mmqchdygg, "Are these too good to be true?" The Will Rogers zinnias are an old variety that is described as 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Their blooms could very well fall in that range. If the Park's Big Red Hybrids are truly 6 inch blooms, they might be worth the price. I wonder if they are an F1 hybrid, or simply of hybrid origin. If you are looking for a 2-3 foot zinnia with a white mate, you might want to consider the Benary's Giants or Blue Points. Those may be synonyms for the same strain of cut flowers, and I think that Park's Picks are another name for the same strain. The Benary's Giants/Park's Picks/Blue Points come in several good separate colors, including red and white. Hopefully their Deep Red meets your desire for "Not scarlet, not cherry...RED" because Johnny's is out of stock on their Crimson. However, you might still be able to find Benary's Giant Crimson at Hazzard's or some other seed source. "I've had some that fall over. They're going in a front bed, so I don't want any drunkards in there." Unfortunately the Benary's Giants/Park's Picks/Blue Points were bred to be good commercial cut flowers, so their plants do tend to be on the tall side, and tall zinnias are susceptible to falling over from high winds or running dogs. You can improve their plant habit by planting them farther apart and pinching out at least the central flower bud to force branching. ZM

HZ, "I had never used PhotoBucket because I understood that I would need a digital camera, and then I had been told by our librarian that I could not bring the card from a camera here to use on the computer because "that is how viruses destroy everything that our county has tried to provide". Let's see what I've learned without destroying anything:" Apparently your phone takes some very small pictures. The picture you have linked to is only 160 x 120 pixels. That is not very big. I experimented with increasing your picture size some but, as you can see, the result is rather blurry. There isn't a lot of image detail in a 160 x 120 pixel picture. Does your phone have an option to take larger pictures? I'm not criticizing your phone pictures. Please, do continue to share them. But since you are a gardener who appreciates flowers, in my opinion you would enjoy an entry level digital camera. And, when you get your own computer, you would enjoy an entry level picture editor, like Adobe Photoshop Elements. In the meantime, your phone and the library computer seem like an excellent enhancement to your ability to communicate about your zinnias. Your flower does seem to have become a bicolor, or was a bicolor to start with. The effect looks good. Actually, with that petal shape and the light color at the base of the petals, your zinnia kind of reminds me of a rose. Do you happen to know what variety of zinnia it is? I have to wonder why your librarian thinks your phone pictures might somehow transmit a virus to the library computer. I don't know anything about computer viruses, but I never heard of one starting in a phone picture. But our digital world does have its marvels, so maybe it would be possible, somehow. MM

Hi mantis__oh, " I liked the Benary's Wine and Coral. " Are there any other zinnia varieties that you liked? "It is a considerable waste of space to plant something that turns out to be not as pictured or a weak grower." I agree with that. However, as an amateur zinnia breeder, I do plant a lot of hand hybridized F1 and F2 hybrid zinnias that I know in advance I am going to cull a lot of them. Also, I will plant commercial zinnia varieties with the expectance that they will vary a lot and I will use pollen from or save seeds from only a few of the very best. If you choose to save seeds from your zinnias for use next year, it just makes sense to save seeds from only the best ones. And the following year, you will be saving seeds from the best of the best, and so on. You can make a lot of progress doing that. "...or a weak grower." There are zinnias that are just defective in that regard, but I have a big zinnia garden and sometimes some of my zinnias get neglected by me and I don't take the best care of them, and an inhospitable environment can make them seem to be a weak grower, when if I took really good care of them, they would flourish. If a zinnia appears to be "special" I designate it as a breeder, put a coded tag on it, and take better care of it than the ones I just keep for the butterflies and hummingbirds. There are several ways to improve your care of a zinnia that most people don't do. ZM This post was edited by zenman on Thu, Aug 14, 14 at 13:45

Hiya Larry and everyone, GREAT pics! I've been admiring a lot of prickly pear fruit these days too. It's amazing what variety there is! So nice to see. I'm embarassed to say I've never tried desert zinnia though I always admire it when I see it. How has yours done long term and what conditions do you give it?? I do do blackfoot daisy which isn't a zinnia of course, but creates a similar visual effect. Below is another of my zinnia zinnias (Z. elegans). I made a small bouquet of several different colors this morning just to enjoy indoors too. I planted some narrow leaf zinnias (Z. angustifolia) around an orange tree that I grew from seed and they've done pretty well but are battling spider mites, ugh, which are not molesting the hybrid zinnias at all. In any case, below is another pic of one of the zinnias around my baby grapefruit trees--it's fun to plant a mix of seeds and see what colors come up. Pic is embedded at at the link below. Take care all and keep the pics coming, Larry, great stuff. Grant Here is a link that might be useful: Pinkish purple zinnia out in the garden--so easy!