I have no expertise on the "hybrid" question, but I can tell you how I save foxglove seed because I just did it today! First, as ratty as it looks, the seed pods do need to ripen on the plant, so don't even think about harvesting until they are brownish and starting to open. The tricky part is getting there before the seed spills through the opening! I carefully cut 3 ripe stalks today and, holding them completely upright till I found a long manilla envelope, dumped them inside. Hung the envelope up on a hook in my kitchen with the top open for air. They will dry for a few weeks, then I will shake the whole envelope and dump the seeds out on a paper plate to dry some more before packing into tiny zip locks for storage/trading. Hope this helps. My family can not BELIEVE I am starting this "seed saving business" already when I do not even have all my seedlings planted out!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck, Nancy

I planted some echinacea seeds rather late this year, probably in April or May? They were from Walmart, just marked Echinacea, no special type. I wasn't going to have their permanent spots ready until this fall but didn't want to keep them in the milk jug or pot them up so I threw them in an empty raised bed in my veggie garden. I'll be darned if they didn't start flowering for me around August! The two I planted in the permanent spots I cut the blooms/buds off because I figured they should be concentrating on roots and leaves, not flowers. But I didn't have the heart to cut the blooms off one of the others that is still in the veggie garden. Every time I go to cut, there'd be a butterfly on it and I just can't bring myself to deprive them of the few blooms that are there. I've noticed the one plant that has multiple blooms on it doesn't seem to have a lot in the way of leaves. Michelle

The first year double decker (also called doppelganger) came out I tried to get plants and/or seeds. I found seeds from a USA source. They warned that they might not develop the unique flowers until the second year, this was true, well actually they didn't bloom the first year because I probably started them too late. In waiting for them to bloom the second year I was a bit skeptical, wondering if the seedlings would even resemble the parent plant they came from and have the double decker flowers. One thing though, in some cases only a percentage of the seedlings will have the trait or characteristic of the parent plant. Others might be just the plain or something unique. One of my double decker really has alot of double decker blooms. Another has a few of them but one of them just appeared to be a regular coneflower. One type of echinacea that doesn't come true from seed is razzmatazz. It's a fully double pom pom looking one. It's not available by seed. You have to buy a plant from the nursery that's been created either by cutting, or root division. I find that echinacea in general self-sows in the garden. Not enough to be a problem, but I notice a few seedlings here and there. Anyways, it will be interesting to see if any seedlings have the double decker flowers, or who knows, they might be a combination of a few different types of echinacea. Glen

My 3 Sunset and 3 Orange Meadowbright that I planted last spring and then moved last fall are all doing just fine. My 3 Sundown that I bought and planted last fall from a local nursery are fine. I had worse luck with a batch of coneflower (Sundown, Little Giant, Ruby Giant and Prairie Frost) that I mailordered and received last fall. Got some more from the same place this spring and I noticed that there was a lot of foliage and very big top growth on a very small rootball. So now I'm wondering about whether or not the size of the rootball is a predictor of sucess or failure? All of these coneflower are planted in the same bed (lasagna garden, raised, great drainage, full sun).