Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone on this thread might post again this season to let everyone know how their echinaceas are doing this year?

:-)

hi, my orange & whites seem to be doing great. they are getting quite tall, over 24" and buds look like they'll bust any day now. my kim's knee high is but that, but doing well. oddly, my e. purpurea & e. pallida are still teeny. thought they may be diseased but they look like they grew a little this week. still hopeful!

Bought 3 each of Sunrise, Sunset and Doppleganger, last year.

2 Sunrise died. One made it through.
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One Sunset survive.
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As for doppleganger all three survived and set alot of buds but not blooming yet.

Well seeing the pictures that I posed in this thread makes me a bit sad. :(

As I mentioned earlier in the season out of all the coneflowers I planted last year and the year before (3 sunrise, 3 sundown, 3 orange meadowbrite, 3 Mango Meadowbrite) only 1 plant of Sundown is alive.

The rest are all gone. And they were so pretty too. I would love to say it is just me but other coneflowers nearby (E. purpurea and E. paradoxa) are just fine with no deaths.

I just bought another sunset from my local nursery. I got one a month ago from another nursery in my area which has the same name tag etc but its not very orange. It has a hint of orange but it is more of a purple-ish orange. The one I bought today is really Orange!!!! Its bright its beautiful its in your face!!! I couldn't resist buying it. I am hoping it survives. My sunrise is doing great too and I planted it last summer so it made it and came back. But I also bought a couple from a mail order place and they are alive just not growing at all. the leaves are maybe one inch long and that is all. weird. These are all in the same area. I put snail bait out and I fertilized them but they just are not growing. Any suggestions? I also think that the mail order ones were seconds instead of healthy plants. I don't think I will ever order plants again. If they don't have them growing at my local nursery then I just won't get one. Not to mention the cost of mail ordering......then getting and they are half dead and all that.

Sunset and Mango are showing up in a few local nurseries near me. Caved and bought a Sunset - hope it makes it.

I recently picked up Sunrise(i think), Sunset, Sundown, Arts Pride, and (not one of the big deal new things but new to me) Tennessee Coneflower rocky top. Only 6 - 9 dollars a pot so if they do not make it I'll only shed a couple tears.

Fay

All 3 Sunrise returned, big, bushy and healthy. About ready to bloom. Tried some new ones this season, but in another spot - will have to wait & see.

Sunrise returned nicely. So did Mango. I also have Sunset blooming and they are gorgeous. The Mango is suprisingly fragrant.

My 2 Sunrise and 2 Sparkler returned. Praire frost did not, but the groundhog did eat it last year.

Just got green eyes this year and I am so happy with it. Also have sunrise, but it is much shorter than I expected it to be, 1/3 the size of magnus. I am going to attach a pic of my green eyed echie, very dark color and neat green center eye.

Here is a link that might be useful:

We have had more rain this year than in the other 6 years I have lived here, so everything is tall this year. My regular echs are amazing - 3-4 feet tall, bushy, full, - and blooming earlier than I am used to. I love how the purple flowers sort of start off white-pink-green and turn purple. Such a wonderful, reliable plant.

Sunset is doing well. I actually mulched that one last winter, still in shock at having paid $25 for a perennial. It is doing well. It has bloomed and is lovely but I doubt I will be buying $25 plants in future. I could have waited! I really like how it is kind of purple and orange at the same time - weird.

I need to stop at my neighbour's - she has something that looks like Sunrise in her front garden and it is growing like mad! Mind is not that luscious. But I think she waters.

My Tennesseensis (sp?) is languishing but is kind of overshadowed by other plants. Need to get out the machete!

My Paradoxa and Pallida are AMAZING! They are smallish plants. I recall others commenting on their spindliness last year and that they are. But the stalks are over 3 feet tall and the flowers are huge! Their cones are bigger than golf balls! They are just wonderful. Long lasting blooms too. I will definitely be propagating those. They would look wonderful in a large clump and I have the space for it.

I am really enjoying the photos people have shared.

Thanks very much for posting updates and LOVE the photos. Very encouraging. :-)

Sunrise and Sundown both returned for me this year. My chief complaint with Sunrise is that it doesn't seem able to support its height very well. Several stems have fallen over and broken at the base and the others are leaning heavily. Next year I'm going to put a support around it.

I had Sunset but it either didn't make it through the winter or I mistakenly pulled it out thinking it was a purple coneflower where I didn't want one. I don't think I did though because I surely would have noticed the potting soil attached to the roots if I pulled it out. I bought a replacement Sunset this summer and I think I prefer its color to Sundown. Sunset seems more orange while Sundown has hints of purple and gets more pronounced as the flowers age.

well anyone want to update their plants this year? Mine all died except one is up and growing although not doing super duper. It does have buds on it though. Its the Sunset one so I will see how it goes in a few more weeks. the sunrise plants are all gone.)-: Such a bummer to buy these pricey plants and have them expire. Oh well I will probably try again later...

I added a Sundown, Harvest Moon and a Jade plant that I bought in the fall last year. The Jade and the Sundown came back but the Harvest Moon is history. I will be interested to see what they look like when they bloom. I also winter sowed a number of echinacea...one was a doppleganger so it should be interesting to see what I have when they start blooming. I will try to take a photo. :-)

I noticed that all of you trying the new echinaceas are in zone 5 or warmer. The newer ones are just showing up here in MN zone 4 this year. I get the impression they are not going to be hardy here. I would love to try them, but they are $20.00 for a gallon pot. The plants look good at the garden center, none of them are blooming. Do you think they will grow here for me?

Hi! Last year (in mid-summer) a nursery had a gallon Mango Meadowbrite half off for $6! It was very large...so naturally I got it. It did well and bloomed good the rest of the year. But this spring it looked terrible; it was a quarter of its original size. Im planning on moving it to a droughty area in hopes of its doing better. And (your really not going to believe this) a few weeks ago I went to a local family-owned nursery and found E. Harvest Moon...for $3!!! Yes three dollars! I bought one and it seems to be doing great. How can they be making a profit off of this? It makes me wonder if I would be getting scammed if I bought a $20 coneflower somewhere else. I also bought E. DoubleDecker about five years ago for $12. It has had a few straggly petals comming off the top, but has so far not doubled its decker. My neighbor really loves coneflowers. He bought Art's Pride, Razzmatazz, Sundown, and Sunset a year ago. We were both unimpressed with the Art's Pride and Razzmatazz (Raz. was nowhere near as pritty as the pictures in the catalogs, and the AP died over the winter). His Sundown and Sunset were both really pritty, but only one made it through the winter. I still cant say enough about my Magnus though; I love it (even though its reseeding itself like crazy).
CMK

chris - My Razzmatazz looks exactly like the pictures in the catalogs... I wonder if you friend didn't get a pure-bread since it is difficult to propogate.

Hi! mweider, I hope I dont sound ignorant, but what exactly does "pure-bread" mean? That it is offspring of the original Razzmatazz? He bought several from Wayside, but none of them lived more that a month. He also bought one from a local nursury, (that is the one I was talking about)I never knew there was a differance.

P.S.- mwieder, my names actually Christin, but you can call me whatever you like, it doesnt really matter! ;)

Has anyone planted the new Jade Coneflower? It is said to have a Jade cone, I bought and planted mine but it's cone is yellow just like the regular white coneflowers. I'm wondering if the wrong tag was in the one I bought.

Hi everyone. This is my third or fourth season with Razzmatazz and it blooms exactly like the pictures. I planted Sunrise and Mango Meadowbrite last fall and they both have returned, however Mango Meadowbrite is fairly small. I planted Summer Sky, Twilight and Magnus this spring and love them so far. On a side note, several years ago I planted Art's Pride (Orange Meadowbrite) and it didn't make the winter. It seems, at least to me, that the Meadowbrites are not as strong as the Big Sky series.

christin - all I meant is that I wonder if what he bought wasn't a real Razzmatazz, and instead was the local nursery (intentionally or otherwise) trying to pass something off as razzmatazz. If you email me, I'd be happy to share my pics from last years Razzmatazz bloom in my backyard and they look just like the catalog pix.

Here's the report on the new ones (1 plant each) that I planted in a raised bed in Spring 2006:

Sundown returned and is in bloom now.
Harvest Moon returned and has buds just opening now.
Twilight returned and has green buds on it now.
Razzmatazz returned and has green buds on it now.
Orange Meadowbrite (Art's Pride) is trying to return, but it is doubtful that it will ever get big enough to bloom. It has a few puny leaves and is about 3 inches tall.

Sunrise (3 plants) planted in a west facing garden in 2005 returned well but have recently been eaten down to about 6 inches by rabbits...oh well - maybe they will have time to regrow and bloom.

Well, I went to Home Depot a few weeks ago and they had Sunset there and they definitely weren't watered. I talked the salesperson into letting me have the plant for 1/2 price and I came home and watered it like crazy. It is doing well and has bloomed, but I have to say, it blooms pretty, but not as red as I would have thought and it pales out after awhile. I also got Harvest Moon, which is a very pretty orangey/yellow color and is doing well. If you get close enough, it has a slight fragrance. I'm hoping they come back next year. I had Razamatazz a few years ago and it was very pretty, but never came back.

Sunset never returned from last year. I'm not spending another 13 bucks until I hear of more hardy varieties. The color wasn't as bright red as what I imagined either. It washed out rather quickly. Very disappointing.

'Sundown' has been blooming for a couple of weeks and although it's blooming well it's a bit of a disappointment. The photos and websites that show the flowers as a true saturated orange are LYING! The flower is a sort of pinkish orange, with each flower at its most intense and saturated for just a couple of days (so there are several shades on the plant at one time, some much closer to pink than to orange); I saw several blooming at a nursery and it was the same, with the color appearing best in a large group viewed from a distance.

It doesn't help that I planted it towards the back, expecting it to grow much bigger than it did; also no help that it's blooming next to Asclepias tuberosa, a TRUE orange flower and probably a better choice if you're looking for orange flowers for a dry, sunny spot.

The Coneflower you are describing sounds like "Sunset" not "Sundown". I am growing both and they are blooming right now. My Sundown is blooming a deep deep orange while the Sunset is a pinkish orange. I wonder if the wrong tags were put in the wrong plants??? I think this may have happen to me, I bought a Jade Coneflower (cones are supposed to be green) but it has bloomed and looks exactly like the white swan (yellow cone). I'm taking it back.

Johnnie B & Roses 2007,

Just wanted to say that My Sundowns are a soft pinkish orange, while Sunset is the deep orange. Sundown also has a flatter petal array when the blooms first develop, while the other one is more like a shuttlecock. I also went to my book where I keep plant tags and the pictures on the Big Sky tags of Sundown look like a flat flower with a pink-orange color (a bit more pink than my first picture, closer to the older flowers at the top of the second), and a deep orange on the Sunset, so I don't think I have them mislabeled in the yard.

Here are two pictures of Sundown to give you an idea. BTW, Sundown looks really nice with Apricot Zinnias (in the Profusion series) as in the 2nd photo. And of course with contrasting blue.

Sundown

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Sundown with Festuca Elija Blue and Veronica Royal Candles

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My Sundown is a much deeper orange that either one of those, I'll try to get a picture. The second picture you posted I saw at English Garden this evening and they had it tagged as a "SummerSKY". The top photo is what my "SunSet" looks like. I bought that last year and it is doing well.

I agree that 'Sundown' is more pinkish orange than orange, and as you can see in this photo, the petals fade to a peach color.

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Leslie, what are the small daisy-like flowers underneath the 'Sundown' blooms? That is a great combo.

I have Mango Meadowbrite which does VERY well...and Twilight which also performs well. Both seem to be a little slow to establish.

I have a yellow from the new varieties and it pales by comparison to the Mango.

I AM having an echinacea "problem" but it is irrespective of the variety.

Robin

Wow; I can't believe this thread is still going!

Well, since my previous update, 2 years ago, lol, my Mango Meadowbright has not made it. It returned in 2006 but failed to this year :(
I tried "Double Decker" twice; never returned the following year.
Having vowed to not purchase any more of the new varieties (I do have "Harvest Moon" and "Sunset", which are both in their 2nd year and looking extremely pathetic, I had decided to firmly NOT purchase any more.
I do seem to be on a coneflower binge; I just purchased 2 more "Magnus", which are more reliable (yet I really didn't need) to go with my other "Magnus" and "White Swan", which have reseeded and I've been able to move plants all over the place.

So, what did I do today???!??!? Went to Lowes and purchased "Summer Sky"! Ooooooh, aaaaah, it was soooo pretty, I just had to have it.

Guess I'll be back next year with a report of it's return or failure to return ;)

Highalttransplant,

Those are the Apricot Zinnias, part of the Profusion series.

There is a new (?) one out of the Chicago Botanic Garden called Art's Pride (common name Orange Meadowbrite)

http://www.perennials.com/seeplant.html?item=1.196.930

I'm debating if I want to order some to blend with my Mango Meadowbrite, Asclepias Tuberosa, Phlix David and Liatris. I'm just worried it'll be orange overkill....

Robin

Lord, help me. I just purchased a "Coconut Lime", which was on sale 40% off, for $6. Couldn't resist!

rsmallen - that one is a few seasons old and reportedly less vigorous then the new ItSaul series.

Thanks mwieder...I did see it's a few seasons old...new to me. Glad to know in advance it's not as vigorous. I'LL PASS!!! I appreciate the info!
Robin

Has anyone ordered from the link given earlier for lucs perennial world? Were they satisfactory or is there a mail order co. you would recommend for ordering coneflowers and other perennials? I am very happy w/ Bluestone but their selection of coneflowers is limited- I'd like to get Fragrant Angel for sure, and an orange if I could be sure it would really be orange. Thanks, Brandy

I got a few of mine from Garden Crossings. They are pretty pricey, but they were having a free shipping special at the time. Their plants are in qt. sized pots which is nice.

Check out Big Dipper (link below). They have the Fragrant Angel you are looking for, as well as the orange ones, and their prices are very reasonable. Their plants are similar in size to Bluestone, and everything I've received from them was in good condition.

Here is a link that might be useful: Big Dipper

I was waiting to see what would happen before I posted here. I bought E.'Twilight' on the seriously reduced for a quick end of season sale rack last Fall. I coddled it a bit & gave it Winter protection. It has returned & has started blooming. I have to bang myself in the nose to smell it, but there is a fragrance there. This Fall it will have to tough it out with the other coneflowers.

Christin - here's a picture of my Razzmatazz taken today; in another few days the top will be all pink.
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Thanks for the link, highalt. I checked out the website and it looks like there is a lot of selection there. It is a bit far away- Washington state. Have you all seen that Tiki Torch???? Wow! But, it says delivery has been delayed until spring 08, and then, many of you have written to say the new supposedly bright colors are really not as pictured... so I don't know, but I might have to try it next yr. In the meantime, I'm definitely going to order Fragrant Angel for fall. Thanks! Brandy

I have 2 coneflowers at present that are grown in pots on the south-facing balcony of my apartment. They get plenty of sunlight and I do my best to keep them well-watered.

I have a "Magnus" coneflower, purchased back in 2003 or 2004, and a "Sunrise" coneflower purchased back in April 2006 from a local garden center; both are doing very well. "Sunrise" bloomed nicely the first year, and has bloomed very heavily the second year. It runs about a month ahead of schedule when compared to old standards such as "Magnus" - it leafs out earlier in the spring, grows up quicker, and blooms earlier. I assume that it's flowers will also fade a month before those of "Magnus." Overall, I am quite satisfied with it. The plant is a strong grower and had no problems during the bitterly cold parts of the 2006-2007 winter here on the East Coast of the US.

However, it is worth noting that its flowers are very pale yellow once exposed to the sunlight. The deeper yellow tones are only evident for a short amount of time or on flowers that are more shaded. Once left out in the sun, the flowers fade to an off-white, yellow color. The cones, however, are much more yellow than the standard gold-tan color of most coneflowers.

I havent seen any in stores by me that were even worth buying..I am very disapointed. All the ones i have seen are very pale, and basically just crappy looking. Not bold and beautiful like the pics I have seen advertising them. I want them so bad..I hope I can find a place soon that has some good ones.

I have found that the Big Sky Series coneflowers look better as the plants become stronger or with age. They take longer to establish than the old fashioned plants. My plants' new blooms are beautiful. I bought the plants this spring and now the blooms are more orange than they were earlier. I am taking cuttings off the bottom of all my plants to make sure I have a good shot at them surviving. I'm growing some indoors too!

Probably helpful to update this thread with a link to the other thread about the problems with the "Sunset" Echinacea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunset Echinacea Issues

Just thought I'd chime in that my two little Art's Prides, planted June '05, came back in '06 but not '07. I've heard that several others who got plants out of the same batch (gifts) also lost them.

My Sunset came back after a weird winter and is blooming now. Not a huge plant but seems to be hanging in there. It is nice - I like that orange-over-purple colouring. However I am sold on E.pallida and E.paradoxa, plus good old Magnus and White Swan. The first 2 are so wonderful - so much character. The latter 2 are SO reliable and drought tolerant for me. I started a couple hundred from seed this year, for a new area I am doing up and for friends.

Can't tell if the Rocky Top hybrids came back or not. Can't remember where I planted them! Maybe it is not the plants, but my memory that's unreliable!

Did you notice how Magnus starts out a kind of lime green colour, then pinkish, then purple? I really like that.

Noticed another new ech - can't remember the name now but it was mostly green, very pretty - in the catalogues. But I won't be tempted!

The first of the four Sky Series echinacea that I bought on ebay this spring is in full bloom. This is Summer Sky.
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It was slow to open, but I love the color now that I can see the petals completely. I was afraid that it's petals were going stay small and quilled, like others that I have read about on Gardenweb. They did open completely, and I love the flower. I have buds on the other three and will post pictures as they open.

My concern is getting them through the winter. I'm planning on covering them with a layer of shredded oak leaves this fall.

Linda