USDA Plant Hardiness Zones: 3a-8b  Find Your Zone

Plant Type:  Perennial 

Flower Color:  Reddish to Pinkish Purple petals with Bronze center cones

Flower Size: 5"

Flowering Period:  Late Spring to Early Fall

Flower Type:  Single Daisy, Coneflower

Fragrant Flowers:  No

Foliage Color:  Green

Fragrant Foliage:  No

Berries:  No

Berry Color:  No

Attracts:  Birds, Butterflies, Pollinators, Visual Attention

Resistances:  Deer, Disease, Heat, Humidity, Insect, Rabbit

If you're looking for the real thing, this is the original Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, an easy-to-grow North American native plant that has always performed well in our gardens. We can't say that about the many other new Echinacea cultivars that we've tested over years. Large and showy 5" diameter daisy-like flowers with reddish-purple petals surrounding a bronzy-orange center cone bloom throughout summer perched atop stiff stems that rise to 3 to 4 feet high above clumps of lanceolate, dark green leaves. The flowers are excellent for cutting and use in fresh or dried flower arrangements. If spent flowers are left on the plant the black cones provide winter interest in the garden and also seeds for goldfinches and other birds. The seeds the birds don't get will drop to the ground and start new plants, which makes this one perfect for naturalizing in sunny woodland borders.

Purple Coneflower is easy to grow when planted right and in the right spot. It is an adaptable plant that is tolerant of drought, heat, humidity and poor soil. It will grow in most any average soil that moist to somewhat dry and well-drained and flowers best in full sun but will also do well and bloom in part shade. Spent flowers can be removed through the long bloom season. That said, the plant freely self-seeds if some of the spent flowers/seed heads are left on the plant towards the end of the season.