Coconut Lime, Razmatazz, and Double Delight all survived my winters. All of them returned and are blooming. Some of them have a few distorted blooms, but none look like those Big Sky disasters.

We had a very mild winter compared to normal winters here and the Big Sky Series still performed poorly. Last year we had a dry Summer and they wilted and performed poorly. This series of plants is performing poorly in all weather conditions here! I haven't had this much trouble growing GARDENIAS! LOL. They took one of the most hardy plants and weakened it to the point it's like an annual!

I'm branching out into other plants too. Heliopsis Lorraine Sunshine is probably the best of the bunch. The variegated leaves are nice to look at when the yellow blooms are gone. I think that will be my yellow "coneflower" along with Paradoxa Echinacea which so far hasn't impressed me much, but at least it's not distorted "so far!"

Echinaceamaniac, could you please tell me what color is 'Tiki Torch' when it is in "hedgehog" stage? Should it be orange already? Mine is looking magenta. I am starting to think that I got a mislabeled one :(

My 'Sundown' is fully open now and it is looking fantastic. Very vibrant color and strong stems with nicely formed flowers. 'Harvest Moon' is small and does not look very happy. Both are second year plants. First year 'After Midnight' is wonderful. We'll see...

I have had Paradoxa for a couple years, and it has not distorted on me yet. The only thing I don't like is it is more "wild" and has a tendency to flop over. Aside from that, I am sticking with Ruby Star, White Swan and Fragrant Angel. From now on, if a new one comes out, I will let someone else be the guinea pig before I waste my money!

I have Lorraine and I love it. Also falling in love with the new daisies (if they come back next year) And I always put my money down for the new heucheras. Whoever develops them knows what they are doing. I have only lost one or two out of the dozens that I have bought.

Alina,

That Tiki Torch looks like a brown color when the bloom is first coming on. When the petals come out good they will turn BRIGHT ORANGE. They look almost like they would glow in the dark. Wait until the bloom is on there for a week or so before giving up. It's shocking how orange it gets once it's a mature flower. It's the best orange coneflower you can buy, much better than Sundown or Sunset (the deformed one). It doesn't sound like they sold you the correct plant to me. I bought mine from Territorial Seed Co. They bloomed within a month!

Kowalleka, could you tell me what new daisies you referred to. I am always looking for new plants, especially now that I have to replace my yellow coneflowers!

I got Summer Sky, Sundown, & Sunrise last fall & was surprised that they did come back for me this spring. The Sundown look really good so far. On the other hand, I got White Swan at the same time & only 2 out of 5 came back, & 1 of those look really puny. Of course, they were clearancing them out very late in the season at .25 for gallon plants, so I didn't lose much.

Thanks Echinaceamaniac, I hope I got the right plant! I am very excited about it after your feedback on it.

Last year I got Leucanthemum Gold Rush, which is a yellow with double petals. And it came back very nice and strong this year, with tons of blooms. Today I bought Sunshine which is a single yellow and Ice Star. The Ice Star has flowers that look like Coconut Ice or Double Delight, except they are white. The Sunshine tag says the yellow fades to creamy white with age and the blooms measure 5" across. (They are at least 4" on the plant I bought.) Very sturdy looking plants. And lots of basil shoots I can take off. They are both really gorgeous. Of course none of them are the yellow of Paradoxa, but they are much brighter than a light lemon yellow.

echinaceamaniac - I would post pictures of the daisies if I could figure out how! LOL!

I'm not sure I could support the cold climate versus warm climate theory :-) First, the parent plants of the new echinacea hybrids are midwest native prairie plants - why they would be somehow more suited to a warmer climate is contraindicated. And while I also live in a zone 8 climate, it's about as far removed from Itsaul Plant's zone 8 Georgia as you can get - there is nothing remotely "hot" about a PNW summer and our damp, cool springs are legendary, especially this season. And these plant grow just fine here, thank you. The wholesale grower I work for grows several thousand echinaceas each season, including all of the Big Sky's and many of the other newer intros as well.

I do believe issues concerning any of the Big Sky series and some of the other newer hybrids as well is genetic and not climate related. Quilling, reflexed petals, doubling, fragrance, prominent and/or colored cones are all traits that can be bred for or that could arise from genetic manipulation. The quilling petals of 'Sunset' are not consistent, indicating instability in the hybrid genetics. This instability is not limited to just echinaceas - any plant that is heavily hybridized can produce selections that make it to production and market that are "iffy" or less than robust. One sees it a lot with some of the newer heucheras.

gardengal48 - I didn't say I supported the climate theory, just passing along the info I was told. I have always felt it was genetics. It seemed like there were just too many new echinaceas coming on the market at the same time. They had to have been rushed into production.

Which heucheras have you seen problems with? I have not had problems with any of the new ones, and would like to avoid getting any "iffy" ones.

I also would like to add that I think these problems could have something to do with tissue culture. The reason they removed Sunset from the market was quilled petals caused by tissue culture. There could be a percentage of those new varieties with similar problems. This quilled petal issue in my opinion totally ruins the look of these plants. They look like they have a disease. I hate the way they look!

Just to toss in some more minor support of the effects of a cold winter on coneflowers. Last year (2007) had a brutal cold snap in early April, and the first flowers of both coneflowers "Magnus" and "Sunrise" were deformed to some extent (petals missing, etc.) Later flowers were fine, and that was the only year I've seen this effect - this year, both plants are big and healthy and are producing flowers with full petals.

radagast - I have to agree. Even my Ruby Star had deformed blooms this year. I was contemplating pulling everything out and starting over because I was afraid they all had a virus. All the plants, including the Big Sky series (except Harvest Moon) are now on their second set of flowers. And all of the flowers are fine - big gorgeous full petals on all of them.

Just to be on the safe side, I cut off all of the deformed blooms before they had a chance to pollinate with the good blooms or set seed. But I am not too worried anymore.

Echinaceamaniac, where are you located?

I live in Tennessee. There is no reason for these plants to look so deformed!

I hate to disagree, but we had a very mild winter this year and most of the Big Sky plants look deformed. Sunrise and Harvest Moon look bad. The petals are quilled. One of my Sunrise has almost all quilled petals. There is something wrong with these plants they sold to me. All the other plants look fine.

I'm not saying that Big Skys are fine. There is deinitely a problem with the plants. One of my Harvest Moons is still only about 4" tall. I do not think it will ever get bigger. The other one has about 10 blooms. None have petals or even a hint of a petal.

However, my Sundown and my Summer Sky both put out good blooms on the second round. I am not holding my breath that they will overwinter. I have not had one yet that did.

Maybe they are more susceptable to cold besides having their own non-related cold issues.

No matter how pretty my blooms look right now. I will not buy another Big Sky. Just not worth the effort for the price.

This is all very interesting to me because I would like to get some more echinaceas. I have magnus, razzmatazz, ruby star and some other ones unknown.

kowalleka, they can't tolerate the following...

drought...they wilt and sometimes die.
rain...they rot and turn black
heat...they just can't take it
cold...they don't like it either

You can't win with these Big Sky coneflowers. I'm posting some photos tomorrow that will show what I mean.

I've done some more homework on the Big Sky echs. Went to a local plant farm near here that I go to about every other year. They have the healthiest, best plants I have ever seen. The reason I only go every other year is because it is over an hour away and they have so many thousands of perennials that I pack my car to the hilt and can't afford to eat for a week! LOL! This farm is retail and wholesale. When I worked as a perennial buyer for an independent retailer, we bought 95% of our perennials from them because of the variety they carried and the quality of the stock. They grow all of their own.

So, first thing, I head for the echinaceas. Thousands of them in both quarts and gallons. At least 5 blooms on the quarts and a dozen on the gallons. And tons of Big Skys - Sunrise, Sundown, Twilight and Harvest Moon. I was determined to look at every bloom. In fact, the back of my neck is burnt to a crisp from spending close to two hours looking down at every single bloom! Not a single petal out of place. No quills either. And colors looking exactly like the tags. Even the older blooms were very bright. Harvest Moon had blooms as big as my fist.

So I asked an employee, what gives? Why are there so many complaints and why do yours look so good? He had never heard of a problem and has never had a problem. He said it has to be the stock. He directed me to the perennial bed, where there are Big Skys that have been in the ground fo two years and they were just gorgeous. And he said he has a whole garden of them at home and not a single problem. He said the only Big Sky that he has heard of problems with in Sunrise, which he doesn't carry. And of course the old Meadowbrite series. And he quit carrying Razzmatazz because it is very hard to grow in our area.

So I'm thinking it has to be the original stock that is the problem? He said there are only 4 or 5 distributers of the original stock and that could be why the problems are nationwide. He did ask me to send pictures because he was very interested in the problem.

I might add that I have never bought an ech from him except for Fragrant Angel which is still going strong after 4 years. So I have to confess, I bought one Harvest Moon, just to see how it performs compared to the ones I have with no petals.

I also bought some other echs that are not Big Sky series. his stock was so gorgeous. He had After Midnight, Coconut Lime, Fragrant Angel, Green Eyes, Kim's Knee High, Kim's Mophead, Merlot, Pink Double Delight, Prairie Splendor, Purity, ruby Star, Ruby Giant, The King, Virgin, Pixie Meadowbrite, White Swan and Tiki Torch. Not a single bad bloom on any of them. Believe me, I checked each and every one. And I had to take a few more Tiki Torch and Double Delight! I love them!

Does anyone have The King? It was not blooming yet so I didn't take the chance.

I do believe this grower when he says he doesn't have any problems. He is well known for pulling plants that don't perform. He no longer sells several of the coreopsis because they didn't winter over here. And some signs and catalog descriptions say that even thought the plant is a perennial it does not perform that way here.

I will let you all know how my new Harvest Moon does. If it keeps up the way it looks now, I will be over there buying truckloads full!

kowalleka, I'm not buying any more of these. I'm waiting for someone else from another company to release better ones. I think they still have a problem because the ones I photographed at Home Depot were fresh ones off the truck. These were Sundown and every single one has the quilled petals.

If I ever find some perfect ones for sale like you describe I might consider them again, but I think I'm waiting for Terra Nova's new releases that I posted about. The colors in his don't fade as fast and are more bright and bold.

I visited my local garden center this weekend, and they had a few "Sunsets" - all of them had quilled petals, just as echinaceamanica warned. They also had some "Sunrise," but no flowers on them (rather small plants.) So, whatever the problem is, it is definitely a factor here even with the more local garden sources (non Big Box stores.)

Getting such plants from a proven source is probably the only safe way to go. Or, stick with the classic coneflowers until the newer ones are proven out. I have high hopes for "Tiki Torch" and its cousins, but we'll see...

My petals have been fine and they all returned very well. But the leaves....I posted them in another thread. They look fungus-y and there is no reason for it. They are in full sun, watered etc. My other coneflower's leaves are as clean as a whistle.

I saw some more Big Sky Coneflowers at Lowes this weekend and all of them have quilled and deformed petals. Buyer beware!

These were Sunrise plants too. It looks like they have some serious tissue culture problems with Sunrise and Sundown.

After Midnight is ok.

Went to my local grocery store today and they had a few plants out front. I always browse. Saw something new. At least I thought it was new. Turns out it was Sunrise. I have a few bad blooms on mine, but nothing like this. There were about a dozen blooms, all very pale lemon yellow. Every bloom had ALL of the petals quilled. If there wouldn't have been a tag in the plant, I would have never guessed at the variety. My Sunrise looks great compared to this one. Couldn't believe how bad it looked.