Coneflower, loved by bees and butterflies, is put on trial Adrian Higgins - Washington Post February 18, 2021 2:58 pm
Wildflowers have long presented a quandary for gardeners. Their natural purity is sometimes too pure. The stems are weak, the flowers are small and fleeting, and the plants often melt away with excessive coddling.
Enter plant hybridizers, patient and ever ready to fix weaknesses and to appeal to the gardener’s lust for showier flowers in new colors.
One sun-loving prairie plant you might think needs little of all that breeder’s attention would be the purple coneflower Echinacea purpurea. With its robust, daisylike blooms of pink-purple petals and orange centers, or discs, it provides a great show for a month or more beginning in mid-June. In July, the discs elongate into cones.