What to Do with Coneflowers in September: 5 Key Tasks
My coneflowers (Echinacea) are starting to retire for the season, looking a little weathered and fading in color. But their display is far from over. In fall, they’re one of the best plants for sculptural seed heads. There are a few tasks to tick off in September for a little late-summer TLC.
Growing coneflowers rewards in more ways than one. As a tough, hardy perennial, it returns each year with bright pink, purple, and even yellow blooms (see this coneflower mix of colors at Trees.com, formerly Fast Growing Trees). In fall, it turns into a vital food source for birds and offers interest where other plants fade away. In September, towards the end of their flowering cycle, coneflower care is about selectively deadheading, collecting seeds, and most importantly, monitoring for pests and disease in the wet conditions of fall.
The good news is it doesn’t take long to give your coneflowers some attention this month before harsher fall conditions settle in. Here’s exactly what to do with coneflowers in September.
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1. Deadhead Selectively
(Image credit: Deborah Vernon / Alamy Stock Photo)
With lingering warmer temps in September, there is still time to deadhead coneflowers and encourage a final few flowers. However, crucially, you shouldn’t be overzealous with your pruning shears and remove all of its spent blooms.
With echinacea slowing down for fall, a mass flush of blooms is unlikely. You don’t want to unintentionally get rid of all the seed heads, leaving you with nothing for fall and winter.
Coneflowers are excellent flowers for seed heads. They provide architectural interest for your fall garden and provide a natural way to feed birds in fall and winter, especially goldfinches.
If you are planning to remove a few more spent blooms, use sharp bypass pruning shears (like this Fiskars pair from Amazon) and cut down to the first pair of healthy green leaves.
2. Collect Seeds
(Image credit: MHjerpe / iStock / Getty Images Plus / Getty Images)
In fall, you can collect coneflower seeds to plant next year and get new plants for free. They may be ready to collect in September, or you may need to wait a little longer.
To know if coneflower seeds are ready for collecting, look for when the central cone has turned dark brown and hard. The petals should have fallen off completely, too. Harvesting seeds too early can impact their viability, so it’s best to let them ripen first.
To collect the seeds, cut off the head (these gardening snips from Lowe’s should work well) and shake it into a paper bag. Store your seeds somewhere cool, dark, and dry to keep them viable for planting in spring.
3. Reduce Watering
(Image credit: Becky Searle)
Coneflowers are drought-tolerant plants once established, so there isn’t a need to water them regularly as we enter wetter months. In fact, overly wet soil can cause root rot.
Really, you should only need to give your coneflowers a deep watering in September if it’s unusually dry or there’s a late-summer heatwave. Using this soil moisture meter from Amazon, you can monitor when the top few inches have dried out.
Ensuring the soil is well-draining will also help keep your coneflowers in good shape. If needed, loosen compacted soil with this hand rake from Amazon.
4. Don’t Fertilize
(Image credit: Botanic World / Alamy Stock Photo)
While you can fertilize coneflowers through spring and summer to give them a boost of essential plant nutrients and support flowering, fertilizing can be problematic as we enter September.
As the plant slows down and focuses on preparing for winter dormancy, it’s best to conserve its energy. Feeding your coneflowers now will only encourage new growth, which may not make it through fall frosts and ultimately weaken the plant.
Allowing your plant to rest will ensure its energy goes into putting on a beautiful display next summer.
5. Inspect for Disease
(Image credit: Julie Huser/Alamy Stock Photo)
One of the biggest challenges in the fall garden is managing disease, as the mild temperatures and wetter weather can create the perfect environment for fungal diseases and fall garden pests.
Coneflowers are particularly susceptible to aster yellows (identifiable by deformed, green-yellow petals and curling yellow leaves), powdery mildew, and rosette mites (which cause fuzzy green tufts sprouting from the flower cone).
Monitoring for these pests and diseases, and dealing with them straight away, is the best way to stop the problem spreading in your yard.
Severely infected plants should be removed and disposed of to protect the rest of your garden – wearing these gardening gloves from Walmart and cleaning pruning tools will also reduce the risk of spreading.
What to Shop
Something else to do over the next month is to keep an eye on your local forecast for your fall frost dates. You may need to winterize your coneflowers by adding a layer of mulch for insulation and cutting them back as winter approaches.
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