Echinacea

I have seen some lovely Echinaceas on farmer gracie bulbs etc.

I have never managed to grow from seed, but I'm curious how others find growing these plants from bare roots , are they difficult and do they come year after year as it says ?

Also Monarda

Thanks in advance . X

 

Both Echinaceas and Monardas are short lived with me.
Echinaceas don't like being crowded by other plants and get savaged by slugs when they start growing. The more fancy ones are especially temperamental.

 

I tried Monarda once. An utter failure!! But we had lots of snails!!

 

I have tried echinacea from bare roots two years running, both times nothing showed at all. This year I planted Liatris bulbs at the same time and every single one of those came up.

Mine were from supermarket not Farmer Gracy.

I bought a fancy echinacea in flower from B&Q last year and planted it out in the garden. Still waiting to see if it has survived as that area is full of similar looking perennial leaves at the moment!

 

I purchased this
Echinacea Sweet Meadow Mama from Farmer Gracie it flowered well last year ,just put a mound of compost over it for the winter,it’s around 8 inches high at the moment surprised after all the rain over winter spring in the north east .So yes they do grow from bear roots and survive.

 

I grew some from collected seed, I can’t recall the variety they were some which came as part of a perennial plug plant offer. Probably the basic purpurea or maybe Magnus. I probably got about three years from the first plugs and slightly shorter from the homegrown. I suspect the latter struggled with the competition as my border was full of self seeders by then.

I remember reading an article which said there are very few which are reliably perennial in UK gardens and all are short lived.

 

Echinaceas and Monardas do quite well down here, both with little snail damage. the Monardas do need dividing every couple of years otherwise they get very bare in the middle and just flower around the edges.

 

I am trying green twister from seed this year for the first time. Planted 5 seeds and 3 have germinated outside. They have been slow to get going though, I think they appreciate a bit better weather than I have been having. I am hoping they will get going soon. Think I read that I may be next year before it flowers though.