It sounds like your landscape architect did a great job of choosing low-maintenance perennials! But I agree, if you don't love the looks of something, definitely time to give it the boot. :) I think with the Karl Foerster and coneflower, maybe something low and yellow would look nice. What about some more coreopsis? Always great to repeat plants to give unity to the garden, and I think the yellow would be a nice compliment to the blooms of KF as well as the pink/purple of the coneflower. I will admit that I have at least seven varieties of coreopsis right now, so I'm obviously biased. :p Or maybe another smaller grass with a slightly different bloom than KF? Pennisetum Hameln might be nice if you have the room - they are a more rounded grass form, which would be a nice compliment to the spiky KF.

In the same bed, terrene, are two regular looking pink ones. They are nice and tall but look like the regular E. purpurea. I'm going to ask neighbors if they would like to have them. They are growing right up next to my Sundown and I need to move them. I think you might be right about crossing the Big Sky plants with E. Paradoxa. You might get something really special and different. I have a friend who has offered to grow out some of the seeds from my tangerine orange seedling just to see what we get. I'm definitely taking her up on it. Since Paradoxa has been blooming about the same time as this seedling, maybe more crossing has taken place by the bees. You just never know. It's really awful that the voles ate your tall cross. It sounds like a really nice plant and I love the idea of the tall flowers. Linda

Aster yellows is very widespread, affects a huge number of plants (really- if you look at the list you kind of want to give up gardening), and there is really no such thing as cultivars that are more or less resistant. It is spread by leafhoppers, which there was a huge population of this year. I would guess 80% of all coneflowers I've come into contact with this year were infected. Not a good situation. As far as new varieties, they NEED very well drained soils to perform well and overwinter. (This is inherited from the E. paradoxa parent- it likes rocky alpine conditions) Also keep in mind that E. purpurea (one of the parents of most of these hybrids) is not a very long lived plant and that has been passed on to these varieties. 3-5 years is a common lifespan for E. purpurea and it's hybrids. Hybridizing work continues, and improvements in lifespan are being made through use of other species. I highly recommend E. 'Firebird' as it has E. pallida (a long lived species) in its bloodline. This one has performed very well for me, even in slightly heavier soils. E. 'Phoenix' and E. 'Flamethrower' have performed well also. I'm looking forward to E. 'Sunbird' as it also has E. pallida in the bloodline. The sombrero series is performing well in botanic gardens, I haven't grown them personally but having seen them I can recommend them. Pow Wow are ok, they perform well & I see some color improvement in the strain over what I was seeing in trial gardens, but I'll take Pixie Meadowbrite over it any day. The Plant Geek www.confessionsofaplantgeek.com www.botanophilia.com

I have the regular 3-4 ft tall pink ones, plus I got Sunset and Sunrise last year. Both were very pretty and they came back this year (zone 6), which I was worried that they would not. I did not see any offspring plants from the new hybrids, but the old fashioned always provides me with many babies, which is good since those plants are workhorses in my garden. I won't buy different colored pink ones unless something really show-stopping comes out. I have the Sunset and Sunrise in my front walkway bed that houses all the hot colors. All echinacea plants in my garden are just growing their flowerheads now, maybe 1 or 2 blooms have opened so far. I hope the hybrids get nice and bushy this year. The Sunrise yellow is so rich and golden, it is just beautiful. I am tempted to get the green coneflower just for the novelty of it, but I have not seen it for sale locally, so that is stopping me :) A