Yes, echinacea is purple coneflower. I buy my plants at Home Depot. I bought 3 small plants four years ago, planted them in my rose garden, and every year there are a few more. I don't do anything special at all. In fact, I don't feed them nearly as much as I should. They've only been fed once since the beginning of spring. Today, I have 3 nice clumps of them, two or three plants in each clump, and as I say, they have been blooming at least 3 months, more like four. But they ARE beginning to go away. The plants have gotten more robust every year since I planted them. I think you have to be patient with them, and even if they look pathetic the first year (mine did), don't pull them up. They will die completely back over winter, but they will come back in the spring, and will be thicker and taller than before. And they seed themselves if I don't deadhead them. The individual flowers last for several weeks each. The butterflies love them and they smell really nice. The only one I lost completely was a white one. Try them again next spring and be patient with them. Like many perennials, the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap. Good luck! Marcia

The September 5, 2014 Message is posted, superseding this one. Claire

They do have seeds but they don't come true from seeds. Basal cuttings or division is the easiest way to propagate. Here's a picture of a Coconut Lime I rooted last year. It bloomed when it was 4 weeks rooted...

Thank you all for the groundhog possibility. Now all my shasta daisies and black-eyed Susans are chewed off also. I have monarda coming up everywhere but they don't even touch it. I'll try to deal with just being frustrated in a continuing effort to better manage my anger. What really got me in the past was when something chewed down all my oriental lilies. I was going to plant more this summer/fall, but now I'm wondering why waste the money. Good luck to you guys too and thank you again.