I am SOLD on hybrid coneflowers (echinaceas) ‘Julia’ and ‘Cleopatra’. I still have to find out if they can survive a bitter Wisconsin winter (and unfortunately I don’t think this upcoming winter is going to be a good test since El Niño winters usually bring warmer and drier conditions to southern Wisconsin), but if they can pass that final test they will easily sneak onto my list of top perennials.
They just won’t stop blooming!
My flowerbeds are full of crispy, dried-up, frost-burned plants but ‘Julia’ and ‘Cleopatra’ act like it’s June. They have fresh, green foliage and loads of new buds. Their only challenge is surviving my pesky hoard of goldfinches that love to pluck coneflower petals and seeds.
These lovely plants started blooming in early June and haven’t slowed down in the 5 months since. There’s been little rain in the last month or so, and I gave up watering my plants in mid-September. Even the very dry conditions haven’t phased these tough echinaceas.
‘Julia’ has dark-tangerine flowers (see photo above) and ‘Cleopatra’ has bright yellow flowers that fade to a butter-yellow as they age:
‘Julia’ and ‘Cleopatra’ grow 16 to 18 inches tall. The cultivars are named for butterflies (Julia is a European butterfly and Cleopatra is a Mediterranean butterfly). The plants are drought-tolerant and grow in a sturdy clump that doesn’t need staking.
My native coneflowers—not to mention most of my other perennials—were done blooming weeks ago, but these hybrids continue to be a bright spot in an otherwise drab yard.