That's my hope, Lynda.

SoCal, is your weather much cooler in the fall and winter? I'm still not sure about your climate. Here we plant coneflower seeds in the late fall, and by spring they are sturdy little seedlings. This works because ( I think) all the hybrid ones came from a wildflower; that's how they reproduce themselves in the wild. We have several of the wild ones, plus several black eyed Susan's in an Master Gardener project that is on the lake; in the fall we deadhead them and just scatter the seed on the ground. In the spring we move the seedlings where we want them. I've been collecting seed heads from my Cheyenne Spirit today, I will plant the seed around the last of October.

It's cooler, high temperature is 66F in the day and 47F for low in December. But I'm just going to throw my seeds down when my soil is ready and wait for them to come up.

I am going to try collecting the dry spent flowers for seeds. I have a white and Cheyenne Spirit clump. I think I may try starting some in nursery pots.

I'm sure you will be successful! They're so easy to grow from seed.My new echinacea is a Cheyenne spirit, and it has three different colors so, I'll save seed of each color. I have already saved the seed from my yellow one. 😁

Winter sowing in plastic one gallon milk jugs works well with echinacea.

Bob, it is to early to plant them now, right? They might come up and be to small to enter winter. I should wait until what month? I have done a few milk jugs of seeds. I have a ton of extra nursery pots but the protection would not be there like the top of the jugs.

I would say way to late to plant this year, by me I do not like planting even nice sized plants after the start of July they need a good amount of time to establish the tap root. I have done it if I find a great buy but odds at best for me are 50-50. But Winters on top of the mountain can be very harsh. When I Winter Sow I put jugs out toward the end of March

Glad to read there area some newer varieties doing well again. I've started to avoid most of the doubles, different colors, etc, other than Cheyenne Spirit.... but I "need" some fancier ones out there! Sounds like Hot Papaya, Pink Poodle, maybe Butterfly Kisses are pretty good doubles (pretty good = returns after winter).

Keep listing your favorites and your experience with them, please!!

I want to get the Rainbow Marcella, it's awesome looking but it's out in every online site I've looked at. I do have one that I planted last year and I don't know the variety. I guess I will have to wait until it blooms to see what it is.
My standard purple is one that was a seedling of an original plant that I planted around 15 years ago in another garden and another yard.