Are you looking to enhance your backyard ecosystem with more native plants, like echinacea?

One of the flowers I delight in seeing in my garden as I walk by it daily is echinacea. Its pretty pink blooms rise tall, and are a favorite of mine to add a pop of texture to my flower bouquets.

Echinacea’s benefits go far beyond just aesthetics, though. Purple coneflowers attract pollinators, such as bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. The seed heads feed birds in the fall and into the winter. They’re a surefire way to support biodiversity in your backyard.

Its medicinal properties have been cherished for centuries, making it an essential component of an herbalist’s apothecary.

Isn’t echinacea a self-seeder?

A self-seeder is a plant that can naturally disperse its seeds. They essentially sow their own sseeds, and new plants will grow without human intervention.

Despite its reputation as a prolific self-seeder, gardeners often find that Echinacea seeds can be elusive. Factors like weather or local wildlife might carry them away, making it hard to grow a thriving population.

Saving your own seeds will help you to ensure that you can expand your echinacea plant population in your garden to better support your local environment.

Over the years, I’ve navigated the ups and downs of seed saving, and I’m here to share my tried-and-true techniques.

Let me share how you can harvest your own purple coneflower seeds following the best practices. In this way, you can be sure to have great germination results next spring!

These tips can also be applied to Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia), Blanket flower (Gaillardia), and other members of the aster family.

Already have your echinacea seeds and are looking for tips on how to get them to germinate? Check out my Step-by-Step Guide to Growing Purple Coneflower from Seed.

The more Echinacea we plant, the richer our ecosystems become. Let’s dive into seed saving best practices to help nurture your local habitat sustainably.

Two essential things to know about saving seeds from Purple Coneflower (echinacea):

What do Purple Coneflower Seeds Look Like?

Problem: Saving the wrong parts of the seed head

Solution: Look in the center of the seed head for the cone-shaped (thus, coneflower?) tan-colored seeds. They are hollow on the inside. The long, needle-like material that is along the outside of the echinacea seed head is not seed!

Why your Purple Coneflower Seeds Aren’t Germinating

Problem: You saved seeds from your Purple Coneflower plant last year, and now they aren’t germinating.

Issues: No cross-pollination or cold stratification

Solutions: Purple coneflower seeds need cross-pollination in order to produce viable seed - this means you need more than 1 purple coneflower plant in your garden when you’re saving seeds; Seeds also need to be cold-stratified for 21 days before planting.

Harvesting Techniques: Visual Guide to Collect Purple Coneflower Seeds

When it comes to collecting echinacea seeds, there are several techniques that work well.

Step 1: Identify the Right Time for Harvesting

Here’s how I can tell when echinacea seeds are ready to be harvested:

• Seed heads have fully lost their petals or any remaining petals are dried and lack their pink/purple color
• Seed heads are totally brown, with no orange coloration on tops
• Seed heads are very dry and crumble easily
• Seeds have no green on them and are moderately dry
• Seeds are not totally brown and fully dry
• In most climates, seeds will mature mid-autumn, towards the end of October and into November.

Step 2: Gather the Necessary Tools

You’ll need:

• paper bag of any size to dry the seed heads
• scissors to cut the plant stems
• gloves if you have sensitive skin (the seed heads are kind of sharp)
• small envelopes for storing seed

Step 3: Harvest the Mature Seed Heads

Here’s my technique for collecting seeds from the purple coneflower plant:

• Pick a sunny day to harvest the seed heads, so that there is no moisture on the plants
• Cut the stem of the purple coneflower around 4-6 inches below the seed head
• Place the stems with seed heads into your paper bag
• Make sure that the plant materials aren’t crowded in your paper bag

Step 4: Dry the Seed Heads

I have an area in my pantry where I can hang plants, herbs, and seeds to dry in order to preserve them.

• To properly dry the seed heads so you prevent mold and ensure seed viability, put some small holes in your paper bag
• Hang your bag in a dry spot that is well-ventilated
• Let your seed heads fully dry out here, for around 2 weeks
• Alternative: You can also lay out your  seed heads on a drying rack in a well-ventilated area, if you don’t have a paper bag.

Step 5: Extract the Seeds

The spiky seed heads don’t bother me, but they can be sharp and cause discomfort to your fingertips. Wear gloves if you like!

• To extract seeds from the dried seed heads, simply open up the seed heads from the center. Do this over a plate or paper towel
• The dried seeds should fall out easily
• Carefully separate the chaff from the actual seeds - see my photo below for a close up of what the seeds look like
• I personally don’t worry about any additional plant material that is stuck to the seeds, but you may wish to separate any debris before storage.

Step 7: Store the Seeds

I like to use paper envelopes to store my seeds, and then for extra protection, I place the envelopes into small plastic containers meant for storing photos (a system I learned from a few youtube gardeners).

• To store your seeds properly, be sure to keep them in a cool, dark, and dry spot
• Small envelopes are a great idea, but you can also store large quantities of seed in small glass jars
• Some people store seeds in small zip-loc bags - with this method, it’s especially important to make sure your seeds are 100% dry, as the plastic bag can collect condensation and form mold

→ Pro tip: Don’t forget to label your seeds! Write down the date harvested, variety, and even location in the garden where you harvested your seeds from. Future you will thank you for this tiny act of organization!

Step 9: Test Seed Viability

Seed viability refers to the ability of a seed to germinate and grow into a healthy plant. Germination rate is the percentage of seeds that successfully sprout when you plant them, which helps you understand the quality and potential success of the seeds.

• If you like, you can test the viability of your seeds before planting with a germination test
• From here, you can see what your rate of germination is - if you planted 10 seeds and 9 of them germinated, then you have a 90% germination rate

How to germinate purple coneflower

Here’s what a research paper from Seed Technology shared about best practices for Echinacea germination:

Cold Stratification (Chilling)

Cold stratification is a process where seeds are exposed to cold, damp conditions to simulate winter, helping to break their dormancy and encouraging germination. During this time, the seeds are "thinking" it's winter and preparing to sprout once it warms up.

1. Gather Your Seeds: Start with your echinacea seeds, making sure they’re clean and dry.
2. Moistening the Seeds: Lightly moisten the seeds. You don’t want them soaking wet, just damp. You can do this by wrapping them in a damp paper towel.
3. Bag It Up: Place the damp paper towel with the seeds inside a plastic zip-lock bag. This helps to keep the moisture in.
4. Chilling Process with Refrigeration: Put the bag in the refrigerator (not the freezer) for about 10 days. Set your fridge to around 40°F, which mimics the cold conditions they need to break dormancy.
5. Post-Chilling Planting: After the chilling period, take the seeds out and plant them in your seed cells indoors under grow lights.

This method helps "wake up" the seeds from dormancy and increase the chances that they’ll sprout and grow into strong plants.

Light + Seeds:

Some light exposure to the seeds, especially for Echinacea angustifolia, can also help with germination rates, according to another study published in HortScience.

→ Learn more about growing Purple Coneflower from seed for further details.

Why bother saving your own seeds?

So you might be thinking - is it really worth it? Why not just buy a new packet of seeds? Here are some thoughts that might just change your mind.

Cost-Effectiveness
When you save seeds, you also save money. You can turn one packet of seeds into years of blooms without spending a dime more.

Preservation of Plant Traits
Saving seeds from your healthiest coneflowers means best traits are passed on, whether it's a resistance to soil conditions that aren’t ideal, or number of blooming stems per plant. Over generations, these plants become uniquely suited to your garden's specific conditions.

Personal Satisfaction and Engagement
There's something deeply satisfying about seeing a plant grow from a seed you saved.

Environmental Impact
By choosing to save seeds, you reduce reliance on commercial seed producers, which can have significant ecological footprints. Each seed saved is a step towards a more sustainable garden and a healthier planet.

→ In essence, saving your own seeds helps you cultivate a connection with nature, contribute to biodiversity, and embrace sustainable practices. Next time you're in the garden, consider the potential resting in each seed pod – it might just be the start of something beautiful and deeply beneficial for your landscape.

Environmental Considerations: Leave Some for the Birds

Echinacea seeds are a great food source for birds, especially in the autumn and winter when other food sources are scarce. Leave some seed heads behind so that the birds can enjoy them, and know that you are providing a biodiversity boost right in your own backyard.

Troubleshooting Tips + Tricks

Make sure you’re saving seeds from an heirloom variety.

Heirloom varieties are traditional plants that are open-pollinated and not modified by modern breeding techniques, such as hybridization.

• Here's what Xerces Society says about echinacea hybrids:“Many of these cultivars are sterile and have no benefit to pollinators.”
• Not only do these plants not benefit the ecosystem in the same way as their native progenitors, but their seeds often won’t germinate for you, given that they are sterile and can’t be pollinated.

Don’t use pesticides in your garden

• Bees, butterflies, and other insects that contribute to seed production by pollinating flowers.
• They facilitate the fertilization process, ensuring seeds are viable and healthy for saving.
• Certain pesticides harm the insect population, meaning that your seeds will have low germination rates due to not being pollinated.

What Science Says: Echinacea angustifolia relies heavily on pollination for viable seed production, according to this study published in the International Journal of Plant Sciences.

Stuart Wagenius, author of the study and a plant conservationist with the Chicago Botanic Garden and head of The Echinacea Project, offers this piece of advice: Look at the styles of the flowers, which receive the pollen. They stay visible longer if the plant has not been pollinated. Wagenius says, “an individual style emerges receptive and withers within 24 h following deposition of compatible pollen. If no pollen arrives, the style persists up to 10 d.”

Make sure you have more than 1 mature Echinacea plant growing in your garden for proper seed pollination:

• Wagenius also notes that Echinacea angustifolia usually can’t pollinate itself - it needs another plant in order to properly set seed

Don’t worry if your plants don’t flower in their first year

• I see many folks getting discouraged by their purple coneflower plants, thinking that something is wrong if they don’t flower in their first year
• This is totally normal! Echinacea will usually form a leaf rosette in its first year, and then send up a flowering stalk in its second year
• This is also referred to as basal leaves, which makes sense as they grow on the base of the plant
• In some situations, purple coneflower might bloom in its first year if you sow the seeds very early in the year and you have a long growing season

Alternative to Seed Saving: Division

If your echinacea plants are at least 4 years old, you can dig them up and divide them.

This is actually beneficial to the plants. According to Plant Delights, you can extend the lifespan of your coneflower plant by dividing the plant cluster that they form every 4 years. In the wild, echinacea plants can live for 40 years!

It’s best to do this in the spring or fall.

Save Seeds, Save Money, Save the Planet

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of seeing echinacea bloom, knowing that you’ve nurtured it from seed to flower! Each seed you save is a promise of future blooms and a more biodiverse backyard.

→ Check out my visual guide to Purple Coneflower Germination for more information on this native plant!

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