How to Landscape With Coneflowers

Fill coneflower gardens with black-eyed Susans for a sunny color.

Coneflowers grow wildly in American meadows and pastures, making them well-adapted flowers for a wildflower garden. Choose several varieties such as the purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), yellow coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia fulgida) and the quilled sweet coneflower (Rudbeckia subtomentosa). Combining these flowers in a planting bed allows gardeners to create a beautiful bed of native wildflowers resembling the best wild-growing meadows. Choosing a location that backs against a fence will allow gardeners to create a living border with the taller plants -- quilled sweet coneflower and yellow coneflower -- planted along the fence-line at the back of the garden.

Things You'll Need

• Garden tiller
• 5 Black-eyed Susan plants
• 5 purple coneflower plants
• 5 yellow sunflower plants
• 5 sweet quilled sunflower plants
• Garden spade
• Watering can
• Water
• Compost
• Mulch
• Pruning shears or garden scissors

Instructions

1. Use a garden tiller to till up the soil in a planting bed measuring 15-by-5-feet. This will provide enough space in the planting bed for four rows of plants, with each row containing five plants. Till the soil to a depth between 12 and 15 inches to allow proper aeration for a coneflower garden, recommends the National Gardening Association.

2. Lay out all of the plants in each row to ensure adequate space. Spacing out the plants prior to planting allows gardeners to stand back and get a preview of the completed bed. Begin by creating a row of five purple coneflowers, placing each plant 1 foot from the previous. Space the second row 1 foot behind the first, and set out five yellow coneflowers. Using the same spacing, create a row of yellow coneflower, and finish with a row of quilled sweet coneflower.

3. Dig a hole with a garden spade twice as wide as the container holding the coneflower specimen. Keep the hole as deep as the container. Carefully pull the coneflower from the pot. Place the plant into the hole so the top of the root ball sits even with the top of the soil. Backfill the hole, and gently pat down the soil around the newly planted coneflower. Repeat for the remaining coneflowers.

4. Water the soil around all of the coneflowers until the soil feels moist to the touch. Though coneflowers are hardy, they thrive best when given 1 inch of water per week. During periods with less than 1 inch of rainfall per week, water the coneflowers until the soil feels moist.

5. Cover the soil with about 2 inches of compost. Cover the compost layer with 3 inches of mulch. Continue to repeat composting and mulching the soil each year in the early-spring.

6. Clip off spent blooms with a pair of garden scissors or pruning shears. Deadheading helps encourage an extended blooming season. In the late summer or early fall, allow the spent flowers to remain and produce seeds for local wildlife.

7. Dig up coneflower plants every three years. Use your hands to gently pull apart the plants, dividing them and preventing overcrowding. Replant healthy divisions. Discard any that appear unhealthy or contain pests.

Tips & Warnings

• For best results, choose a planting location that receives a minimum of six hours of sunlight per day.

References

• University of Illinois Extension: Hort Answers: Purple Coneflowers
• Iowa State University Extension; Horticulture and Home Pest News; Prairie Wildflowers for the Landscape; Richard Jauron; 1998
• Univeristy of Arkansas: Division of Agriculture: Plant of the Week: Quilled Sweet Coneflower: Gerald Klingaman; 2005
• Univeristy of Illinois Extension: Hort Answers: Black Eyed Susan, Coneflower
• National Gardening Association: Plant Care Guides: Coneflower