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Plant of the Month

August 12, 2018 by James Cooper

The long, hot summer we are experiencing this year has inspired this month’s plant of the month – the Echinacea.  This tall perennial with it’s daisy flowers has all the ingredients to lend your garden a prairie style all of it’s own.

Echinacea Flower - plant of the month August

Plant of the Month – Echinacea

During August the garden goes through a lull, with the earlier flowers starting to tire of the sun.  The Echinacea fills this gap well with a variety of flower colours from white to yellows to greens.  A further point in their favour is their ability to ward off winter colds as a herbal remedy.

We like to team Echinacea with tall grasses such as Calamagrostis or Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’.  These combinations reinforce the Echinacea’s roots in the North American prairies.

We have found that, over the years, these perennials do tend to disappear and then return.  Whilst Echinaceas are hardy it is thought that a wet start to a winter may affect their ability to overwinter.  With this in mind we treat them as annuals and love them all the more for it…