Echinacea purpurea Prima® Ruby

Echinacea purpurea Prima Ruby is a variety of coneflower that combines a compact habit with excellent floribundus, even in the first year of cultivation. The plant forms a small bushy clump that produces a quantity of flowers in a beautiful red-pink shade for many weeks in summer. Generous and colourful, this perennial plant brings a beautiful touch of colour to the garden, as well as to the balcony or terrace. It is easy to cultivate in the sun in ordinary soil.

Echinacea Prima Ruby is part of a series of selected cultivars in the U.S.A. by Terra Nova Nurseries for their compact habit and floribundus. Its ancestor, Echinacea purpurea, is a perennial with a strong character, native to the western United States, from Georgia to Michigan, passing through Oklahoma and Ohio. In its natural habitat, the plant colonizes rocky meadows, savannas, open woodlands, and roadsides.

Echinacea Prima Ruby quickly forms a dense clump of well-branched leafy stems, reaching 40cm (16in) in height and 35cm (14in) in width. This plant does not weaken or collapse, showing excellent durability. The leaves, opposite on the stems, lanceolate in shape and green in colour, are covered with rough hairs. Flowering begins in June-July and continues until September-October. It is highly visited by butterflies. The brown-red stems are topped with a solitary inflorescence, 6-8cm (2-3in) in diameter, with a prominent, bristly, orange-brown disk surrounded by intense red-pink ligules. The fruit is an achene that releases seeds which birds are fond of. This plant firmly and deeply anchors itself in the soil with its well-developed root system.

The purple coneflower Prima Ruby offers abundant and colourful flowering that will work wonders in pots or as a border plant mixed with other varieties or in the company of yarrows, marigolds, Echinops, perennial salvias... Lighten up the scene by mixing in some ornamental grasses such as Stipa tenuifolia, Muhlenbergia capillaris... Gorgeous in flower beds, the beautiful colours of the purple Echinacea Prima Ruby are also stunning in fresh or dried flower arrangements.