Suburban Gardener—

Purple Coneflower: A Gentle Teddy Bear In Your Garden

By Gerry McCabe

Back in the Sixties when I was in my teens, natural remedies and herbal gardens were little known to the general population. A chosen few, known as “those Hippies” labored intensely on their organic plots vowing to silently spread the word of the value in this natural lifestyle.

I can say that I was a “modified Hippie” in that I believed in some of the rebellious ways but chose a more conventional route for my life’s path. Today as I look back on those forming years, I find that what I have read and learned from friends on natural living has taken on new meaning. It now has become the norm to speak of reduction in pesticide use, more common for the backyard gardener to want to attract birds and butterflies, more accepted to approach alternative medicines without ridicule. Of the original herbal handbook Back to Eden, there has got to be thousands of books on these subjects with hundreds more waiting in the wings.

So what does all this have to do with “Purple Coneflower”? Well, of all the herbs in the universe, Echinacea, or coneflower, has won the right to be called the Queen of Herbs by opening the eyes of every reading soul to the promise of another way. There is hardly a person alive that has not heard of this herb and twice as many who have tried it in its capsulated form or in teas for warding off the common cold. Gosh, a well-known ice cream maker has even mixed it into a sorbet. Now that’s the way to feed a cold!

The rhizome or root of the plant is where the immuno-stimulating substances are derived. Hailed by the American Indians as an anti-infective and blood purifier, Echinacea was sold by Lloyd Brothers of Cincinnati, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, as an anti-infective in 1885. Its popularity was short-lived, however, as the turn of the century brought effective antibiotics on the market. Echinacea has also been used to reduce fevers, curb allergies and relieve arthritic pain by reducing inflammation.

But what is also important to me is that I love the way those big pink flowers look in my herb garden. I have a fondness for daisy-like flowers, which also goes back to my elusive years. Back then everybody either wore or carried daisies of all colors and sizes. There were daisy dresses, daisy pins, daisy wallpaper, daisy rings and even big colorful daisies painted on the bodies of Volkswagen Beetles and vans!

Echinacea belongs to the same family as the daisy, Compositae, and extends the petal perfect season from mid summer well into fall. Echinacea augustifolia is more of the meadow or wild form of the coneflowers. Thin bright pink petals extend downward from a center cone of purple-brown florets, giving the look of an octopus treading in deep water.

More common for the garden is Echinacea purpura and its many cultivars. I have ‘Magnus,’ which grows to 3 feet high with deep pink-red petals which extend directly outward from an eye of red-purple florets with green tips, and ‘Bright Star,’ also 3 feet high with rose pink petals radiating around a maroon center eye.

While in Stowe, Vt., last month, I purchased ‘White Swan’ which is, you guessed it, a white petaled coneflower with a brown-green eye. Massed among the pinks, ‘White Swan’ provides a splash of fresh air along with a bobbing glow during the night. Other cultivars include ‘Crimson Star’, with rose-pink petals, ‘White Lustre,’ with a bronze eye and creamy white petals, and ‘Robert Bloom,’ with carmine-purple petals and a green center.

As a rule, Echinacea does not ask for much as far as care. Tolerant to heat and drought, this herb will prosper in full sun or partial shade (six hours sun). Although it will grow in average soil, a good dose of compost worked into the soil in spring with an application of a 5-10-5-fertilizer snack in late summer will only enhance your blooms.

Deadhead spent blooms during summer and save for crafts but leave a few atop the plants in late fall. The thistle-like seeds will attract many a bird such as Gold and Purple Finches.

Pests are few. Mildew can be controlled with good air circulation around the plants and Japanese Beetles can be hand picked off. Stay away from beetle traps. They will just lure your neighbor’s beetles on over to your yard for a party.

A very robust plant, Echinacea takes its place as a gentle teddy bear in the garden. The immense, stately flowers give way to cradling flocks of butterflies and holding close, intoxicated honey bees who have over done their stay. Take time to take in all this natural glory of midsummer. Enjoy.

(When she isn’t tending to her garden at home, Gerry McCabe spends some of her time continuing her gardening education at Naugatuck Valley College in Waterbury. Gerry — who is a certified master gardener in Connecticut — can be reached at TNGCATS@aol.com.)