Echinacea purpurea 'GREEN TWISTER' purple coneflower

Green coloured flowers on coneflowers are something unique. They look special and extravagant. However, their rather history was not always connected with instant thrill, for example the story of Green Twister is rather amusing. It was found as a natural mutation of pink flowering variety Magnus in a field of German grower and breeder Jelitto back in around 1998. Company's general manager Georg Ubelhart had them burnt then in order to protect the field thinking it was a virus. A few years later he was confronted with the success of the first ever green flowering varieties Green Envy and Green Jewel. He felt so embarrassed for what he had done, but luckily not for too long because Magnus willingly kept on producing more and more green mutations which were stable and did not reverse to pink. Soon he had enough plants to start producing an entirely new coneflower.

Green Twister is a strong growing coneflower making 80-100 cm tall, sturdy stems with large, 10-12 cm wide flowers. Their ray florets are purple pink at the cone and turn lime green towards the tips. Flowers are fragrant, attract butterflies and bumble bees, and appear in several flushes from July until September. Deciduous leaves are lance-shaped, medium green. Green Twister was first introduced in 2017.

Coneflower will tolerate almost any soil type but boggy and highly acidic. 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), possibly a few degrees lower.

Last update 29-08-2019