The Process:Instead of abandoning the project, we found echinacea growing at our local park so we collected some of the young leaves and buds. A little later, we returned for a few flower heads. However, we won’t be using the roots from the flowers at our park. Firstly, because it wouldn’t be right to dig up flowers that do not belong to us. But more importantly, the roots should not be more than 2 or 3 years old. This is because echinacea, like many other plants, has been known to bio-accumulate heavy metals in their roots if they are present in the soil. As we do not know the soil conditions at our park, nor how old the plants are, it would not be safe to use their roots. Instead, we found a colleague who has 2-year-old echinacea in his garden. He has agreed to dig a root out for us in the fall. We hope this goes to show that you can’t ever really count on things going to plan when it comes to gardening. Mother Nature is the boss after all. But we also hope you can see that with a little creativity and some help from a friend, you might be able to find a way.
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