How to Grow Echinacea Paradoxa

Plant the yellow coneflower in a sunny garden location where it receives no less than six hours of direct sunlight daily. Well-drained soil is required, but it should not be overly fertile. Dig the planting hole two to three times as wide as the root ball of the plant growing in its nursery container and just as deep. Do not amend the soil back-filled around the coneflower's root ball.

Water the soil around the newly planted yellow coneflower to remove air pockets and settle the soil. Place a 2-inch-layer of coarse compost or bark mulch over the soil to conserve moisture and prevent weed competition. Monitor the soil every two to five days, irrigating as needed to supplement natural rainfall. Keep the soil slightly dry to slightly moist, never soggy. Once roots are well-established after three to four months of growth, yellow coneflower is drought tolerant.

Cut off old, withered flower heads with hand pruners to tidy the plant across the summer. This is called deadheading and encourages the yellow coneflower to produce more flower buds within a few weeks. Goldfinches will eat the seeds if flowers are allowed to fully ripen. Seeds also drop to the soil below and germinate, creating an ever-expanding colony of wildflowers.

Allow frost-killed stems of the yellow coneflower to persist into the winter. Birds will eat any seeds on the browned, upright stems. In late winter, prune the dead stems back to the ground and compost the debris. By early to midspring, new growth sprouts from the roots to produce a lush, bushy plant.

Dig up and divide the yellow coneflower clump in early spring every three to four years. Do it before any new leafy sprouts are taller than 1 inch. Immediately replant the root sections from the division, planting them at the same depth they previously grew. Do not plant them too deeply, as this leads to rot.