Pruning Echinacea: Expert Guide For Better Blooms And Healthy Plants Year After Year

Echinacea is native to eastern and central North America where you might spy it in fields, disturbed sites, and the edges of woodlands. In the home garden it's a no-fuss perennial flower with a bloom period of about 2 months. During this time it will produce many flowers, with new ones showing up to replace the old. Each flower will persist for several weeks, but eventually you'll find petals falling away, leaving just the center.

It's an essential part of growing purple coneflowers: once those glorious rayed flowers have begun to drop their petals, it's time to think about pruning echinacea.

How to Prune Coneflowers

There are two reasons to prune coneflowers: deadheading and making way for new growth.

To deadhead, take the entire flowering stem and cut it back to around the height of the leaves. Be careful not to cut the leaves. Some gardeners suggest taking the stem just halfway. The thinking behind this is it will promote a more compact plant next year. You can also opt to leave the dead flowers on it if you want to feed the songbirds.

To make way for new growth, remove all the spent and dead leaves. Echinacea will come back new from the ground, growing entirely new leaves and stems. If you are cutting back in spring, be very careful not to cut into the newly emerging stems and leaves. Removing the old plant material will give the new growth room and reduce the plant’s overall stress. Deciding when and how to prune Echinacea is very much the gardener’s choice since the plant is very hardy and stoic and will be fine with a hard prune in fall or spring.

As with any pruning project, make sure your tools are sharp and clean. Dirty tools can spread disease. And make sure you have good, sharp pruners like these Fiskars Bypass Pruning Shears, available on Amazon.

Benefits of Pruning Echinacea

Echinacea is called purple coneflower because, well... the petals are purple and the seed head resembles a cone! And after the purple flower fades, that cone will stick around. Some people like this look, but if it's just prickly and brown to you, you'll probably want to get rid of it.

Another obvious reason for deadheading flowers is to encourage more blooms. As with most flowers, if you leave the spent bloom on the plant, it'll keep directing energy toward the production of seeds. This is great if you want seeds, but if you're growing a garden for its aesthetic appeal, you might not. If you remove the flowers as they die, the plant can direct energy to the formation of new flowers. Pruning coneflowers can extend the bloom season and make sure you have a plentiful supply of flowers.

Why else should you deadhead coneflowers? Removing the spent blooms before they seed can prevent the plant from reseeding itself and getting out of control. Another type of pruning, called cutting back, is also done when the entire plant dies back in the cold season.

When to Prune Echinacea

When should you prune back perennials? It depends on who you ask, because there are essential two camps when it comes to pruning perennials: do it in the fall or wait until early spring.

Waiting to prune gives the plant the maximum amount of time to gather and store energy for winter. It leaves the dead plant matter, which makes a snow and ice cone over the root zone and offer some protection to the roots. It also creates habitat for overwintering bugs and wildlife, and seeds for birds to eat. Basically, waiting until spring is the best choice for your plant and the wildlife that surrounds it.

But lots of gardeners have mild winters, and they like their garden to look tidy. If this is you, you may want to prune your echinacea back in the fall.

Saving Coneflower Seeds

If you want to save seed or feed the birds, you can leave the spiky center cone attached to form seeds. Many birds rely upon purple coneflower seed heads for food. Goldfinches especially love them.

Harvesting echinacea seeds leads in more plants the following year. You can still allow the seed cone to mature and then take it off and place it in a paper bag. After the cone is fully dried, shake the bag to allow the seeds to come out of the cone. These can be added to a bird feeder or saved to make more plants the following year.

Frequently Asked Questions