PRAIRIE STARS™ Tomato Soup Coneflower

Echinacea PRAIRIE STARS™ Tomato Soup Coneflower (Echinacea x 'Tomato Soup') is the brightest red Echinacea yet! Quite the attention-grabber, these blooms are 3.5" across and have a strong spicy fragrance!

Because Tomato Soup is well-branch and vigorous, it produces more showy blooms than others and offers many new possibilities for garden combinations! The early spring green foliage is the perfect stage to set off the soon to follow flowers

Tomato Soup is a long-lasting flower that attracts butterflies and hummingbirds! Plus the seedheads attract songbirds for a fall feast. These long-lasting flowers provide lots of vital nectar resources for a wide range of beneficial pollinators!

Coneflowers are also great in cut flower arrangements! The bright, red intense flowers are supported on strong stems; best if grouped or massed.

Plant in your hot, sunny garden beds where these vibrant blooms add spicy color all summer. As the flowers mature, they fade to vivid pink, giving the entire plant a two-tone effect.

How to Use PRAIRIE STARS™ Tomato Soup Coneflower In The Landscape

Enjoy 'Tomato Soup' and its bright tomato red blooms that will scream summer, especially when combined with bright purples and all shades of yellow!

This Echinacea will present a season full of red daisy-like flowers and is praised for its prolonged blooming after other perennials have faded. The coarse green foliage is not just a fantastic backdrop for the blooms, it also highlights all your other Perennial garden residents.

Enliven Cottage and Rock gardens with a fiery injection of bold color, and spice up walkways and paths to entice you along your way all summer long! Of course, the vivid color and long bloom time make Tomato Soup fantastic when planted in groups or in mass plantings, showing off that brilliant red color non-stop all summer!

Plant among other hot-colored perennial planting combinations such as Black-Eyed Susans, Butterfly Weed Plant, Blanket Flower, Gaillardia and Red Hot Poker Plants! Or display this unique Coneflower all on its own as a fantastic specimen and focal point plant.

Plant in your favorite barrel or planter as a dramatic focal point. The size of this perennial makes it great for use as an impressive thriller in your larger containers and on hot sunny patios! You'll have free-flowering blooms from mid-summer through frost. That's months of color!

Plus the novelty blooms are great in cut flower arrangements! The strong stems provide intensely saturated color as a focal point and are tall enough to use as thrillers in your bouquets!

Coneflowers are used as accent plants or in mixed borders, open woodlands, and mass plantings. Fragrant, they keep coming all summer on tall plants with excellent branching. This plant is deer resistant so don't worry about planting this in out-of-the-way locations.

#ProPlantTips For Care

Hardy in USDA hardiness zones 4 through 9, these plants thrive in the hottest and sunniest sites. Best in full sun, these are hardy, tolerant, and drought tolerant once established.

While not particular on soil type, Echinacea does great in most soil types. Any well-drained soil works perfectly! For better results, enrich the soil with compost and organic material.

Provide moderate, yet consistent moisture while becoming established, afterward Tomato Soup is drought tolerant and only needs moderate waterings.

Divide clumps when they become overcrowded, which can be about every 4 years. Tomato Soup usually reblooms without deadheading, but if spent flowers are removed, this will encourage continued beautiful blooms and improves general appearance.

If you leave some spent blooms on the plants in the fall their seeds provide winter food for birds. You can enjoy the dried seed heads as well because they will provide architectural interest in the winter.

This plant is deer resistant, so you will only have to worry about feeding your local pollinators and songbirds!

For spicy fragrance and color, you’ll never go wrong with the hardy, vigorous prairie native PRAIRIE STARS™ Tomato Soup Coneflower! Head over to NatureHills.com to order today!

Learn more about attracting birds to your garden in our Garden Blog!