Coneflower Obsession

I've always admired coneflowers (aka Echinacea)--their hardy toughness, their sparkler-comet shape, the "cone" pods that look attractive through the fall and winter after the petal skirt has fallen away. But I never had a really big space to showcase them. Now that I do have comparatively lotsa room--and lotsa heat and sunshine in Zone 8--I've been going a little crazy. So far I have three "regular" purple coneflowers in my sun&heat-intensive front beds--and they go very well with the two color schemes: one has a lot of purple, blue, and orange, with a little red thrown in and the other is mostly red, dark pink, blue and white, with a splash or two of yellow.



Here's one particular one in varying stages of bloom (May-June) in one bed, nestled between some rocks and an iris--there's also an orange mum nearby.

Well, this week I got a fateful email from Park's Landscapes, advertising their current web specials-- Coneflowers in all hues: "Get Them while they're hot." Now they must have read my mind... I have been dying to get some of those "hot" new orange shades, but they don't sell those at Lowe's or Wally-World, and when I found a gallon at a local nursery they wanted $12.95 (as I was there to buy a tree--$$$--I had to regretfully decline their cheerful orange invitation). So when I saw them ON SALE at Park's for **$4.00** I came down with a severe case of Coneflower Madness!


And proceeded to order the following:

First: Sunrise Echinacea

Second: Sunset Echinacea
(I feel a show-tune coming on: "SUNRIIIIIIISE! SUNSETTTT!")

Unfortunately, they were running low on both of these,
so not sure if I will be getting them or not.
Therefore I ordered two of the
Third: Orange Meadowbrite Echinacea

And for good measure, the aptly named
Fourth: Fatal Attraction Echinacea

UPDATE: All of the above arrived! I have put them in the ground and we shall see what they do. (As they are fairly small, I'm not expecting anything spectacular until late summer, early fall.)