Most of my butterfly photographs have featured Ruby Star echinacea. I have five or six plants that have matured beautifully since they were planted two summers ago. The purple-pink flowers make a colourful and reliable background to a planting of daylilies and are set off by the steel blue of of a switchgrass variety, Prairie Sky (Panicum virgatum “Prairie Sky”). Ruby Star has done very well in my garden. It has strong, tall stems, about 40 inches in height, plenty of brightly coloured flowers, and butterflies adore it.
An amazing array of new varieties of echinacea have been arriving on the market and showing up in local nurseries in the past few years. They come in a range of heights and a rainbow of colours not usually associated with old-fashioned coneflowers. Last summer, I purchased a sampling of different varieties to give them a test drive. Were they hardy in our zone? Did they produce well? The answer, one year later, is that they nearly all survived the winter and are now thriving. One of my favorites is Tangerine Dream, above. Its brilliant orange really stands out in the garden and it has produced a good show of flowers. Unfortunately, its stems, about 24 to 28 inches long, are a bit weak and tend to sprawl rather than standing nicely upright. Still, I’ve enjoyed its unusual colour.
By contrast, Firebird has formed a tidy, upright clump with attractive brilliant red flowers. It is a shorter plant, about 18 inches tall and a group of Firebird plants would look beautiful edging a garden or growing around a birdbath. Here are Tangerine Dream and Firebird flowers mingling.
Prairie Splender is also an attractive clump-former, with a nice show of more traditionally coloured flowers standing about 24 inches tall.
The longer stems of Virgin, about 30 inches tall, form a bit looser a clump, but still stand nicely upright. The white flowers are quite flat, with the petals drooping less than those of an older white, Alba.
Finally, here are a couple of pink doubles. First is Pink Double Delight, which features a brilliant pink pompom surrounded by a ray of petals.
This plant has been wonderfully bountiful, with a big display of puffy double flowers. Unfortunately, the weight of those big double flowers is too much for the stems, which tend to flop over on the ground. I had to round them up into a support to keep the stems upright. I’ll try to get the support in place a bit earlier next season.
Another great double is Pink Poodle, which has a hat-on-hat look.
Unlike Pink Double Delight, it has remained upright and is quite aptly named.
Willow House Chronicles 