Brown Eyed Susans

[Kathy in GA]

I have only 6 of them growing in the woods on our property.
How to I capture the seeds? This is a topic i don't know much about.
And what to do with them. I'd like to pot some for sale next year.


Also, I'd like to naturalize them in the yard as well.
Methods, and advice for both please?
Thanks,
Kathy in Ga.:confused:

[Ann B.]

Kathy,

I don't have any Brown Eyed Susans or even Black eyed ones, so I was hoping someone else would answer. Since they didn't, I will make a go of it.

It is best to wait for a dry afternoon to harvest seeds. In the morning, especially in coastal areas, the seed pods are damp and it will be harder to dry them out.

When I harvest seeds, I wait until the seeds are fully formed. Usually, the flower seed head will dry out and turn brown/black. Then the stem will turn brown/black just below the seed head.

At that point, you should be able to easily pull the seed head and all from the stem and place it in a brown paper bag. Repeat this until you have removed all the seed heads that easily pull away from the stem.

Then, in a non-windy area, dump the seed heads into a pan or bucket. One at a time, remove the seeds and the husks, etc, by running your thumb across the base of the seed head. They should fall off easily.

Let the seeds dry really well. It is okay to leave the husks and other material with the seed if it is not easily removed which is sometimes hard with smaller seed. Just make sure the husks as well as the seeds are dry.

Sometimes, there will be a cone or base that they seeds were attached to. Discard this after removing the seeds.

It takes observing and practice to learn to recognise seed because they all look so very different in shape and size and are incapsulized in different ways.

Some seed need light to germinate and some need a cold, damp period call stratification, some require nicking and soaking, so it pays to do a little research on growing the particular plant you want from seed.

Most seed are planted 2 to 4 times their diameter.

Good Luck and Have FUN!

[Kathy in GA]

Thanks Ann,

Infact I'm not sure if they are called brown eyed susan's, or black eyed susan's. But they are brown. So this tells you how little I know about wild flowers.

thank you for the harvesting tips! I don't think that these will need to be stratisfied, since they come back year after year. The first year, I had maybe 5 of them pop up, and then 10, and now we have about 15. Also with more patches of them spread through out the property each year. So it seems that every year we have 5 more than before.

I hope that sowing them into the ground will work just fine. I'm looking gor that naturalizing effect with them. Rather than just having an new area pop up again.

Hopefully sowing them into the ground a few layers will ensure that the seeds will stay put, and become a thicker bed.

Also, I will be using some to plant in containers for sale, if infact I can figure out which part is the seed.
I suppose this will be trial and error.
Thank You,
Kathy in Ga.
:cool:

[Kathy in GA]

Sorry,

I forgot to tell you that I found more! I guess they didn't bloom at the same time, Every few days, I do a walk around all the way around the property, to see if there is anything popping up, or anything that I have missed. I surely don't go into the snakey stuff though. I stick to the trails! Anyway, that is how I have found more of them.
Now lets hope that I can get the seeds from them and get them to grow, as you suggested!

Kathy in Ga.:rolleyes: :)