Another vote for Pow Wow Wild Berry, this one really impressed me last year.

Annette

Third vote for Pow Wow Wildberry. This was a standout in our trials in Michigan, as well as the Ball trials in West Chicago.

goblugal have you heard if "Pow Wow WHITE" is similarly as healthy and vigorous and floriferous as "Wildberry"?

Sounds like a resounding approval for Pow Wow Wild Berry! Since it is somewhat later in the season and I was hoping for a few first year blooms, I might order plants of this strain instead of starting seeds. Several mail order operations have it available this season as plants.

Since this is a seed strain, is there a lot of variation among individual plants regarding flower color? I was hoping for fairly uniform shades of magenta with no pale pink or lavender blossoms in the mix.

These all had a strong color here. They are all compact and well-branched. I think it's one of the best seed plants I've grown. They really show off the second year!

The PowWow white is just as well matched as the Wildberry. Wildberry color stability is very good, but as with all echinacea, you will see variation depending on the age of the bloom

Fatal Attraction is the most eye-stinging of them all. Unfortunaly it was not reliable for me. But some people wrote they could keep it alive, so...

This is the color of Ech. 'pow wow wild berry' grown from seed 2011.

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'Pow wow wild berry' ech.

I WISH my Pow Wow Wildberries were the color shown! I bought six last year and with one exception, mine look a lot like the generic E. Purpurea, a much paler lavender pink, and they are also much taller than the typical Wildberry plant everyone likes so much. The five that look like E. Purpurea even come from two different sources!

Is this color variation to be expected or have I just been unlucky with mislabeled plants?

I am somewhat associated with PineRidge Gardens, as I'm doing web design for them, but given that blurb, I really would like to suggest E purpurea TT selection from the catalog. I'll link a photo from Flickr that I doctor'd considerably to get very close to the wild deep intense color on an older flower of the plant.
It's also very very well branched, if you want I can show you a full plant shot as well, but the color of the flowers, which are just a tad smaller than std E purpurea also....really stands out.

Here is a link that might be useful: E purpurea TT selection as Photoshopped by me.

Powwow White can be very nice.
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Not pow wow but still pretty....