A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 flowering itself to death???

I had a two-year-old chamomile plant that was doing very well. It is a container plant and had four stalks which were producing flowers. It produced, in two months time, approximately 50-75 flowers- all of an extraordinarily generous size and with a potent smell, flavor, and good, healthy color . I was only harvesting a max of 1/3 of the flowers at a time, and out of all that was produced, i only got 3-4 dud flowers. Then it suddenly stopped producing flowers, the leaves fell off, and it gradually shrivelled up and dried out (except for the very bottom of the stem where it meets with the roots- that part was hollow, squishy, and brownish-yellow :p ) There are still strong and what seem to be healthy roots in the soil where it seperated from the dead plant matter, and a few sprouts coming up. Is this normal for German Chamomile?? Or is there something wrong with the soil/roots/etc..? I cannot seem to find enough information to answer this question.
Thanks~

hello, German chammomile is actually an annual type, so you really did well keeping it going that long. You could collect some seeds from some of the flowers you harvested and start a new batch if you like. The seeds are tiny, almost dust like, and need some light to germinate. Good luck...

Hi. Thank you for your response. I crushed a few of the flower heads and planted them under a light sprinkling of dirt. I will keep them moist and they have plenty of sunlight, so hopefully they will do as well as their parents. And thank you by the way, you are now the second person who said I did well to keep them alive for so long and producing as much as they did. Silly me, I knew they were annuals when I first got them, but after a time, I just let it slip my mind... maybe better for the Chamomile though....
Thank you,
tempest