Echinacea

I would welcome any views on Echinacea. From pictures they look nice, and are supposed to be long flowering - important in small garden.

Two years ago when I started my first garden from scratch I bought seeds of E. purpurea (ie no named variety) and E. Primadonna Dark Rose. I also bought E. Kim's Knee High, E. Robert Bloom and E. Rubin Glow as plants. They all grew and thrived and bloomed, and all looked exactly the same!

The only exception was Rubin Glow, which had a beautiful clean and bright appearance. I was so pleased that last spring I divided it into two. As a result it sulked, and just looked sick all summer.

Does anyone know of a really good one or are all E.purpureas really the same. Can you divide them like other perennials?

My soil is clay, but I dug in some gravel, compost and chicken manure first.

PeterS

 

Echinaceas ...may be it's the chicken manure they didn't like, did you get it fresh or had it been stored for some months? meaning put in water and use the liquid ?. There are several colours. Perhaps someone swopped labels lol. Clay may not be the ideal soil to thrive,best take some off and replace with peat and some course sand. Mature plants can be split like any other herbacious plant....best in Autumn after flowering.

 

Thanks for your comments Ladybird. I guess I was just unlucky. I divided a number of other plants in spring that I had bought the previous summer, such as Astrantia, Aster, Japanese Anenome, Lobelia etc. I was being impatient, I wanted to increase my stock knowing that the plants were still quite small. However they were all very happy and lapped up the chicken manure. The chicken manure was being sold by a garden centre as garden ready, and as they are the only place around here that does it in bulk every year, I have given them the benefit of the doubt.

 

Hello -

I garden on clay, and grow Echinacea and it seems to do fine. I love both the flower and seed heads in winter - and the bees and butterflys love it too. I haven't tried dividing it yet because I am wanting the clump to get bigger - but have grown it from the seed.