Oh great, thank you for pics and info!I can now clearly see the tan colored Echinacea seeds. I had rubbed them off the flower head, together with the black spikes. It will be a job to separate them... or, since there is plenty, should I start all over ? But how do you poke the seeds out from between the spikes without also getting the spikes ? I don't seem to see well enough... Re: portulaca, how do you know when the seeds are ripe? Yesterday I had collected several of these soft " buds" and left them in an open paper bag to dry. I just looked again, some of these "buds"are still very soft, when I squeeze them they turn into a mushy mess with nothing remotely like a black seed in sight. However, I can also see some tiny black dots sticking to the inside of the paper bag....obviously some of the buds contained them, but which ones? In other words, what am I looking for that will contain ripe seeds? It's pretty cool and rainy now here in Toronto, the portulaca stopped blooming a while back, I am assuming that the seeds should be ripe now, unless they already fell to the ground?

Thanks for confirming my experience Valerie. Some of the newer hybrids that are other colors definitely need more sun, but as I mentioned above, those with strong purpurea parentage can do fine with 2-3 hours of direct sun a day. Now, if what he was describing above is 0 sun all day and only 2 hours of dappled sun, then that might not be enough. I enjoy how some like to slot shade vs sun into 3 neat buckets of shade, partial shade and sun because that's what the plant tags have. There is a huge range in there and lots of variability - what bucket does dappled shade all day and no direct sun go into? How thick is the leaf cover causing that dappled shade? What about deep shade all day and 2 hours of direct sun? Different then 4 hours of direct sun?

I have one Echinacea Mango Meadowbright wintersown 2 year old- that is a mellow yellow color- and SEVERAL that are a light pink with different petals- some longer and thinner- some short and stocky- and ONE that decided to spoon it's pale lavender petals!! Now that is almost as grand as a mellow yellow to my eyes! I will always try to grow F1 Hybrids in hopes of something wonderful- even knowing there is little chance of having children similar to the parents- I had a whole slew of Aquilegia 'Origami Red' seedlings that bloomed this year- and one out of the hundred resembled 'Origami Red'- and another resembled 'Origami White' - ALL of the others were pink and shaped like a Beidermeyer columbine- go figure- I also had several hundred heuchera 'Midnight Velvet' seedlings- and maybe 8 looked similar to the momma plant- the rest were HUGELY diverse in appearence. It makes me wonder if the farther the plant is bread from the original species- the more diverse the offspring will be..... Better minds than mine may have that answer. I do know that any of these open pollenated plants- no matter how close they resemble the parent plant can not be rightfully called the parents name. A gardener friend told me all of these should sport a small x in front of their names to show that it is a seed grown plant of the named species. So my mellow yellow Echinecea will be called x-Mango Meadowbright- same with the Columbine, x-Origami Red. Now- the real fun will be to grow these on- and see if the seedlings will be further diverse- or will be more stable and produce a greater percentage of similar offspring..... Oh- growing from seed is sooo fun! Julie

Sue... I have quite a few Asters in fact they are one of my favorite flowers, I guess I have about 50 give or take a few. It's hard to pick a favorite as I like them all. I have a lot of named varieties in all colors. A few years ago I imported about 3 dozen from the UK, lost 3 or 4 to a very wet winter but still have lots. The echinacea are a new addiction of mine right now I have about 18 varieties heeled in the Aster bed, picked up several last summer and the rest this spring. This will be their first winter here in the garden so we'll see which ones make it through. I'm thinking of revamping the Aster bed, adding beside the Echinacea some of the others that have daisy type flowers, Shastas, Rudbeckias etc. We'll see how ambitious I am in the spring :o). I'll post a few pics of the Asters when more of them are flowering, towards the end of September. I cut most of the flowers off the coneflowers today in hopes this will help the roots establish themselves before winter. Some of these newer varieties don't seem to be that hardy. Annette