Update 1

4 days after the first shot, I took a new pix of the only one that's worth mentioning so far (click on the pix to enlarge). I still have several dozens coming into bloom, but the ones that are opened have been either creamy white that fades fast to white or peachy pink that turns pink very fast as well. I plan to save the seeds of this one and see what will happen in the next generation.

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Laurier
My web site

Update 2

At last, something other than white or pink is showing up. First, the double pink one has evolved after another 4 days. The cone is almost completely covered with small "flowerettes" as seen in the pix below (click on it to see a larger image). Must be tasty beause the bugs have eaten part of it. The plant is around 2 feet high. If I remember well, this plant is a seed from "Razzmatazz".

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Then a nice orange one is blooming. Many petals on a smaller flower. The plant is almost 4 feet high.

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And then, a nice true yellow is blooming. Like the orange one, many petals on a smaller flower. The plant is almost 3 feet high.

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Again, unless I'm mistaking, these 2 plants are seeds from "Art's Pride" AKA as "Orange Meadowbrite", a cross between Purpurea Alba x Paradoxa and it seems to be a very good parent so far. I had very few seeds, aound 25, but 4 plants out of this lot so far have shown signs of being somewhat different. They are generally taller than most, which may be a "bad" side of the resulting crosses.

Hope you enjoy!

Laurier
My web site

Update 3

Only 2 days after the previous update, there are enough changes to have a 3rd update. The double pink is almost at its peak and this is the last time I post a pix of it. It looks more and more similar to Razzmatazz except that the flowerettes are much shorter and they take much more time to completely open:

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The orange one is getting better as it ages. It has improved quite a bit in only 2 days and it seems to really be color fast, the petal count is much more than usually seen. Here are 2 pix of 2 different blooms on the same plant. The top one is a younger bloom than the bottom one:

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Finally, the same could be said of the clear yellow one, much improvement in only 2 days:

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Others are coming up really well, yellow ones, orange ones and one seems to have a strange color combination of yellow, pink and orange. The flower is still much too young to really tell what the final result will be, but that's the only one so far to show this strange color combination upon opening.

Enjoy!

Laurier
My web site

Update 4

I found 2 more plants that are different from what is usually seen. One of them is pink, but contrary to the neat and straight petals that we usually see, this one has "neglecta" style petals: going in different direction and some are slightly twisted.

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The other one I mentioned in my last post that it had pink yellow and orange showing as it was opening. It is now fully open and it has the look of a peach skin to it.

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There is one that is coming up and it has the look of Double Decker, but it seems that the second deck is starting much lower. I have 4-5 more orange ones coming up too, they are clear orange no other color overtones, like the yellow one but orange in color.

In closing, my web site is being translated in English, several pages are already available, but be aware that this is a work in progress, it is not finished yet, some links are not yet active and others still lead to French pages (mostly picture pages). There is a big button "English version" at the top right of the pages. Click on it to get to and continue with the English version.

Laurier
My web site

Hi Laurier,

So you just grow them close to one another and let the bee do the work? How far apart are they?

Thanks,
Dave

Hi Dave,

The plants from which the seeds were taken are very close to one another, in a space of 5m x 3m (15' x 10'). The plants pictured here are a lot closer, there are about 75 plants in a space about the same size the mother plants are in. When and if it ever stops raining, I'll have more pix because the color of the 2 orange ones and the peach skin one has changed quite a bit, darker, more saturated, more towards the reds. Yes, I'll sure save the seeds from the plants pictured here! This week end, I'll also start to remove many that I wont keep, at least 2 dozens!

This spring, I put out some 100 plants more, bee's made as well, but from different cultivars (see first post above). With the results I'm getting with the first set, I'm very eager to see what I'll get with this second batch. OK, there may not be any plant worth to be introduced to the market (really?...), but I do have fun watching the plants bloom and see how different they are from their parents and their brothers and sisters. (:

Laurier

Update 5

Well, the plant with orange flowers with some reddish overtones has changed a great deal, it is now more red than orange or some kind of reddish burnt orange, you be the judge, see the picture below:

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That's the last picture of the above plant that I'll post since it is not changing any more now. And then I found somtehing else worth mentioning: a huge flower, 17 cm across (that's almost 7 inches if I'm right?). The petals are not drooping, they are flat across. I know I haven't seen every thing there are to see, but I certainly have never seen such a big bloom in any cone flower before:

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I still have a couple more plants that I'm watching, the one I mentioned before that seems to have a second deck and another one that is clear orange with no overtone that is completely quilled... up to now... time will tell what it will be, let me hope that it stays that way. (:

Laurier
My web site

Update 6 and final

At least 80% of last year's hybrids are in bloom, so there are no more surprises to be expected I guess. So, for this last post about the 2007 batch, here is the completely quilled petal one. As we can see by the pollen on the cone, it wont evolve much more from now on. We'll see next year if this one is still quilled though.

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I have some 7 or 8 that are clear orange. I wont post pix since they are so very similar the the one already pictured. The one that was showing a second deck look very similar to DoubleDecker, so I wont post a pix of this one either.

Now, I'm hoping that several plants from the 2008 batch will put up some flowers in September or so. Since they are from different parents than the 2007 batch, there sure will be some different results as well.

Laurier
My web site

Update 1 for the 2008 batch

Well folks, there is something new. The above posts were about the seeds I collected in the Fall of 2006 and that I started in the Spring of 2007. The seeds that I collected in the Fall of 2007 and that I started this Spring of 2008 are starting to show their distinctive caracteristics. So, I'll start posting what's new in that field in the following weeks.

Some 30 seeds were from a cultivar known as "Sparkler" (can be seen on my site in the echinaceas' page and elsewhere on the web). It is a low growing plant with nice non drooping pink petals. What makes it diffrent from the rest is that it has a variegated foliage. It is not a nice variegation since the plant look more like a sick plant than a variegated plant. Up until recently, no seedling showed any kind of variegation, but most seedling were showing a slightly lighter green foliage than the usual cone flowers. One plant with about 8-9 leaves is now showing variegation on half of the leaves, and to me, it is much better looking than its mother. See for yourself, the variegations are circled in red on the 4 leaves that have them:

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Several plants out of the 100 plants or so now have buds showing, It will probably be at least a couple of weeks before we seen any flowers, but the variegated plant will be under close watch to see what will happen to it.

Laurier
My web site

Laurier - I like your plants very much. Great job. I'm just glad I'm not the only one planting so many seeds!

Laurier- These are really nice flowers!I love the colors and all the petals!The pink double looks a lot like my pink shuttles echinacea!Keep the pictures coming!You should patent these !Thanks for sharing! Tony

Well thanks Tony. For now, I've grown the plants started in 2007 to this year to see what they would look like when grown as more mature plants. This fall, I selected around 20 plant out of 100 or so that I had so I could see them for another year to better evaluate them in 2009 so as to keep only the very best ones.

The ones that were started this Spring are about done for now, not very many have bloomed. Here is the last picture for this year. It is a seed from "Coconut Lime", a plant doesn't seem to set seeds very easily. Last year, I only had this one seed that proves to be very similar to the mother plant. This year I havested some 50 seeds only out of some 15 flowers. {{gwi:995506}}De Divers

The plants from Sparkler, a variagated leaves cultivar are very big, but out of some 60 plants I started this Spring, so far only one has shown some variegation and of a better type than the mother plant. {{gwi:995507}}De Divers
{{gwi:995508}}De Divers

This story will continue next year!

Laurier
My web site