Echinacea purpurea Sundown - Purple Coneflower

Echinacea purpurea 'Sundown' is a recent variety notable for the unprecedented colour of its large daisy-like flowers. Tinted pink when they open, their 'petals' gradually turn into a beautiful soft orange, forming a shimmering collar around a large brown-red central cone loved by bees and butterflies. Vigorous and floriferous, it has a long flowering period in summer, with each plant capable of producing up to 15 flowers in a season. Perfect for brightening up flower beds, this bushy perennial is easily grown in full sun, in any good garden soil.

Native to the western United States, from Georgia to Michigan, passing through Oklahoma and Ohio, Rudbeckia purpurea is a hardy perennial with a unique character that confidently colonizes rocky prairies, savannas, open woodlands, and roadsides in its natural habitat. 'Sundown' (also known as 'Evan Saul') is a floriferous hybrid of this formidable pioneer, and one of the first echinaceas in this colour. It grows rapidly, forming a well-branched clump about 50 cm (20in) tall and 35 cm (14in) wide in just 3 years. Flowering occurs from mid to late summer for many weeks if spent flowers are regularly removed. The branched stems are topped with multiple flower heads about 7 cm (3in) in diameter. Each head has a prominent, bristly, reddish-brown central disk and a row of peripheral ligules that range from pink-orange to soft orange. The fruit is an achene that releases seeds which are eagerly consumed by birds. This plant firmly and deeply anchors itself in the soil with its extensively developed root system. The above-ground growth of the echinacea is deciduous, it disappears in winter and re-emerges in spring. The leaves, arranged opposite on the stems, are lanceolate, green, and covered in rough hairs.

The Sundown echinacea has a flowering display in soft and warm tones, pleasing to see in sunny flower beds and borders. It is often used in combination with other varieties (Green Jewel, Magnus, Summer Cocktail) or inulas, asters, yarrows, daisies, globe thistles, phloxes, lightened with some ornamental grasses like Ciliate Melic Grass, Feather Grass, or Pink Muhly Grass... Splendid in borders, the vibrant colours of echinacea are also beautiful in fresh or dried flower arrangements.

Medicinal properties: In homoeopathy, the root of purple rudbeckia is used to fight colds and strengthen the immune system, properties first used by Native Americans. The name Echinacea comes from the Greek echinos, which means "hedgehog-like," and acea, meaning "having the shape of," alluding to the flower heads. Purpurea means "purple."