Echinacea purpurea 'Alba'

Echinacea purpurea 'Alba', a beautiful white form of Echinacea purpurea, is a lovely perennial that is as easy to grow as its wild relative with pink flowers. It is a flowering plant, forming a bushy and regular clump covered throughout the summer with large contrasting daisies, spreading their white and trailing ligules around a central cone that turns orange with green and then brown reflections. Its rough foliage stands out with its dark green colour. Its flowers are perfect for fresh or dried bouquets. The Purple Coneflower adapts to difficult conditions: to novice gardeners, occasionally to intense heat, humidity, and drought. It can even grow in poor soils.

Originally from the Western United States, Echinacea purpurea is a perennial with a strong character that looks like nothing else, but confidently colonizes rocky meadows, savannahs, clear undergrowth, and roadside edges in its natural habitat. 'Alba' is the white form of this intrepid pioneer. It has a dense and neat clumping habit, reaching 80cm (32in) in height and 50cm (20in) in width. The dark green leaves are covered in rough hairs. The flowering takes place from July to the end of summer, accompanying that of Inulas, asters, and ornamental tobaccos. It is visited by butterflies. The slightly branched stems are topped with a solitary inflorescence in a large head measuring 8cm (3in) in diameter. The central disk, initially flat, becomes prominent, like a pompom of tiny orange florets. All around, the fine white ligules with green bases are trailing. This plant firmly and deeply anchors itself in the ground with its well-developed root system. Its foliage disappears in winter.

The White Echinacea offers a graphic and highly contrasting flowering, in harmony with other simple perennials in cottage gardens. It is used in mixed borders with other simple flowers whose forms contrast (dahlias, daisies, daylilies, carnations) or in the company of Inulas, asters, yarrows, daisies, Echinops, Phlox. Lighten the scene by mixing in some ornamental grasses like Stipa tenuifolia, Muhlenbergia capillaris... Splendid in borders, the very unique flower of this echinacea will also be a part of fresh or dried flower bouquets.