As we get deeper into 2026, it’s time to get serious with you perennial lovers and ask, "Have you gotten your Color Coded?" I’m not talking about a Pantone analysis of your home and landscape but a healthy supply of some of the finest coneflowers in the marketplace.

You see, while you’ve been spending years coming up with 357 ways to use Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunias, Proven Winners has quietly built a collection of dazzling echinacea coneflowers that will shock you. First, I know that there are two new selections this spring, Color Coded Knock ‘em Red and Double Coded Cranberry Coral.

Knock ‘em Red brings the Color Coded series to seven and Cranberry Coral brings the double flowered Double Coded series to four. I started growing these coneflowers in 2019, which means my Color Coded Orange You Awesome clumps will be hitting year 7.

The Garden Guy is a lover of flaming oranges and for that reason Orange You Awesome is my favorite. I still look at it with a sense of awe that a coneflower could be so electrifyingly beautiful. If that wasn’t enough, then consider that swallowtails, common buckeye, monarchs, and gray hairstreak butterflies have all been seen.

But it’s not just Orange You Awesome but also One in a Melon too. I love this one just as much, as it is a large, flowered selection. Even the way gold starts out gold colored and matures to pastel yellow is ever so striking. It too is always being visited by pollinators. The Color Coded Price is White is pristine and a large, flowered variety in my garden.

The new Knock ‘em Red is crimson in color and is an upright grower reading about 24 inches in height with a 16- to 20-inch spread. Frankly Scarlet is about the same size but the flower is scarlet in color. Color Coded Yellow My Darling and The Fuchsia is Bright are the other two colors in this series.

The Double Coded series now has four selections thanks to the Cranberry Coral addition this spring. Everything about this group has been pure magic. First off is their beauty, which makes you think you could pick one and it would be a cupcake inside. The first two were Double Coded Butter Pecan and Raspberry Beret. I planted mine with Rockin Playin’ The Blues salvia.

About the time I received mine, the naysayers of the garden world were saying double flowered echinacea would not be visited by butterflies. But that is not true, as I had swallowtails and monarchs visiting. The third addition in the series was Double Coded Everything’s Rosey, followed by this year’s introduction, Cranberry Coral. They all look like landscape desserts.

There is another much overlooked trait of the Color Coded coneflowers and that is the spent blooms and resulting seed pods. Sometime in late summer or early fall, the brightly colored American goldfinch shows up for a tasty seed eating frenzy. This happens even though my backyard has four feeders chock full of seeds. The dilemma here, of course, is did you deadhead spent flowers or leave for nature.

There is nothing like having a border geared toward pollinators, hummingbirds and songbirds. Sunlight, fertile soil and choosing the right flowers like Color Coded and Double Coded coneflowers, Luscious lantana, Meant to Bee agastache, Rockin salvia and Luminary tall garden phlox, Meteor Shower verbena and Truffula Pink gomphrena.

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(Norman Winter, horticulturist, garden speaker and author of “Tough-as-Nails Flowers for the South” and “Captivating Combinations: Color and Style in the Garden.” Follow him on Facebook @NormanWinterTheGardenGuy.)

(NOTE TO EDITORS: Norman Winter receives complimentary plants to review from the companies he covers.)

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