I posted in another thread and didn't get a response so here goes again. I found a tennessee coneflower in a nursery in Nashville and planted it in the same bed with my purple coneflower. It is growing and doing well so far, but I want to make sure it continues to thrive. Does anyone have experience growing this flower at home? I live approximately 40 miles west of the small area where this wildflower comes from. The bed I have it in gets full sun. I have ceder trees in my yard, but they are not very near where I have my TN coneflower growing. If any of you can give me advice I will certainly appreciate it.
Tennessee Coneflower
Daysi: Welcome to DG, just treat your coneflower like the other one but remember groundhogs love them!!! Hope you have a dog or fence. LOL
Thanks Ivey!! I live in town and don't think I have groundhogs, but then of course I didn't think we would have wild turkeys until last year when two hens showed up several times. My coneflowers have developed a following. Once the neighbors knew what they were they have been watching their prograss. Maybe all of us together can give them a good start.
I've grown the Tennessee coneflower in Maine for a few years now. It's a terrific plant!! I think it's much more beautiful than the purple coneflower and the flowers last & last. Mine are just starting to bud here. My soil is naturally acidic clay. I've read they prefer well drained soil but they seem to handle the clay well. They were planted in a sunny spot but the trees in by back yard cast a lot of shade over them for much of the day now. IMHO they are not as finicky as the books say and they should be grown more often. Make sure you save your seeds to share ;o)
This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 26th 6:10 PM
Bump!
How has everyone's Coneflowers done? I've been interested in them for a couple of years now, but haven't planted any yet.
I heard they prefer rocky, well drained soil. I planted one I bought at a nursery a few years ago and it didn't come back the following year. Last Fall I bought a packet of seeds from Prairie Moon Nursery, and so far they have all germinated. I'll plant them in various parts of the yard, and amend the soil to give them the "rocky" soil I heard they prefer. I'm thinking these plants may be a bit difficult, just because of the area I live in.
I have one area that was a gravel driveway. I've added dirt, but it's still my one gravelly spot for columbines and such. What is your zone Dodecathelon?
billyporter, I'm in zone 5A.
I too had a few when we lived in TN and they did great. So I brought one up to IL with me. It didn't do very good last year and this year it didn't come back. It was in good draining soil, but not gravelly. Pretty much the same soil I had in TN....after lots of amending that is.
I'm thinking they like a soil that's a bit alkaline.
It does great for me even down here--but required stratification this winter for the seeds to germinate.
Thanks for the help. I think I'll try them next year. I put the purple coneflower in the gravel/dirt bed last year and they're doing well, so I think it's just the place to try.
I planted two earlier this spring and they are blooming like crazy, but I have a very strange problem (maybe not so strange but ...). I have always thought of coneflowers as pest and problem free, but last Sunday I was walking by the bed and noticed three or four perfect flower stems laying horizontally, picked them up to discover they had been neatly severed above ground level. If they were chewed it something small, and there was no other visible damage and no signs of infestation of any kind. I spotted one tiny little crawler and mashed him, but it was as if they had been cut for putting in a vase. Anyone else run across this?
No, that is strange. How thick were the stems?
My squirrels do that to various plants I have around here. I've started caging some till they get big enough that I'm hoping the squirrels will leave them alone. Course my squirrels don't leave it at perennials, they like shrubs too. They've been spotted pulling the branch down to eat the leaves and most times the branches break. But on the perennials, they eat them clean off above the ground. Heliopsis is ate off at about 8-10 inches above ground. Good news is they've rebounded.
I have trouble with chipmunks doing that, and the voles or mice.
When we were coming back to NY from KY, we saw TN coneflower blooming along the roadside on the Western Kentucky Parkway. It was just so neat to see it out there hanging on to the exposed rock face. I have seeds, but am afraid that it just wouldn't find our heavy acid soil much to its liking.