If you’ve ever wandered through a garden brimming with bees, butterflies, and birds landing on pink, daisy-like blooms with cone-shaped spiky centers, chances are you’ve met the coneflower. It’s a beautiful, native perennial that pollinators—and gardeners—love.
Known botanically as Echinacea (yes, as in the herbal tea), coneflowers hail largely from the tall-grass prairies of central North America. The name Echinacea comes from the Greek word echinos, meaning “hedgehog,” a nod to the flower’s spiky central cone, where its seeds are stored.
Long before Echinacea made its way into tea bags and supplement aisles, Native American tribes like the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Sioux used it for its medicinal properties. It was a go-to remedy for infections, wounds, and even snake bites. When European settlers caught wind of its healing powers in the 18th and 19th centuries, it quickly became a staple in frontier medicine cabinets. Fast forward to today, and all parts of the plant are still valued as a natural immune booster. Whether or not it actually cures the common cold is up for debate, but there’s no denying its reputation in herbal medicine circles.
Coneflowers belong to the Asteraceae family—a botanical who’s-who that includes daisies, asters, and chrysanthemums. It’s a pretty diverse bunch, but you’ll notice the family resemblance in the radiating petals and dramatic centers. Other Asteraceae cousins you might recognize are black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), marigolds, and zinnias.
Generally, coneflowers grow from two to four feet tall, but there are dwarf hybrids as small as one foot. Over time they spread modestly, from 18 to 24 inches wide. While they do self-seed, they don’t do it aggressively. Speaking of seeds, they’re easy to propagate, so buy one plant, collect the seeds in fall, then start them in spring to make dozens more.
The most common and available flower color is pink. Newer red, orange, white, and even green-blossomed varieties are being bred, but so far, I’ve found them absent from local nurseries, and they’re hugely expensive in mail order catalogues. (Does anyone else think $25 for a three-inch potted plant is outrageous?) I have found a few of the deep-red hybrids I want in seed catalogues, so I’ll be ordering and starting them soon.
One of the best things about coneflowers is that they’re low maintenance and reliable. Plant them in full sun and well-drained soil, and they’ll return year after year with minimal effort. They’re drought-tolerant once established, rarely need fertilizer, and generally resist pests and deer. Deadheading (removing spent blooms) can encourage more flowers, but it’s not essential. Alternately, leave the seed heads on through winter and your neighborhood birds will love you.
From high summer to fall, when many flowers are calling it quits in triple-digit heat, coneflowers are still standing tall—making them ideal for extending garden color. They are show-stoppers when planted in large patches or drifts. Paired with other sun-loving hardy perennials like Russian sage (Perovskia), black-eyed Susan, and ornamental grasses, you get an informal yet dazzling garden design.
Beautiful, long-blooming, trouble-free, medicinal, native, a pollinator paradise—and it comes back every year. What more could you want from a plant?
Rachel Oppedahl is a UCCE Tuolumne County Master Gardener of Tuolumne County.
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