ECHINACEA - Strawberry Mango

ECHINACEA is a low growing coneflower with large, daisy-shaped, sweetly fragrant flowers of a maturing watermelon colour – soft pink to pale purple red with convex, orange centres that provide plenty of nectar for bumblebees, bees, and butterflies. It blooms from mid-July until early autumn. It grows only about 40 cm in height and forms dense tufts covered with flowers. Deciduous leaves are medium green, lance-shaped, and slightly tomentose.

The plant is usually trouble-free and resistant, just be careful is slugs are present in your garden. Since coneflowers emerge quite late, often when slugs are already in their lethal strength, they could gobble up newly emerging foliage totally and thus destroy the plant before it even comes out.

Coneflower will tolerate almost any soil type but boggy. It loves full sun. It is suitable for mixed borders with perennials or can be used as a flowering feature among low shrubs and conifers and looks lovely when planted in a mass in a container on patios and balconies. Fully hardy to min -34 °C.