- Buy seeds or collect them yourself
- How to collect the seed
- Black-eyed Susanne is sown from February
- tips and tricks
Black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata) is a beautiful climber that can grow up to two meters tall. The perennial plant is usually kept as an annual in this country and sown again in spring. What you need to know about growing Black-eyed Susan from seed.
Black-eyed Suzanne seeds can be easily collected after flowering
Buy seeds or collect them yourself
Various varieties are available on the market, which differ in terms of the color of the flowers. Black-eyed Susans are available filled and unfilled in the following flower colors:
- pure white
- yellow
- orange
- brown orange
It owes its German name to the black dot inside the flower, the "eye", which used to be completely black. There are also new breeds with a green or brown eye or even without an “eye”.
If you have already grown Black-eyed Susans in the garden, you can harvest seeds from the flowers to propagate them and grow new plants yourself next spring.
How to collect the seed
If you want to collect Black-eyed Suzanne seed, do not cut off all the faded flowers. Leave a few blooms to allow seed pods to form in which to ripen the seeds.
The capsules turn dark when the seeds are ripe. You can test the ripeness by pressing open the seed pods. Ripe seeds then pop out. They are round with an indentation and somewhat resemble small bowling balls.
To collect the seed, either put your hand around the seed pods before cutting them off, or place the pods in a plastic bag to keep the seeds from being flung out.
Black-eyed Susanne is sown from February
To grow new plants, the seed is sown on the warm windowsill from February.
The germination time is up to three weeks. The plantlets are then separated and the tips cut off for better branching.
Since black-eyed Susanne is not hardy, she is not allowed to move outside until the end of May.
tips and tricks
The seeds of black-eyed Susanne not only germinate quite slowly, they also germinate very irregularly. Experience has shown that a third of the seed does not sprout. Therefore, collect and sow more seeds for more plants than you will need.