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Perennial · Deer-resistant
Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea
Also called: Eastern Purple Coneflower, Echinacea
A prairie staple whose big rosy daisies feed butterflies in summer and finches in winter. Long-lived, drought-tough, and beautiful in bloom or seed head.
Growing & care
Leave the spiky seed heads through winter for birds and structure. Divides easily every few years. Avoid soggy soil.
Bloom season
In bloom: Jun–Sep · Colors: pink, purple
Where to buy
Look for purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) at: Prairie Moon Nursery, Eden Brothers seed, local garden centers.
Sources
Range, nomenclature, and the USDA symbol above come from the federal plant record for this species. Check it yourself:
Good for
Plant it with
Natives that pair with purple coneflower
Same conditions, same uses — species that share purple coneflower's growing requirements and belong in the same bed.
Cardinal Flower
Lobelia cardinalis
Spikes of the most intense scarlet of any native flower, rising from moist shade in late summer.
Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia hirta
The classic golden prairie daisy — cheerful, tough, and endlessly reseeding.
Gayfeather
Liatris mucronata
Spires of feathery purple that open top-down in fall, when Monarchs are moving through and desperate for nectar.
Fall Aster
Symphyotrichum oblongifolium
A mounding aster that vanishes into the background all summer, then bursts into a haze of blue-purple daisies in October — a lifeline of late nectar for pollinators..
Switchgrass
Panicum virgatum
An upright prairie grass with airy pink-bronze seed clouds and gold fall color.
Coral Honeysuckle
Lonicera sempervirens
A well-behaved native vine — none of the invasive habit of Japanese honeysuckle — with clusters of coral trumpets that hummingbirds cannot resist..