Add Late Summer Colour to Your Garden with Echinacea

Echinacea purpurea is native to prairie land in eastern USA and seeing it growing wild must be a spectacular sight as it is such a stunning flower.
There used to be only a few cultivars available in shades of pink, purply pink and white (such as ‘Magnus’ and ‘White Swan’) but now there are lots of cultivars to choose from in wonderful shades of orange, yellow and red. Many of these are shorter, more compact varieties which may be more in scale with your border. They really add a burst of colour to your garden in late summer and early autumn with their large daisy heads. The seed heads look great in the winter covered in frost and provide food for birds, so don’t cut them back until spring.
Plant echinacea in full sun and a fertile soil. The cultivars are not as drought tolerant as the the species so keep an eye on the watering in hot, dry spells.