Flowers Echinacea purpurea

Flowers Echinacea purple (in Latin - Echinacea purpurea) brought to us from the east of the United States. The plant is perennial, with large, beautiful purple flowers resembling chamomile. The flowering period depends on the climate and falls mainly in the second half of the summer.

Flowers Echinacea - beautiful honey plants, attracting bumblebees, butterflies, bees. The plant is recommended for planting in gardens and orchards for better pollinating other plants. Echinacea flowers are not particularly whimsical in growing, are able to survive on permeable soils of any composition, in the penumbra or under the open sun, but it is preferable to plant it on moist, fertile and slightly alkaline soils. Special care is not needed.

Flowers Echinacea, photo:

Vitality of plants can be compared with the survivability of chemist's chamomile. Cultivation is possible both through sowing directly into the soil (in the spring, immediately after warming up the land), and by planting seedlings. Wide inter-row spacing (40 cm) is preferred.

It is very convenient to propagate the flowers of Echinacea by dividing bushes from growing plantations, which are best done either before flowering (early spring) or after flowering (late autumn). In any case, divide the Echinacea plantations at least once every four years. Seeds gather at the end of the season (they easily come from the blackened dried seed boxes). These seeds are sown the next year in a cool (but not cold) period, with an air temperature of 12 degrees. To achieve an earlier flowering, you can sow the seeds in the very beginning of winter and grow seedlings in the way the habitual townspeople - on the windowsill. Sprouts grow up to 15 cm in height and after that they are planted in a flower garden, to a permanent place. The plant grown in this way will blossom in the second year, and then it will blossom every summer.

Flowers Echinacea can please the eye more than two months, but flowering occurs only in the second year after sowing. If you are not going to propagate this plant with seeds, then removing the already discolored heads will help prolong the flowering period by at least two weeks.

In the autumn, before the frost (end of the season), the stems of the plant need to be cut (shortly, to the ground, without damaging the root) and become covered with a generous layer of fertile garden soil or garden compost with leaf humus. In regions with cold winters echinacea is covered additionally, using lapnik (pine or spruce branches) or well dried hay (no signs of debate).

High flowers Echinacea look great in mixborders (mixed flower beds), sorts lower can be lodged on the front lines. It is very natural echinacea in the "garden for the lazy." It is perfectly combined with dahlias, and rudbeck, and yarrow, and monarch, and salvia, and heliotrope, and a host of other plants, including ornamental grasses. Echinacea flowers are suitable for bouquets. In addition, they stay in the vases for a long time.

Traditional medicine uses echinacea as an immunostimulating, antimicrobial, antifungal agent. The plant is effective in combating warts, accelerates the healing of ulcers and wounds, reduces pain. Can be used for overwork (physical, mental), often recommended after radiation and cytostatic therapy, after antibiotic therapy. Sometimes it causes allergies. In pharmacies is sold as extracts and infusions.