It is in July 2010 now, and I harvested some seeds from pink Gerbera Daisies which are living outdoors in the garden during warmer days and indoors in pots during winter for 3 years. They're known as annual, but when you keep them warm enough they grow like perennial and the flowers keep coming back! When they were transplanted outdoors they were popular among bumble bees and so I could get them pollinated and harvest seeds! I found that not all the seeds from one head of flowers are ripe. Let the head dry on the stalk and become fluffy like that of dandelion puff-ball (not that fluffy though) and search for a bit stouter seeds around the petals. Ripe seeds are rare (maybe around 50th or 100th of total?) but are definitely there if pollinated. And maybe this is why flower shops keep telling us that growing daisy from seeds is near impossible and we'd better get flowers or whole plant from the shop. Germination is really easy. I succeeded in germinating them in a pot filled with quality potting mix, kept moist by spraying water every day, placed by a sunny window, with room temperature around 70-74 F, within a week. Hope there are more people who succeed in growing Gerbera Daisies from seeds! - Ryu

I have mixed luck with coral bells in my shadier beds, but that's an idea that hadn't crossed my mind--probably because I haven't fully accepted that my "sunny" bed is still part shade! Overall, I am just so confused with the parts of my garden that aren't obviously shady all day. I'm growing shade and part-shade plants in sites that remain dappled through the summer, but I'm finding the sunnier sites much more difficult to plan for. I have been eyeing a part of the lawn that I thought was sunnier, but it seems to be sunny only till early afternoon. I thought that part-shade plants wouldn't do well there, but am rethinking my planting strategy based on the mixed results of the bed I describe above. Right now the sunniest site seems to lie on the north side of my house--something I didn't expect, though if I think about it, my 'north garden" gets what to my neighbor is southern light.

My rule of thumb for marigolds is this, if the head is drying up and turning brown, I tug on, if it pops off easily its ready, if there is some resistance then i leave it alone, if it accidentally pops off anyway then oh well, throw it in a paper bag, let them all dry out and you'll never know the difference. You soon learn as i did, that seed companies provide you with less than one head's worth of seeds when you buy a pack.

Your pic is a bit too far away. Anyway I think you've picked it too early. The seed will come from the centre... like this http://www.flickriver.com/search/Rhodanthe/interesting/ and if you look at some google images of the seeds like https://www.google.com.au/search?q=rhodanthe+chlorocephala+seeds&rlz=1C1CHMO_en-GBAU666AU666&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3gsich7nQAhXJOJQKHbeaC_8Q_AUICCgB&biw=1200&bih=891#tbm=isch&q=rhodanthe+seeds but it won't all be viable, a lot of it is just 'chaff'