Blog

(We’re keeping it in the dark!)Sales Opportunity: Late summer/early fall market for fresh, flowering perennials.  Sales Barrier: Perennial fave Echinacea is flowered out, way past “fresh” by then.Winning Solution: Our short-day Echinacea program!Starting in spring, we delay the flowering response of a popular coneflower by manipulating (shortening) its daylength. The treated liners are like little green time machines: They make up for lost time in your pots, setting buds and blooming weeks

Echinacea purpurea and hybridsOf all the native plants that have gone from America’s prairies to the world’s gardens, few have a history to rival that of the purple coneflower.For many years gardeners had two choices: Pinky-purple, and Not-quite-white. Then came 2002, when breeder Jim Ault of Chicago introduced the first orange and yellow hybrids. That was the genus’s Big Bang, and like the universe, it’s still expanding.Now, you can have your “purple” coneflowers in myriad hues, solids and bi c

An artisan is one who brings both finely-honed skill and heartfelt creativity to bear on what they make. The breeders of the Artisan coneflower collection deserve the title.These are the first true F1 hybrids from seed, meaning multiple ready dates are possible. And they’re just flat-out good-looking plants with all the right qualities: Heavy flowering, compact, and uniform in flower for consistent cropping. Artisan™ Red Ombre(‘PAS1257973’)Rich red daisies age to subtle antique shades

Welcome to the backyard zoo! Don’t look now, but critters have taken root in your garden. Relax, they’re friendly – and they’re animals in name only. Let’s meet one.Echinacea: This popular native genus is so named because its spiky central seed cone reminded a botanist of the echidna, a.k.a. the spiny anteater. A quirky animal from Down Under, the echidna has spikes like a porcupine and lays eggs like a bird.That critter’s namesake perennial, a.k.a. coneflower, has burst out in in a stagger