Cone flower crazy
Just the other day I mentioned that cannas are the official harbingers of summer for me. Hot on their heels are echinaceas. ‘Tiki Torch’ (left), ‘Hot Papaya’ (right) My love affair with echinaceas began about four years ago when I saw a photo of a new cultivar named ‘Tiki Torch’ in Sunset Magazine. I knew I had to have it, and I spent what at the time was an outrageous sum of $14.95 to mail-order a small plant. It didn’t make it through its first winter, but the next spring I hit the jack pot when Dave’s Garden ran an echinacea coop. I ended up buying a dozen 1½ inch plugs from Terra Nova Nurseries , including several ‘Tiki Torch’, and while they were very small initially, they flowered in their first year and many have come back every year since then. ‘Tiki Torch’