In article , Richard
wrote:

(paghat) wrote in
news
snip...

This morning I hit three nearby nursery sales. I got 'Sundown'
Echinacea which is one of those patented plants which cost way, way,
way too much for their first year of introduction, but at half price
is only a normal price. It's the reddest echinacea I've ever seen.

end snip...


-paghat the ratgirl

Do you mean Echinacea Big Sky "Sunset" (PPAF)? The nurseries that carry it
here (southeast Nebraska) are still charging a lot for it (obviously they
know that autumn is a good time for planting here), but I was able to get
the lemon-yellow "Sunrise" from a seller at the local farmer's market for a
fairly decent price, and in bloom with more buds - no "Sunset" though.

Richard


The plug grower who distributes this perennial provides a full color
nursery tag that calls it 'Sundown' & at their website they call it
'Sundown' he
http://www.itsaulplants.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=plants.plantDetail&plant_id=4 2

But the same ItSaul calls it 'Sunset' on this page:
http://www.itsaulplants.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=conecrazy.main

This year it has been listed randomly in sundry catalogs under both names,
& even the original grower seems not to have decided on a single Trademark
name. The actual registered cultivar name however is 'Evan Saul' which is
the name of Richard Saul's son (the hybrid having been developed by the
Saul Brothers nursery in Atlanta).

There are many new echinacea cultivars, most of them compact & semi-dwarf
& really very fine plants. Some of my favorites of this new area of
development includes the white 'Fragrant Angel' which has a pleasant honey
odor lacking in most echinaceas, tangerine colored 'Mango Meadowbright,'
'Doubledecker' which has a second circle of petals near the top of the
cone, & 'Razzmatazz' which is the first true double coneflower & looks
like a purple pompom with a radically reflexed short collar.

It looks like every year for the next few years gardeners can look forward
to a whole new array of similarly spiffy introductions, because after a
long neglect of coneflowers' potential for color variants & hybridization,
there are now several growers focused on the genus.

-paghat the ratgirl
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