Hmm, I have never heard of them. Learn something new every day!

kqcrna said:Arie Blom

http://www.ab-cultivars.com/en...

Karen

Thanks Karen!

I haven't heard of them before.

I realize this is an old thread, but was researching to see if anyone was hybridizing rudbeckia, and this came up. Am still interested in trying to hybridize rudbeckia :), but will make some comments on echinacea as I also grow those.
I was given F1 seeds of both Harvest Moon and Cheyenne Spirit which I planted in hopes of getting at least something other than the usual purple (BTW - those I harvest for tincture. I swear by the healing powers of echinacea, and all the better if you've grown it yourself!)
Of the seeds planted, I got one small yellow and some whites in the next generation. Was not actively trying to do crosses myself at that point, just selectively choosing seed from the colors I liked. This season's generation looked like this:
.
Here are some closeups:













Alot of variation! These were descended from the Harvest Moon which had bloomed the first year; the Cheyenne Spirit (there were only 3 plants of it) didn't bloom till the 2nd year, and were purple. However, there are many seedlings from all of these here and there; I'm watching to see what may result. If anyone is still monitoring this, my suggestion is to save seed from the fancy hybrids and see what you may get next generation. And if anyone has tips on hybridizing rudbeckia, I'd love to hear them!
Alex

My Harvest Moon plants are all gone. All of the other hybrid echinacea that I planted several years ago have vanished.

Last year I planted several Cheyenne Spirit. None of them did very well. I cannot remember any blooms, but they are still alive.

I still have several common echinacea that self seed and are doing quite well.

I have never had one of the many hybrid echinacea self seed.

I haven't had any luck with the hybrids. The common purple one seeds all over and an occasional white on shows up.

I wanted to clarify what I meant by MANY...

Here is a list of the echinacea that I have planted over the past several years.

Echinacea 'After Midnight' (Big Sky), Echinacea 'All that Jazz', Echinacea 'Cleopatra', Echinacea 'Harvest Moon' (Big Sky), Echinacea 'Harvest Moon' (Big Sky), Echinacea 'Harvest Moon' (Big Sky), Echinacea 'Pixie Meadowbrite', Echinacea 'Summer Sky' (Big Sky), Echinacea 'Sundown'™ (Big Sky), Echinacea 'Sunrise' (Big Sky), Echinacea 'Tiki Torch', Echinacea 'Twilight' (Big Sky), Echinacea pallida, Echinacea paradoxa, Echinacea purpurea, Echinacea purpurea, Echinacea purpurea 'Bravado', Echinacea purpurea 'Cheyenne Spirit', Echinacea purpurea 'Cheyenne Spirit', Echinacea purpurea 'Doubledecker', Echinacea purpurea 'Fancy Frills', Echinacea purpurea 'Fatal Attraction', Echinacea purpurea 'Green Envy', Echinacea purpurea 'Kim's Knee High', Echinacea purpurea 'Kim's Mop Head', Echinacea purpurea 'Lilliput', Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus', Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus', Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus', Echinacea purpurea 'Pink Double Delight', Echinacea purpurea 'PowWow Wild Berry', Echinacea purpurea 'PowWow Wild Berry', Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern' RUBY STAR, Echinacea purpurea 'Rubinstern' RUBY STAR, Echinacea purpurea 'Ruby Giant', Echinacea purpurea 'Vintage Wine', Echinacea purpurea 'White Swan'

@samhain10 , have you tried a search in the Perennials Forum? Last year I mostly came here to read and seldom posted (too busy). For some reason the name ClintBrown rings a bell as being an Echinacea lover. Perhaps I'm mistaken for some other user. But you may want to try looking him up regarding hybridizing tips.

As for me, I've tried just a few. Most I've lost too after surviving winter, blooming one season, then not returning the next. My 'Harvest Moon' has lasted the longest. But I wanted double flower ones. I can't remember the name, but I had one green-white double that didn't return after first bloom season. Then I tried 'Coconut-Lime' which some have listed above to fail. It has been in my garden since 2007. I also have 'Pink Double Delight' since 2007, but I planted 6-7 plants each for cut flowers, and the purchase was wholesale.

Following will be a photo of the *patch* I will call it. I also stuck in one 'Hot Papaya' which is not in the photo. I think because there are so many (not just one plant), that they do get pollinated and sow a few seeds that the birds don't get. The 'Harvest Moon' plant is about 30 feet down wind (eastward) and probably 100 over is my patch of the pink/purple (too quick too multiply) ones. So pollen could come from them all as insects, butterflies and bees do fly. In this patch I have let seedlings emerge and leave them until they bloom (though one year I failed to get many pulled). I have just this year started to lose some of the 'Pink Double Delight' but I think it was because other more vigorous single flower seedlings had come up in the row and I didn't get them pulled out.

The main Echinacea to the front in this photo is a seedling. I left it because it is colored with more of a red than pink. It's a very attractive vigorous seedling in my opinion, but it needs moved. Now to the front lower right of the photo you will see a double flower pink seedling. This one is special to me and first bloomed this year. I did move it to it's own location, and we'll see next year if it emerges again.



This is the seedling up closer:



I have another couple keeper seedlings that are not visible in the photo, but they were left in their place. In that same patch I have a very vigorous Baptisia 'Twilight Prairieblues' that sows extra abundantly if I don't get the seed heads cut off. Near, to almost under it, is the other two seedlings. The one is yellow and very much wanted. I did have 'Sunrise' (that's not the whole proper name for it), but it failed. I'm hoping this new yellow will again emerge and bloom in 2018 and be stronger more vigorous than the sunrise yellow plant was.

Sorry for the long post.

Frank - whew! I guess you have planted many!!! And I guess I should add that I can't strictly say that those 1st set of hybrid F2s self-seeded, because I had gathered the seed myself and started my next generation under lights. However, the third generation has self-seeded, and I wait to see what the various seedlings will look like. I also had started another generation under lights this spring, not feeling sure that there would be self-sowing. Of those, 2 bloomed this 1st year and were yellow like Harvest Moon.
Teresa - would dearly love to see some of those powderpuff variations show up in my seedlings some day! If they ever did, you can bet I'd be out there gathering seed again to see if I could maintain the strain. I've always admired them in the catalogs, but have kicked them out of the shopping basket when it came down to the nitty gritty of what to order (and how much it was going to cost. ) It's sort of a fun challenge to me to see what I can come up with from seed and selective breeding anyway. Oh, and it was really the rudbeckia I was curious about hybridizing rather than the echinacea, but it was hard to resist this post since I'm an echinacea fan.
Alex

The unusual side of things, in the Echinacea instance, I'm just letting Nature take its course. But to help matters along, I had planted 3 or 4 more 'Hot Papaya', plus 2 or 3 'Supreme Cantalope' (sp?), plus my new seedling, all in another area about 200 feet from the other patch. This was to help closer pollination along. So I have a red, pink, and a melon, all doubles, planted close together and somewhat away from the others.

This is 'Supreme Cantalope' (How come Microsoft Edge speller don't know how to spell Cantalope, it's underling the word like it's not spelled correctly?)
This flower was not yet fully formed, it takes them a few days as they start out single.





Edited to say: Duh! - - it's because it has a "u" in it, Cantaloupe . . . geez, I've been misspelling it all along.

Teresa - that's a gorgeous color, and I love the smaller inner cone florets. I suppose I may have to eventually push myself to pick a single echinacea plant from the catalogs that I really, really like for it's form, just so I can have that in the general gene pool. I don't have the huge patches of echs that you or Frank have, so it would be an easier prospect to plant it in a central location, not far from everyone else. It would probably help if I "played the bee", though. Haven't done that with echs, but how hard can it be? Put pollen to stigmas. They're composite flowers like zinnias, which I have hybridized. The thing I don't know about is if there's an issue with chromosome count. Have some of these fancy echs been treated to change their ploidy, does anyone know?
Alex

OK - just looked, and I see that there have been experiments in changing diploids to tetraploids in echinacea, so there may not be a possibility of viable crosses. Unless there is - ha ha! I'm learning from the daylily people that anything is possible.
Alex

@samhain10 , Alex, thanks for researching that information. I had no idea or even considered it, though I ran into the ploidy problem with trying to pollinate my regular lilies . . . I had no idea there either. So I guess it's best for me, since I do so much other hand pollinating, that I let nature take its course with the Echinacea.

I also added another new one this year, a single flower, and searching my photos I see I failed to get one. Probably because I was using them as cut flowers since they started their bloom season later than the others, being smaller plugs, but yet many bloomed the first year. That variety is 'Tangerine Dreams', a gorgeous bright single flower orange. I may not get back here to post after January, but anyone feel free to resume a thread and ask how they performed their second year, as well as the other hybrids I grow.

I would love to offer an Echinacea co-op, but don't know that I could manage with time constraints. I get busy with seeds the end of December.

The Echinacea varieties come in a tray of 30 - 3" plugs, and I would want to have the majority paid for in advance by check. PayPal charges me fees for every payment.

For instance I could offer 3" plug plants of 'Butterfly Kisses', 'Cherry Fluff', 'Hot Papaya', 'Lemon Drop', 'Pink Double Delight' , 'Playful Meadow Mama' and 'Supreme Cantaloupe' for $5 each. But due to time constraints, I could only offer shipping in a medium sized flat rate postal box (even if someone only wanted 1 plant), which unless actual cost changes, would be $15.45, or approximately $2 over actual cost to cover my time for packaging. The worst part would be that I would only be willing to ship *upon receipt* of the plants, and I would get those sometime mid-March. I'm way too busy thereafter. For cold zones, folks would have to keep their plants indoors a while, needing extra lights. The other downside is, that I've often received these plants in a dormant condition, and some never emerged.

Frank, I hope you don't mind me posting this on your thread? I'll delete it if you like?

Teresa - didn't realize you were a seller - cool. Nope, out of my price range to buy a flat, though. And my new focus - which will probably be THE focus for the rest of this incarnation - is (are?) daylilies! I am totally smitten.
Later, gators - have to go bubble-wrap some bamboo.
- Alex

Most of my expensive hybrids only lasted a year or two. I've had pretty good luck with cheap seed started ones of different colors (Cheyenne Spirit and another from Thompson and Morgan whose name I forget). Now, I just leave things to Mother Nature. I let them be open pollinated, drop seeds naturally, and reseed. It works out pretty well if I don't interfere.







Karen

I have not had great luck with the newer hybrids either. I planted several this year of the ones that have been good to me. I planted a lot of Cheyenne Spirit.