Just want you to know, you are most likely not going to get the newer varieties from seed because they are hybrids. You will most likely just get purple echinacea... It stinks because most of the newer varieties are expensive to buy the plants. Ann

Just so you know you will NOT get the hybrid you will only get the parent plant . . the purple coneflower. Not sure if you were aware of this or not.

that's not necessarily true guys.. when you grow seeds from hybrids you will likely get somewhere between the two parent plants. not necessarily the variety itself but many other combinations, if from a first generation hybrid each seed (if viable) could bring up a new type so i would encourage instead of discourage.

Vesohyes,

Thanks for more info. I wasn't trying to discourage - I just don't want someone to think they will get the new variety that they might like from seed. I agree that it's always interesting to see what you might get from the seeds.

Ann

well . . according to my research and degree in horticulture at MSU and Grand Valley it is so . . no way I want to discouorgae but the fact remains you will get the parent plant. 99% will be the purple coneflower.

Hi - Well, thank you all for the info.! This old gardener likes to learn new stuff! Good luck - tina_2

I have seeds for these echinaceas if you want to try a few!
I only have a few of each but I will share some if you would like to try them.

Sun Down
hope
sunset
purple
yellow
white swan
tiki torch
pink poodle

Actually, it's not as simple as some of the posts above would indicate. What you get depends on a number of factors and would require more detail than what I'd bet anyone wants me to go into, to really explain completely. As was stated above, many of the new cultivars (varieties are technically/scientifically not what you are talking about) are hybrids, and F2 generation seeds of hybrid flowers may have some members mostly like one or the other parent and some or no members similar to the hybrid. It's probably easiest explained by saying that you won't get the cultivar when you plant seeds, you may get some plants somewhat similar to the cultivar, and you may get no plants very similar the cultivar. If you see a cultivar you want, buy it or propagate it vegetatively (assuming it's not patented).

One of these days, I'm going to write a long post explaining all the genetics involved with this topic as well as an explanation of scientific names / binomial nomenclature. I think some of the people that frequent this forum really don't understand what they are asking for or what they are offering most of the time. I always get a little miffed when I see someone offering "pine tree seeds" (or even worse, "christmas tree seeds") and I'm amazed at the amount of people offering seeds of named cultivars, that don't come true-to-type when propagated sexually, as the cultivar.

I received some echinacea seeds in trade - the seeds were from Sunrise, Sunset, maybe another one, from the Big Sky series. I didn't expect much, because I knew they were hybrids, but I did get some yellow, peach and orange flowers - I made up names for them, lol, since obviously they are not the same as the hybrid plant. I am waiting to see if they will come back this year. I collected seeds from my plants and it will be interesting to see what color those will be. I won't be surprised if they are pink/purple, though.

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Becky

ramazz, your top picture looks like my 'Harvest Moon'.

Ruth, maybe I got seeds from Harvest Moon, I don't recall exactly. I got a lot of seeds from the same person, all from hybrids, and was pleasantly surprised. I hope the plants are hardy enough to come back. I've read that some of the hybrids don't like cold winters, and ours has been colder than normal, though not as bad as some folks north of us.

Becky