Up-to-the-minute Echinacea Hybrids
Enhance Prairie Landscape and Meadow Garden Designs
Echinacea (coneflower) hybrids are up-to-the-minute plant breakthroughs. American plant breeders work to bring bright flower and plant color to landscape garden designs.
Overview
New hybrids of the purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) and its relatives such as E. paradoxa, E. angustifolia and E. tennesseensis are standing by to brighten landscape garden designs. American plant breeders especially are working with Echinacea hybrids to bring more flower color and plant variability into garden landscape designs.
Echinacea Hybrids and Landscape Design
Until recently, landscape coneflowers were limited to horticultural selections of the eastern purple coneflower (E. purpurea) in which flower petals are color shades ranging from purple to pink to white and green-white. Now, orange and yellow flowered Echinacea hybrid cultivars bring about a new selection of colors within the Echinacea plant palette. These new hybrids also vary significantly in flower size and plant height.
The New American Garden Movement, popularized by Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden, encourages using native plants and their derivations in American landscape designs. Two of the most widespread styles are cultivated American meadows and prairie gardens, and new Echinacea hybrids allow more visual verve and vigor in both of these garden styles.
Horticultural hybrids and cultivars
A horticultural hybrid results when two distinct kinds of plants (races, breeds, varieties, species or genera) breed or cross in the wild, or by human management to develop specific characteristics. Plant breeders used E. purpurea and some of its selections, along with E. paradoxa, E. angustifolia, and E. tennesseensis from the group of nine native N.A. Echinacea species, to create Echinacea hybrids.
Propagating the hybrid coneflower vegetatively from cuttings or divisions instead of sexually ( from seed) insures that each offspring possesses characteristics identical to the original hybrid. The resulting propagated plants are hybrid cultivars with relatively stable characteristics. However, seeds produced by hybrid cultivars, like those of most Echinacea selection cultivars, do not usually produce plants identical to the parent.
Some Current Echinacea Hybrids
There are a handful of American plant breeders working on Echinacea hybridization. Chief among them are:
- Dr. Jim Ault (Chicago Botanic Garden • 1000 Lake Cook Road, Glencoe, IL 60022 • Phone 847.835.5440) and
- Richard Saul (ITSaul Plants•1280 Union Hill Rd., Alpharetta, GA 30004 •Phone 888-448-7285).
Chicagoland Grows®, a corporate partnership among the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Morton Arboretum, and the Ornamental Grower’s Association of Northern Illinois (OGA), is a network of wholesale nurseries located in northeastern Illinois that markets Midwestern-hardy introductions such as Ault's Echinacea hybrids:
- Orange Meadowbrite Coneflower (‘Art’s Pride’ PP# 10050, PBRAF, CAPBRAF) - blood-orange blooms above deep grass-green, healthy foliage, orange-tea fragrance; vigorous and free-blooming, drought tolerance; one-year-old plants measure 30" tall with a 24" spread; Zones 4-9.
- Mango Meadowbrite Coneflower (Echinacea ‘CBG Cone3’ PPAF, PBRAF CAPBRAF) - deep yellow branch sport of Orange Meadowbrite™; same growth habit, vigor and drought tolerance; fragrant orange-yellow ray flowers with golden-orange cone; plant this with Orange Meadowbrite™ for a brightly colored tropical look during hottest summer months; Zones 4-9.
- Pixie Meadowbrite Coneflower (Echinacea ‘CBG Cone2’ PPAF, PBRAF CAPBRAF ) - true dwarf pink hybrid, a cross among E. tennesseensis, E. angustifolia and E. purpurea; grows to 18" tall and spreads 20" to 24" wide; freely flowers with perfectly formed blooms; very drought-tolerant; propagates and grows easily; Zones 4-9.
Richard Saul of ITSaul originally bred Echinacea hybrids so that coneflowers would overwinter well in the American south. Saul is now working to produce hybrids with exciting color shades. The following are some ITSaul introductions:
- Echinacea Summer Sky™ (Echinacea 'Katie Saul' PPAF) - ITSaul's first bi-color coneflower; soft peach-colored petals with rose shading surround the cone; 5" blooms; 36-42" tall dark stems with an 18-24" spread; flowers fragrant on robust plants; excellent cut flower; no USDA Hardiness Zone information.
- Echinacea Harvest Moon™ (Echinacea 'Matthew Saul' PPAF) - Echinacea Big Sky™ series #5; deep golden-yellow overlapping petals surround an orange cone; heavily branched plants 24-29" high with an 18" spread; USDA Hardiness Zones 5-8.
- Echinacea After Midnight™ (Echinacea 'Emily Saul' PPAF) - short deeply-colored and mostly overlapping magenta rays surround an almost black, broad, flat cone; bushy, well-branched almost black stems with bluish-tinted foliage; flowers fragrant; plant shorter than the norm; no USDA Hardiness Zone information.
- Echinacea Sundown™ (Echinacea 'Evan Saul' PPAF) - ITSaul's 2nd intense orange coneflower; flowers are slightly smaller than the norm, but possibly more prolific; fragrant; plant height is 32-36", about 8-10" taller than 'Sunset' with a spread of 18"; USDA Hardiness Zones 5-8.
- Coneflower (Echinacea X 'Sunrise' PP#16235) - an Echinacea Big Sky™ series selection; citron yellow, fragrant, daisy-like rays surround a cone that emerges green and quickly matures gold; inflorescences up to 5" across; sturdy 30-36"stems grow about 6 inches taller than E. 'Sunset' PPAF; USDA Hardiness Zones 4-9.
- Twilight Coneflower (Echinacea X 'Twilight' PPAF) - the third coneflower in the Big Sky series; rose-colored petals surround a red cone; plant height is 24" high and heavily branched; flowers are fragrant; Zones 5-8.
Echinacea Essentials
- Readers wanting to virtually visualize the Echinacea breeding process should check out Echinacea breeding at Thompson and Morgan. The 2008 Thompson & Morgan Seed Catalog lists few Echinacea entries. However, since the 1990s, T&M scientists have worked to develop cultivar seeds as well as clones for tissue culture.
- Echinacea Selections in the Landscape contains more information about Echinacea cultivars and landscape design use. This article also lists some mail order nurseries where Echinacea seeds and plants are available.
© Text and photographs (except where noted) by Georgene A. Bramlage. 2008. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
