Surprise Red Coreopsis

Two years ago my mom gave me six coreopsis seedlings to start my new flower garden. I have no idea what cultivar they were. They are about 3 feet, yellow petals with red ring in the center. One of the seedlings turned out to be different though. It was mostly red petals with just a thin ring of yellow on the OUTSIDE.

As coreopsis do, these original plants were prolific reseeders. Well this year two of the plants came out with all dark red petals. There is just a bit of yellow striping on the underside of the petals.

I LOVE this "new" coreopsis. I'm going to save seeds but I'm guessing they will revert back to the original color.

Anyone experienced this with coreopsis? Any guess on my probablility of seeing it again??
Sorry for the poor quality of the pic

Thanks in advance

Jennifer

Here is a picture of the "mutant" from last year

Jennifer

Unfortunately there's no way to tell for sure what you're going to get...you've got two factors going on, one is that the red ones wouldn't come true from seed and would give you a mix of things even if you only had red ones planted, and then you've got the additional complication that there was probably some cross-pollination between the red ones and the yellow ones which will further muddy things up. So I'd try and save seeds from both the red ones and the yellow ones that are planted nearby, chances are out of all of those you'll get at least a few interesting combinations.

Thank you for the reply ecrane3!

To make matters more confusing, the coreopsis are new to this spot. I collected seedlings from ALL OVER my yard in the spring and put them in this new bed. So I have no idea what was next to these last year.

I'll try to keep a journal and track these in the future!
Thanks again!
Jennifer

It doesn't matter what was next to them last year, what matters for seed saving this year is what they were next to this year and could have cross-pollinated with. But since these plants are all hybrids and you're not doing anything to prevent "random" cross pollination, you're probably never going to get to the point where you can say for sure what color flowers you're going to get from anything, so it really doesn't matter what's next to what or even whether you know what it's next to, the chances of being able to exactly reproduce something in a predictable fashion are pretty low.

Okay thanks. That's too bad. I'll just have to "remember the year I had the red coreopsis..."

I guess that's one of the things that is so fun about gardening.

Jennifer

Sorry if my response was confusing...you could very well get your red coreopsis again, you're just not going to be able to predict if/when you might get one. It happened randomly once so it could very well happen again. Nothing's for sure with things like this, but I suspect if you keep growing a mix of colors and collecting seeds you'll get all red ones from time to time.

Ah, I see. I probably would get tired of all red anyway. Its much more striking mixed with the yellow and red ones.

Can you take cuttings from coreopsis and propagate that way? They seem a bit whispy to do that.

Jennifer

Last year was the first year I "discovered" red coreopsis. This year I bought a pack of seeds of the dwarf red coreopsis. I'm working on a red and white garden. I winter sowed the seeds and love them. One plant has some yellow in it, but they are definately mostly red. I collect all the seeds from my plants. I will mark these seeds "mostly red". lol.

DEMinPA

Yes, I have seen these dwarf red seeds for sale. But what I have is definitely NOT dwarf!

It will be interesting to see what color your next generation is.

I have another stand of the red and yellow coreopsis a bit further down in the bed. Last night I noticed some new patterns in those blooms. But I was too busy to check it. I'll check them out and take more pics this weekend.

Hi, Jenn, from a former Ann Arborite!

My dog attempted to decimate my 3 new coreopsis plants that I planted for quick color (grrrr......) and so I took some of the pieces that had stem & leaves on them, stuck them in a plant pak left over from other seedlings. I've got them in a shady area and am misting them 2x a day. We'll see if they actually take!

Hi Pagancat,
Please let me know if they take!

I've only done a cutting once, agastache. And I used rooting hormone and babied the heck out of that plant. Its doing great now. But it was more substantial than this type of coreopsis.

Yay Ann Arbor!
Jennifer

Wow, I would love some of those reds in my garden! Really worth harvesting seed from. Holding thumbs!

Elsa

Holding thumbs? Yours, or someone elses? >smile< ...?

Is that a Pretorian turn of phrase, Elsa? It's a new one on me...

I suppose it is a South African phrase, meaning you hope things will turn out the way it is supposed to - in this instance lots of (potentially) red coreopsis seed being harvested. LOL!
I never realized the phrase isn't used internationally..... shows you!

Guess it's similar to when we say we're crossing our fingers!

Yes, ecrane3. LOL!