Summer Stock: Echinacea

Echinacea (cone flowers) with Rudbeckia (yellow spots) behind
Echinacea (cone flowers) with Rudbeckia (yellow spots) behind

My block is full of beautiful summer flowers: these echinacea are in the front of my neighbor’s house (two doors down), and the yellow “splotches” you see in the photo are the many rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) blooming in front of my home. I had echinacea growing in my backyard, but they were chewed up, either by deer or by our resident ground hog. Yesterday morning I yelled “get out of here” at the ground hog. I just bought a solar mole chaser. We might buy a love trap. My neighbor down the block caught 11 last year. What can I say, the ground hogs love living in Highland Park.

For more Summer Stock Sunday posts, visit Robin at Around the Island.

18 thoughts on “Summer Stock: Echinacea

  • Isn’t Echinacea supposed to be good for a cold or something? Perhaps your resident ground hog was feeling under the weather.

    I’ve had these growing around my place for a long time, but never knew that’s what they were. I’d only heard them called “cone flowers”. I had no idea I was growing medicinal herbs.

    • Yes, they do have healing properties. You can make an herbal concoction out of them. I have chamomile growing in my front yard; that’s good for tummy aches.

      My groundhog is having the time of his life. He already ate my whole crop of dill and has started on my basil.

  • I was just going to ask if you use the echinacea, but I guess not if the groundhogs are getting to it first. Ick, groundhog spit.

  • I know this one – I have it in liquid and in pills, but I don’t know if it ever really helped with the immune system. You have the best version – the flower – it is pretty!

  • Lovely photo, I would like some of these in my garden. I took shots of cone flowers for my last post but forgot they were also called Echinacea. Thanks for the info.

  • I love the cone flower/echinacea plant, love the beautiful blooms. Your photo is lovely.

    I hope your moles get spooked away by the solar mole chaser.

  • I almost hate to ask what’s done with the ground hogs? Relocation I guess? I am so sorry about this. The muskrat doesn’t seem interested in anything I have in the back yard and the deer haven’t gone after anything in the front this spring…

  • I enjoy seeing these flowers in many places but always forget their name until reminded by someone again. Sorry about the critters eating your plants!

  • Love these wild and happy flowers! I planted some white ones [White Swan Echinacea] one year and they are hopefully still blooming in the Chicago heat where I left them.

    • Except either the groundhog can reach up high or the deer come when we aren’t looking! I haven’t been able to spread the echinacea around the house like the rudbeckia.

  • Beautiful Leora!
    My black eyed susans are bursting to bloom and I can hardly wait.
    That’s a lot of groundhogs. I live on five acres and saw one last year. Your neighbor must have something they love. 🙂

  • I came looking for a post of yours in your archive, but I saw this picture and couldn’t help but comment.

    Sunday I went to Queens Botanical gardens and I saw these exact flowers, didn’t know what it was called, now I know. Thanks for sharing.

    Here’s the Picture I took. Kinda makes me want to get a camera like yours with a good lens to make that blur effect.

    (o, and I think I remember you once took a picture of a bee on a flower, I was so proud of myself that I was able to capture that too.)

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