Rudbeckia is a charming perennial, or in some cases annual, flower. But does this delightful yellow flower self-seed? Or will it only spread through root growth?
So, Will Rudbeckia Self Seed?
Yes, Rudbeckia will self-seed, in fact, it is actually quite proficient at it! Just leave the flowers on the plant and allow them to turn to seed. You can then manually shake the plant to knock them off or allow them to fall naturally.
One interesting thing that does occur if you let your rudbeckia self-seed is that the young plants that emerge will often have slightly different flowers to the parent plant.
This happens more or less with different cultivars but it does happen quite often.
What then tends to happen is that over the years you end up with a collection of slightly different rudbeckia forming a beautiful patchwork.
Now some of these images may actually be of different cultivars of rudbeckia, they are just photos I could find as I was writing this article.
This is not meant to be a definitive list of different rudbeckia you can get from self-seeding but more to give you an idea of the slight variations in flowers that can occur.
How Else Does Rudbeckia Spread?
As well as self-seeding Rudbeckia will also spread through root growth. Over the years its roots will grow and spread out further and further.
This makes the plant large and larger as it grows and is what leads to large, bushy, rudbeckia plants.
It is advised to dig and divide your rudbeckia every three years or so. This is good for the health of the plant as if it is left to spread for too long the roots can get crowded and this can actually be detrimental to the health of the plant.
As a nice little bonus you will also be able to plant up the divided part of the plant, and who doesn’t love free plants?