I am just wondering if anyone has had experience with this coneflower:
http://www.waysidegardens.com/echinacea-solar-flare/p/48522/
Solar Flare?
Yes, I just bought it this fall. Was gorgeous. Wayside look at the watch dog. I never order from them any more! We shall see if it comes back this spring.
Spring, where do you get your coneflowers? I've been looking for seed for different ones and it's hard to find them.
I find them at local garden stores, have bought them at premium plant plugs.com and some co-ops. Plants not seeds. Here in the Northwest they start to come on the market around Aug. There are only a few that come true from seed such as mangus,darn will have to look up the names of the others. There is Pow Wow berry and Pow Wow White that people on this forum like. I have never tried them.
All the new hybrids don't come true from seed. I collected seed from many of my plants fall of 2010. The plants that have bloomed from those seeds were all pinkish. Don't buy seeds of magic box, they were all pink also. The only way to get the same plant is from division. I collected a few seeds this fall. I think I still have them. D-mail me you address and I will sent. They are just a mix of my different hybrid plants. You never know you might get a keeper or just pink. I started mine feb. in the greenhouse.
Hope this helps.
I've winter sown the ones I have. I wonder what it would take to get a hybrid that would seed true. I was thinking about this tonight. I don't know anything about how hybrids are developed but I wonder if you combined a plant grown from a hybrid seed with one of the parent plants used to creat the hybrid. It seems to me that would eventually make the genetics strong enough to eventually put out true seed. Maybe my next project will be to learn how hybrids are created. I have gotten a lot of seed in trade including some of the magic box. I'm curious to what they will look like. I've also made a list of all the names I've seen and looked at a ton of pictures and it seems like some of them are the same plant with different names. Thank you for the offer of seeds. I will dmail you. These are such interesting flowers.
Last year I purchased 2 new ones new to me anyway+Magnus and Prima Donna and to my untrain eye they were the same thing or so very close I have of the offspring of the Purlpe coneflower that I have been growing for at least 10 years and the way I see it they are still the champs..
Looks nice, but seeing one in person might be a different story. Too many places doctor up their photos.
I had collected seed of all of my collection a few years back ( i have a wide variety of the newer plants). The below are second year blooms and the only non-pink varieties that came through out of 20 or so plants (don't remember the exact amount). I got plenty of pink varieties with some interesting forms, but nothing outstanding. I have thinned out all the second year plants and only kept the "neat" ones. The rest got passed on to others. So if you do collect seed, it's a crap shoot as to what you will get, but it's fun none the less. I did the same last year, so i will have a round 2 next year. I believe for all the pom pom types, they do some fancy science to get them to germinate.
This smallish red one was nice. It did stay red without fading for a decent period.
http://i734.photobucket.com/albums/ww350/m_derhodes/aa5029.jpg
And these two blooms were from the same seed head with way different results. The orange one started off orange and then faded to a yellow "paradoxa" like bloom. The pink one looked like a cross of pallida and a standard... but who knows. Both plants bloomed secondary blooms later that had better formed petals.
http://i734.photobucket.com/albums/ww350/m_derhodes/dual.jpg
I was thinking that some of these coneflowers are ones grown from seeds of hybrids that didn't come true but were still different enough that someone gave them a new name. I read a little bit last night about hybriding and all I succeeded in doing was giving myself a headache. I'm going to try and find some info written in an easier way to understand. I'm trying to figure out how we could get a stronger second or third generation coneflower.
I think it's all just a numbers game to get something worth saving and taking the time to further hybridize. The breeders of course can plant a huge number of seeds and their chance of getting something of interest is much higher then a home breeder that is only seeding a fraction of that. They might get a handful of orange flowers, but only one has a nice sturdy stem and growth pattern and nice petal development. They just have more to pick from. I like to do it just for the kick of it. I have slotted off a small side area that i will raise crossed seedlings each year. Since they take two years to flower, it don't want to give them dedicated front space.
Mine were just open pollinated and i got a few interesting colors, so if you were to intentional cross pollinate plants, i would think you could get a better chance. But i say, for doing it the first time using seed from my orange and red hybrids, the few that came out aren't bad.
To get any of the newer colors, you will need to cross paradoxa into a standard purple flower.. and then hope to get something interesting. Then back cross something else into that one.. and repeat... repeat.... and repeat. Or cross/collect seed from your hybrids that you have now and see what happens like i did.
Good articles:
http://www.squidoo.com/echinacea-breeding-programs
http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/blogs/plantwise/avoid-the-coneflower-blues-august-2011/
http://www.ballpublishing.com/growertalks/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=17303
http://www.plantsnouveau.com/2009/10/24/winter-hardy-echinaceas/
Now my eyes have crossed and my headache is back. LOL. I think alot of the hybrids are made to be short lived. That way we have to spend the money to buy them again and have no seed to share. Let's face it, in any area, marketing is number one. Do they make a book "Hybriding for Dummies"? I need to go back to highschool and pay attention this time.
Unless you have a lot of time and space on your hands, i wouldn't go crazy with it all. Just play around and see what happens. Do you have a lot of the hybrids now?
I don't think it's that "evil planned"... it just seems like they aren't as hardy as the standards because of their paradoxa genes... so they need to be handled differently. In the end, they might not be the best for a majority of home growers and nurseries to handle... but the breeders would make a lot more money if the plants were strong plants for the majority.... which could then be sold for years on end. Intentionally making week plants to "make a quick buck" wouldn't make sense in the long run.
I was thinking that maybe if a 2generation was pollenated by the parent maybe 3generation would pick up the traits stronger. It is amazing seeing how things can become so different.
i bought mine this spring. it is blooming and such a vibrant color
Paradoxa is actually very hardy. I have had some for five years now.