"Eigenvector" wrote in message
. ..
I tried growing Echinacea in my patio area and they seemed to take off
quite nicely, but knowing nothing about them, I left them alone to do their
own thing.

I read somewhere about deadheading them, but didn't do that as I am not
familiar with the practice.

So right now I have the plants in my little plot, looking perfectly dead
and wondering if they will come back in the spring or did my ignorance
turn what should have been a perennial into an annual? How do echinaceas
seed and grow - by the flowers, like marigolds, or some other mechanism?


I live in zone 5, and I do not dead head my flowers when they are in the
last bloom before frost. Of course, I dead head through the growing season
to encourage more blooms. I leave the seed heads on the plants and the
birds have a heyday during the winter feeding on the seeds. We had some
birds traveling through last week, and the yard was full of various birds
feeding. In a month or more from now we will have some warm days and I will
go out and cut the Echinacea, mums, butterfly bush, monarda, etc. back to
the ground. I will then cover them with mulch and they will start poking
through in late April to early May. Echinacea are very hardy and will
spread with time.

Dale P