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Graham Rice's New Plants Blog

Graham Rice Garden writer and plantsman Northamptonshire and Pennsylvania

Editor-in-Chief of the RHS Encyclopedia of Perennials; writer for a wide range of newspapers and magazines including The Garden and The Plantsman; member of the RHS Herbaceous Plant Committee and Floral Trials Committee; author of many books on plants and gardens.

  • Date Joined: 18 Oct 2006

Recent Comments

New multi-coloured echinacea

Posted by Graham Rice on 22 Jan 2009 at 01:35 PM

Now I know, by checking the figures that reveal how many people look at each post on this blog, that new echinaceas are very popular.

So here, just announced this week, is another new one.

‘Hot Summer' was developed in Holland by master plant breeder Marco van Noort and is the first in another new style: the flowers open yellow and steadily turn to scarlet as they mature. The result is a harmony of fiery shades all on one plant all at the same time - it's a plant association on a single plant, if you like. What's more - the flowers are scented.

Nothing more to say, really. The plants are robust and prolific and you've never seen such an intriguing colour change on one echinacea. Try it with crocosmias or herbaceous potentillas for a truly sparky display.

You can order plants of Echinacea ‘Hot Summer' from Mr  Fothergills.

Marco van Noort has more new echinaceas on the way, I'm sure I'll be telling you about them as they become available.

 

 

Comments

Foxnfirefly said:

Those are so cool and so hot!! They are perfect material for a hot summer border theme.  Thanks for the news!!  

on 24 Jan 2009 at 10:30 PM

Graham Rice said:

If you check out the April issue of The Garden, when it comes along, you'll find a piece I've just written on herbaceous potentillas - they'd be great companions.

on 25 Jan 2009 at 01:14 AM

JodiD said:

These are just gorgeous, Graham. I discovered two other new echinaceas, called 'Tomato Soup' and 'Macaroni n Cheese' which I'm curious about. New cvs keep popping up all the time; last year I found 'Hope', which I hadn't seen written about anywhere, and I was very pleased with the performance of 'Coconut  Lime', which looked cool near 'Green Envy'. I think now I have around ten or twelve different varieties. And I'll get the other new ones as they come along...Yes, my name is jodi and I have an echinacea addiction...

on 25 Jan 2009 at 03:52 AM

miranda said:

They really are lovely and I'm much tempted by them. The changing fire colours sounds gorgeous. I wonder what the scent is like?

I enjoy looking at the centre of echinaceas and love that spiral pattern.

on 26 Jan 2009 at 07:27 PM

Graham Rice said:

Yes, Jodi, I mentioned 'Tomato Soup' and 'Mac n Cheese' over on my other blog (http://tinyurl.com/3xd52c) in December 07 when I first heard about them. I expect you'll like this one from this blog in July last year - http://tinyurl.com/agy2ha.

The thing about 'Dreamcoat', though, is that it's raised from seed and you'll get a mix of colours.

I'm peased that 'Coconut Lime' did well for you - some people find it a bit iffy.

on 26 Jan 2009 at 07:39 PM