MUST Do This To Coneflowers!

Coneflowers are not a long lived perennial and most home gardens they only live 3 to 5 years. Let some seeds drop into the area where you want them to grow so that you always have a new batch of fresh plants coming up to replenish the ones that die off. Be careful when you’re weeding! I’m a Garden Coach in the Chicagoland area and I love this community — if you know the answer to someone’s question in the comments, please jump in and help! I can’t always respond personally, but together we can f Most coneflowers live three to five years Maybe out in the wild areas they may get longer than that but I want you to know that because I want you to treat your coneflowers like a patch and I want you to let them freely self-seed So this is my patch or a big drift of Echinacea purpurea which is the native purple and this is Echinacea pallida which is pale purple coneflower Both are native in northern Illinois, where I live And while I'm weeding today I am leaving all these baby coneflower seedlings They're not going to flower for about three years And when they're ready to flower these older ones are probably going to be finished So I want you to let those babies replenish the patch in the area where you want them to grow So recognize what those leaf shapes look like and leave those baby seedlings If you're someone with different colored coneflowers than the native original colors you're not going to get nearly as many pollinator visits because the insects don't recognize that flower as easily as the ones that they have evolved with for thousands of years Also, double coneflowers the ones where the petals now have been changed and they don't look like the original makes it much harder for the insects to find and the double flowers also make it hard for the insect to get into the flower and find the nectar So please try if you're looking to bring back the pollinators and feed them to get the native original colors