Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinstern’
Ruby Star coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinstern’) is an easy-to-grow and handsome perennial loaded with good plant qualities.
An upright perennial growing to 1 m/3 ft in height and spread, ‘Ruby Star’ has large, flat-topped blooms in intense purple-pink. ‘Ruby Star’ blooms all summer and doesn’t stop until frost. Bees and butterflies visit its pollen-filled domed centers. Beneficial insects visit too, while birds arrive for its ripened seeds later in fall.
‘Ruby Star’ thrives in full sun or partial shade with regular well-drained soil and tolerates heat or drought. Not one deer will ever show up to munch it down. This tough, no-fuss plant is deer-resistant. However, our native populations of coneflower growing in the prairies of North America are not thriving. A new study shows how fire helps native plants on the prairies.
‘Ruby Star’ is an improved variety of ‘Magnus’, which was developed by Jelitto Perennial Seeds of Germany. Their breeding effort has resulted in more uniformly sized plants with large, more darkly colored flowers. The intense carmine-red petals are held horizontally from the center cone, giving ‘Ruby Star’ a beautiful and distinctive look.
The pictures were taken in summer at VanDusen’s Bird Garden. ‘Ruby Star’ was stretching out everywhere.
Text and photos by Hughie Jones