Oh Southern, don't look at it as a shame they don't breed true, look at it as an opportunity to make new beautiful shades and flower and plant forms!
Besides, well grown Echinacea divides well into 4 or 6 new plants every 2 years, at least in Montana the standard Coneflower forms did.
To divide them, grow them well for 2 seasons. After they die back, at least mostly dieback for you down there where y'all yes mayaams live,
sometime in January, dig it up when the soil is moist, and have an old pruning saw handy. A well serrated old knife will do. Dig it up by most all the roots, and have a handy dandy cardboard to set yourself on. cut back most of the plant down to a few inches. Some of what you cut off you can try to do cuttings of, but it's not the right time of year for the best, but who knows, you may get some to grow, a nice bonus. Set your future cuttings aside to work on later in moistened newspaper. Take your old pruning saw and cut the rootball in half at a likely looking place that will definitely make 2 good plants. Set one down, and cut the other one in half again at a likely looking place. You're looking to make sure you have good future buds and good root. Do the same with the other big half. You might see another section or two you can cut off. Even little parts will make good little plants that might take a little longer to establish.
Now go ahead and plant your divided plants! Give them a bit of extra care their first season. In another 2 years you'll be able to do this dividing with all of them! That'll mean, buy one now, and if you average 5 in 2 years, you'll average 5 again from each of those 5 in 2 more, a total of 4 years, giving you 25 plants in 4 years. HOW COOL IS THAT???
And, that's not even counting any cuttings that take!
AND! Another version of this is to make like 10 or 12 divisions instead of 5. They make smaller plants to start, and some might not make it, but your increase is even faster. One 10 dollar plant can make you, oh shoot, you do the math
in 4 years.
If you've never done PROPAGATION BY DIVIDING and are worried, a very normal thing, buy 2 of them and only divide one of them in a couple years, or practice up on some even simpler plant such a Huechera. The very simplest divider, well, one of the simplest, are hen and chickens. Those you can have a supervised 3 year old do, or an unsupervised 4 year old.
well, unless his nickname is DESTRUCTO. What I'm getting at is, just do it if you never have. Use your gardener instincts and it will work.
I sure wish I had the space and resources to go into the nursery business myself. How many other products can increase themselves like that with only a little very enjoyable work???
