Echinacea seed do not hold their viability very long (in my experience with them anyway). If they aren't fresh, like from last fall 2009, then they are less likely to germinate. Most herbs do not keep well. After a year, they lose viability and they can be completely worthless in two years time. The ones that do sprout may not do very well, often rather weak and may not survive infancy.

So, if you got those two plants growing, count your blessings. If you are lucky, they will soon be blooming for you and making gobs of seed for new seedlings next year.

~Annie

They couldn't be old seeds as the Pow Wow Wild Berry is a 2010 intro. So comercial seed companies couldn't have had for very long. I was going to start seeds of it this spring but never got to it with so much else going on.

I forgot about that Rita,your right. If you do start yours please let me know how they do.These two little seedlings i have look OK, but they are only about an inch tall.I bought some seed packs in the store that did absolutely nothing as well.Frustrating.
Tammy

It is frustrating when seeds fail to germinate. I ordered from Johnny's earlier this year ... tomatoes and zinnias. The one zinnia I was really looking forward to was Zowie! Yellow Flame. Only 15 seeds in the pack and not one germinated. I placed another order last month and keeping my fingers crossed that I'll have better luck second time around.

I hate it when they don't germinate too, last year I had several packages to do that. The gomphrena was one of them. Not a single seed germinated, and it was expensive! My friend Beth planted seeds from plants and they all seemed to germinate. She sweetly shared seedlings with me.

This year I bought several cheap packages of seeds from Walmart. One package was supposed to be pink alyssum. It germinated just fine, but instead of being alyssum, it is some variety of tomato! I have planted several of the seedlings and we will see what happens.

kay

Kay, tomato? Could the seeds have been screwed up any worse? lol.
Tammy

I don't see how, Tammy. At first I kept trying to imagine what flower they had put in by mistake, but it was soon evident that it was tomato.
kay

At least they made it interesting.
Tammy

Man, I'm still laughing about the tomato bit! can you imagine if some newbie gardener sprinkled them around in their front yard and kept watering them and ended up with a row of tomato plants? At least you knew what they were. Of course, maybe they'll flower like alyssum and you'll find out they are a freaky hybrid.

ooh these plants are so pretty. I have not tried to start them from seed but I found this site that sells the actual plants!

Here is a link that might be useful: PowWow Echinacea Plants

I put transplants in last fall and have seeds to start in another week or so. I'll let you know how they fare.

My seedlings never got over about 4" tall. It looked healthy enough tho, so I hope they come back up this yr and bloom. Got my fingers crossed.
Tammy