Not to be confused with Purple Coneflower, Pale Coneflower is not often seen in the garden. This fact, combined with Pale Coneflower’s many strengths recommends it fully. One might have to search a bit to find a nursery but I’m quite certain that my readers are an astute enough crowd to snuffle around the web and sort it out. Pale Coneflower bears flowers that are similar to Purple Coneflower, enough so that other gardeners in your town will stop, look twice or thrice, and then do one of three things: One, scurry nervously down the street to their own home and begin a frantic search through their catalogs to discover what’s going on with that strange coneflower down the street in their strange neighbor’s garden (you are strange, aren’t you?)…Two, have the nerve to ask you (good on ‘em because we can always learn)…or Three, exclaim with great joy the boldness and great discerning quality of any gardener so marvelous as to include Pale Coneflower in their garden. It is, simply put, a gardener’s garden plant.

What is there to recommend Pale Coneflower? Well, not many gardeners have the good sense to grow it, and we’ve already covered that. Next in line I would say are the quality of the stems. I have absolutely no patience with plants that need staking…if they’re floppy, let them flop with good grace. No such worries with Pale Coneflower as it shares the good nature of its cousin Purple Coneflower in that the stems are stiff and strong. More good qualities…

Flowers that last a good long time, drought tolerance, and it’s native.

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