunflowers, coneflowers belong to the asteraceae plant family. Their flowers are distinctive: colourful petals are arranged beneath a prominent, raised central cone that consists of hundreds of tiny, tightly packed fertile flowers.
The cones – sometimes called discs – tend to be orange-brown or a shade of green and are a magnet to bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects. The upright, spiky structure is behind the plant’s botanical name of echinacea, which derives from the Greek word ekhinos, meaning hedgehog.
Coneflowers are native to eastern and central parts of the USA, where they can be found in a wide range of habitats, from dry prairies to damp river banks.
Of the ten different wild species, Echinacea purpurea is the most important to horticulture as it’s the parent of many fantastic garden worthy varieties.
Long before coneflowers were admired for their blooms, the plants were highly regarded by Native American tribes. The Sioux, Blackfoot and Cheyenne considered them a medicinal one-stop shop, using roots to treat toothache, snake bites, coughs, burns, sexually transmitted diseases and countless other ailments. Early settlers embraced their use and it remained a folk remedy until 1880, when the first mass market product containing echinacea was launched.
Today, echinacea capsules are widely used to fight off common colds, although some doubt has been cast on the efficacy of the drug in recent years.
ECHINACEA purpurea has been grown in Britain since the late 17th Century, but very few varieties appeared until the prairie-planting trend in the Noughties led to a surge of interest.
Since then, plant breeders have created close to 200 different ones in shades of white, yellow, orange, green, pink, purple and red.
Ranging in height from under 2ft to more than 5ft, coneflowers are fantastic at the front or middle of beds and borders, depending on their height.
They make perfect partners for ornamental grasses and other latefl owering perennials, such as sedum, heleniums and rudbeckia. These perennials will flourish in a sunny spot with their feet in freedraining soil – ground that is waterlogged over winter will lead to rotting. They seem to have coped well so far with our summer heatwave but mulching in late spring will help them to perform even better during drought.
Even when the floral display is over, plants continue to earn their keep thanks to their seedheads, which stand up well to wind, rain and snow thanks to being supported by hefty stems.
The bulbous, spherical heads provide food for foraging birds and structural interest over winter.
NATIVES USED THE ROOTS TO CURE JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING