Echinacea 'MAC'N'CHEESE' coneflower

Mac’n’Cheese coneflower is a mid-sized variety with strong stems and rich golden yellow ray florets surrounding orange centres. The flowers are attractive for butterflies, bumble bees, and also bees can find a way to suck some nectar from them. Flowering begins in about mid July and when the top flower is finished just deadhead it and the stem will continue producing buds and flowers that will keep popping up until late summer or early autumn. Leaves are deep green, lanceolate and may suffer from diseases if grown in wet or compacted soil.

Mac’n’Cheese coneflower is a hybrid variety bred by a young and successful breeder Harini Korlipara of Terra Nova Nurseries in Oregon, USA. It is a cross between Echinacea paradoxa and Echinacea purpurea Ruby Giant, and similarly to Korliparla’s other inventions such as coreopsis Mango Punch or Echinacea Tiki Torch, this coneflower, too, has a very unique and warm colour: golden yellow.

The plant is usually trouble-free and resistant, just be careful is slugs are present in your garden. Since coneflowers emerge quite late, often when slugs are already in their lethal strength, they could gobble up newly emerging foliage totally and thus destroy the plant before it even comes out.

Coneflower will tolerate almost any soil type but boggy. It loves full sun. It is suitable for mixed borders with perennials, or can be used as a flowering feature among low shrubs and conifers, and looks lovely when planted in a mass in a container on patios and balconies. Fully hardy to min -34°C (USDA zone 4).

Last update 29-07-2014