Echinacea article in The Plantsman

My article A new dawn for Echinacea features in the new issue of The Plantsman magazine from the Royal Horticultural Society. It's a survey of recent breeding in Echinacea hybrids with lots of pictures.

You can read the article online here.

There's more on echinaceas, including a link to a slide show of Thompson & Morgan's breeding-in-progress here.

Royal Horticultural Society members can subscribe to The Plantsman here (please do, it's an excellent magazine). Everyone else can subscribe here.

These are the rates for a one-year subscription:
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Comments

[jodi]

Graham, this is a marvelous article. It's good to find out that others have had problems with the Meadowbrites (so far, the Saul echinaceas have done fine for me--I have four of them). I was just wondering why you didn't mention 'Green Envy'; don't know who bred it but it was a stellar performer in my garden this summer and fall, finally stopping flowering about three weeks ago when we had a hard frost.

[Graham Rice]

Well jodi, the article is specifically about hybrid echinaceas and 'Green Envy' is reckoned to be a selection of E. purpurea and not a hybrid. I did, however, write it up in a post earlier this year here: http://transatlanticplantsman.typepad.com/transatlantic_plantsman/2007/02/two_exciting_ne.html

And yes, it's a great plant although mine did not flower in typical colors in its second year.

[jodi]

Thank you for this, Graham. I wasn't familiar with the background on 'Green Envy', just that I was instantly, shamelessly besotted with it when I read about it in a Canadian magazine last winter. I will watch mine closely to see what they do next summer. They certainly brought me great joy--but so did all the others. Never met a coneflower I didn't love, except the Meadowbrites, and I think their problem is our winter, which is rather erratic in NS; and less than perfect drainage in my garden obviously offended them where it didn't bother other echinaceas.