One of the first flowers I ever grew from seed were purple coneflowers - Echinacea purpurea, the poster child of the North American native plant movement and a key species in everything from pollinator gardens to giant prairie plantings everywhere.

I also knew that echinacea was a great cut flower - both in its flowering form as well as its seedhead form. In fact, echinacea is only available in its seedhead form from wholesalers (since the flowers themselves don’t transplant very well), working nicely as a strong, structural plant with a great textural presence in a design.

It’s a great plant to grow - doing well in even the worst conditions of poor soil, hot humid summers, freezing cold winters, and will support itself with long strong stems and a great upright habit. It will support a great variety of native pollinators, grows well nearly everywhere and is a robust and hardy perennial that will reward you with long flowering stems year after year.

1. Selecting your Variety

When it comes to echinacea, not all species are created equal necessarily. Although we will always grow (and love) the regular old Echinacea purpurea there are a whole host of other species and varieties of coneflowers out there for you to grow and enjoy.

There is for example, the pale coneflower Echinacea pallida. Native to North America, it is of a different form than Echinacea purpurea - with drooping, narrow petals that drape over the side of the sepals with a very elegant form.

There’s even a yellow echinacea, Echinacea paradoxa that has bright black-eyed-susan-yellow petals with the distinct bristly head of the Echinacea family.

However if you like your flowers big and fluffy (or grossly overbred and mutated as one of my friends would say) there are also a lot of fancifully formed echinacea out there.

We are particular fans of the ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ varieties that have the same shape and form as the regular Echinacea purpurea but come in a variety of colors - reds, oranges, cremes, primrose yellows and white that are a wonderful change from the pale pink and purple of the regular variety. Many of these are particularly well-suited for use in wedding design given their more muted colorations.

But even more fun are the scabiosa-type echinaceas that have a large poofball of petals on top of their cone, forming a tightly-packed mound of florets that remind me of a double gerbera daisy or an anemone-form dahlia - and are absolutely a delight in arrangements.

Note that the cultivared varieties of echinacea are on a whole notoriously less vigorous and weaker than their wild-type counterparts - they have a lot of issues overwintering as a perennial in most cases, and even when they do overwinter they are much smaller and grow much more slowly. Still, they are cool enough to bother with and if reliably perennial are better than attempting to grow scabiosa-flowering zinnias (which look similar but hardly ever grow reliably that way from seed).

2. Growing Echinacea from Seed

Despite being a native perennial, echinacea is one of the few North American native perennials that doesn’t require a period of cold stratification - where you keep the seed moist and cold for a set period of time. They grow very readily and quickly - usually sprouting in about a week or so - and germinate readily when kept on a heat mat OR at least at with a soil temperature of 75-85 F.

We sow ours into 72 cell trays to allow them to form a healthy root system, sowing multiple seeds per cell to create more of a “clump” than single plants. You can prick and plant them out as single plants, but I find that they’re much more impressive as a clump, and they do a much better job suppressing weeds together (with no issues of crowding multiple plants in a small space).

If you have varieties that are a little bit harder to start from seed - such as the ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ that are a bit slower and less uniform - you can start them off in a moist coffee filter or paper towel and then transplant them out as the seeds start germinating.

3. Cultivating Echinacea

Echinacea will do well in just about any soil - they will even thrive in hard-packed clay (which most would not do well in) without any issue, so finding a site for them isn’t too hard. The main issue will be drainage - echinacea may not survive in areas where their roots are constantly being flooded by water, so be sure to plant them where they will stay moist during the summer and a bit drier during the winter.

We transplant them out once they are hardened off and have their first set of leaves. They’re very hardy and vigorous plants, so even if they get a bit rootbound in the container they still will do just fine, establishing very readily.

When planting out echinacea, ensure they get a good deep watering to help them establish well, and then water them every day for a week to ensure that their root ball stays moist and can start growing into the surrounding soil.

Note that we can have our echinacea flowering the first year from seed (by August usually) if we start them early enough, but most people will require at least one full growing season before seeing them flower, especially if you have a short growing season. They will form a rosette of glossy, broadleaf foliage first, then will go onto send up their flower stalks later.

4. Harvesting Echinacea

When you’re harvesting echinacea, you need to decide if you’re going to use the actual flower itself or the seedhead. Either one is a great floral material, but it will determine your time of harvest depending on which stage you want to use it in.

If you’re using it in the flowering stage, you’ll want to pick when the stem is firm (grab the stem and wiggle it. If the flower flops back and forth like one of those giant inflatable flappy characters you see outside of a car dealership, it’s not ready. If it holds pretty firm, then it’s ready to cut). You’ll also want to harvest it when the flower is still young - usually when the pistils of the center are still in that light-green stage and the petals haven’t fully unfurled as of yet.

In the flowering stage, harvest early in the morning or late in the evening and get it into cold water and into the cooler as soon as you can to ensure optimal vase life and performance. We usually get anywhere from 4-6 days off the flowers in warmer weather, while we get 7+ days in cooler weather.

If you’re using it in the seedhead stage, you’ll want to wait until the pistils have turned a golden-rust-brown coloration. This usually means that the petals are going to be in poor condition - possibly even dead or dying at that point, which is totally fine with me because it means that the petals will be easier to pluck off. Or you can even wait for the petals to brown and dry up completely, which will make your harvesting even easier. Just don’t wait until the stems start to go brown and die - it will look half-dead in that case and you won’t want to use it.

The seed heads are a bit hardier than the flowers - they will last for a longer period of time 10-14 days for us if the water remains fresh. You can even use them in installations since they don’t necessarily require a water source for a decent period of time, although they can start to go droopy if kept out of water for too long.

If your seedheads have started to go brown and are dying off, wait for the entire seedhead to die and turn dark brown. You can then use this seedhead as a dried floral material, which will add some much-needed structure and texture in the off-season.

5. Designing with Echinacea

Echinacea, when used in its flowering form is a wonderful composite flower that can act as a focal flower or a secondary flower as well when used in concert with other focals. The daisy-like appearance of echinacea makes it universally appealing to most people, and it certainly makes for a very happy arrangement when used centrally.

When used in its seed head form, echinacea can be used to add texture and structure to an arrangement - similar to an eryngium or a globe thistle in form. Just be careful of its linear form - when used improperly it can be too harsh or strong in the design and can distract if you are going for a more organic and flowing form.

We particular like using echinacea when combined with other North American natives like liatris and solidago, but it pairs just as well with dahlias, zinnias and other flowers.

I Hope I’ve Inspired You to Grow Some Echinacea

They’re easy to grow, are reliably perennial, offer great texture and presence in arrangements and are even great for pollinators and native fauna. Echinacea have always been part of our plantings no matter where we’ve been growing, and will likely always continue to be one of our favorite flowers to grow.

If you’re interested in growing other cut flowers that love the hot weather of summer, check out these other growing guides:

How to Grow Echinacea (Purple Coneflower) for the Cutting Garden