Much the same for me, bakemom. For several years I've grown both Irish Eyes and Prarie Sun. Both have green eyes and I love them. I got some beautiful doubles from them, too. But the seeds saved from last year produced all singles, mostly with brown/black eyes. I'm disappointed in them.

Ruds cross very easily, and my neighbor grows the dark eyed ones. I guess it was inevitable that mine would change.

Karen

Me too. Irish Eyes and Prarie Sun have both either not come back or reverted to regular brown centered. One year, they didn't even come in green eyed from commercial seed the first year, so I've given up on them, even though I really like the green eye a lot.

My collected seed produced mostly brown eyed singles, a few doubles and a few brown eyed with the petals changing from dark yellow to light yellow. I had a few yellow eyed plants (`20%) but they tend to have poor leaf formation and are not as tall as the brown eyed ones.

My seed were collected from either prairie sun or irish eyes, not sure which.

Add me to the "no green eye's" club. I do think they must revert because the flowers in the "Irish eyes" place in the garden are a differnet rudbeckia than my regular old ruds (goldstrum). Softer foliage, longer, fuzzier stems and leaves.they are pretty but I miss the green centers.

I had a nice double (supposed to be cherry brandy) but more dark orange but it didn't come back. Maybe something will show up from it next year; I know to look for the soft, velvety leaves. I might have saved some seeds somewhere for that one, too.

They're not my favorite but they're practical as they keep down weeds. Mine have crossed and grown thick. So they can just take over for all I care. I got quite different color combos I wouldn't pick from a catalog but work in well, and the clumps are uniform then change to a different clump nearby. Some are more tolerant to drought than others, lost one clump. I should have taken more photos of those when they were nicer.

Prairie sun came back true in two places. I just let them self seed, take what I get (can always yank ones I intensely dislike) and will make them the mainstay of my garden along with phlox and iris and a few others.

This is strange. Got a prairie sun volunteer on the extreme north side of the house, and it's blooming prettily (but went into bloom later). Nice to know they are shade tolerant like that, just gets a little morning sun, that's it.