Tennessee Coneflower
Echinacea tennesseensis
A once-endangered coneflower, now recovered, with strongly reflexed pink-purple petals on tidy 18 to 30 inch plants. Ideal for smaller gardens.
Typically 1 pint–1 gal · $9–$30 · final price at pickup
- Thu, Aug 138 AM – 4 PM
- Fri, Aug 148 AM – 4 PM
- Sat, Aug 158 AM – 2 PM
A once-endangered native coneflower. compact, tough, and deeply attractive to goldfinch and butterflies.
Tennessee Coneflower is a conservation story with excellent garden performance. Once listed as federally endangered, this compact coneflower is now recovered enough to propagate for home gardens, and it's worth growing. The pink-purple petals reflex more strongly than purple coneflower, and the plants stay tidier at 18 to 30 inches, making them better suited to smaller gardens and formal borders where the sprawl of species Echinacea can be too much. It blooms from midsummer into fall, attracting the same goldfinch and butterfly parade as other coneflowers but in a more manageable package. The spent seed heads are as important as the flowers: leave them standing through winter and you'll watch goldfinch work them systematically on cold December mornings. Tolerates dry, rocky soil with excellent drainage, which mirrors its native cedar glade habitat.
A nursery-grown plant, ready for the ground.
Healthy, container-grown tennessee coneflower propagated on-site at Hill House from regional genetics. Includes a one-page care card. We make every effort to supply plants as listed; occasionally we substitute a similar species of equal value.
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Dry
- Mature size
- 1.5–2.5 ft · 12–18 in wide
- Bloom time
- Midsummer to fall
- USDA zones
- 4–8
- Family
- Asteraceae
- Native range
- Tennessee. endemic to cedar glade habitats in Middle Tennessee (federally delisted from Endangered Species Act in 2011)
Care notes for tennessee coneflower.
Plant in full sun in well-drained to dry soil. Excellent in rocky or sandy conditions. Do not over-fertilize or plant in rich, moist soil. this will cause flopping. Leave seed heads through winter for goldfinch. Divide every 3-4 years in early spring if the crown becomes woody.
Pairs well with these.
Same light, same soil, same wildlife. Janet's picks to plant alongside tennessee coneflower.
Or skip the guesswork.
Curated packages bundle complementary species for an instant habitat. One reservation, one pickup day, a printed layout map.
Short on Space Package
For gardeners who have an abundance of passion but are short on space, this package features tidy, upright, clump-forming natives that behave and function well in small spaces.
Shade Bed Package
Ferns, sedges, and woodland natives that thrive under existing trees.
Birder’s Paradise Package
For the avid bird watchers and budding ornithologists in our community, the Birder’s Paradise Package consists of species that Hill House Nursery staff and longtime native plant advocates such as Doug Tallamy consider ‘premier bird garden plants’.