Zenman,
That tubular is magnificent! My zinnias all sprouted by now- the Giants sprouted in 3 days. We had a heat wave- the heat index was 104 F. Is that why they sprouted so fast?

Hi Goclon,

"That tubular is magnificent!"

It thanks you for the compliment. Unfortunately, it won't be looking so good after I split its petals to access its stigmas for pollination.

"...the Giants sprouted in 3 days. We had a heat wave- the heat index was 104 F. Is that why they sprouted so fast? "

Yes, zinnias come up faster in higher temperatures. It wasn't so much the heat index as it was the actual temperature of the zinnia seed itself and, of course, moisture.

Zinnias have been known to germinate in just one day. I have had two-day germination on a number of occasions. I like it that zinnias are fast germinators and fast growers. Keep us informed about your zinnia activities. And post pictures when you can.

ZM

My breeding operation is in open ground. I start in coir, than move to open ground. I have a combination of open ground and pot zinnias. I have some very large pots! I am hoping to breed bonsai miniature zinnias, as well as bonsai sunflowers! Yes, you are indeed correct. Southern California is a great place for breeding zinnias. Are the petal seeds more likely to have the interesting crosses? I am on the cusp of getting several more blooms! I will post pictures, but only have one thumblina and another kind, maybe cut and come again but not sure, but the florets have not opened up on that one yet. I finally have blooms and am so excited! I should be getting more blooms soon! I have about 50 to 60 zinnias from various kinds, and the second generation will be only my seeds, third generation I will cross with more commercial seeds. I am in Orange County, CA, in Huntington Beach. I'm thinking I'll sow again in November, and hopefully that will go okay! It very rarely gets below 40 degrees. I think our average for winter nights is like 47. I'm thinking they might survive! Zinnias tend to wait for heat,If not, I'll sow from the saved seeds again in February.

Zone 10, that is my hardiness zone if that helps.

Hi Veggie,

"I start in coir, than move to open ground."

You can save a lot of money on coir by planting your zinnia seeds directly in open ground and sprinkling the seed bed until they emerge.

"I am hoping to breed bonsai miniature zinnias"

That is very doable. Include more Thumbelinas in your breeding program. They start flowering at about 3 inches and their plant becomes a mound about 6 inches high.

"Are the petal seeds more likely to have the interesting crosses?"

The petal seeds are almost always the only ones that can be crossed, because the petals have the stigmas, which are the female part that accepts the pollen from the chosen male pollen donor plant. The floret seeds are almost always selfed by internal transfer of pollen from an anther bundle concealed in the tube of the "fuzzy yellow starfish" floret. The florets also have a stigma, but as it emerges it serves to push pollen from the internal anther bundle out into the open and almost always becomes fertilized by that same pollen in the process.

"I will post pictures, but only have one thumblina and another kind, maybe cut and come again but not sure."

Use that Thumbelina as much as you can, because it is all that you have right now that would contribute to a small bonsai miniature strain.

With your climate, you could probably plant some more zinnias now, and possibly for the next few weeks as well, with the expectancy of being able to cross pollinate and save seeds from them. If you do plant some more zinnias soon, pick some of the dwarf varieties like Magellan and Dreamland and Zinnita and Short Stuff. And more Thumbelinas. Crossing Thumbelinas with tall zinnias usually creates dwarf hybrids, but you have only one Thumbelina to work with right now. Maybe it will produce a lot of pollen. If so, use it.

ZM

I'm not really going to try to create too much in the bonsai strain, but I will see what I get. I am very excited as i think I have some white wedding blooms coming up. Even my cut and come again is not that tall. The thumbalina is the only bloom I have right now and even my other zinnias are not that tall. What I like about the thumblina is the amount of blooms you get. I grew the variety before and got a three foot tall plant covered in blooms. I only two blooms, but should have half a dozen by this time next week, including what I think is a white wedding, and what might be a zowie as well. One of my jazzy zinnias has a ton of buds as well! Both of my blooms are pink. If it is white wedding that blooms I am really going to aggressively cross that with everything. The bud has started to open and is very white. The bud is also huge for a container zinnia. I am going to enrich my soil to get larger zinnias, but seriously, one of my marigolds is a foot and a half tall and hasn't bloomed.

ZM,

That magenta zinnia is gorgeous! That type of bloom has to be one of the goals you are striving for in the tubulars.
The color is very nice, too. Well, you have the photo of it, and for now that is enough as you continue on to apply pollen to it. Does that plant have many buds? I guess you will try to make a perennial of that one!

I am planning to cross-pollinate that little yellow tubular flower as much as possible...but there are very few stigmas that have not yet been pollinated. I expect that some self-pollination went on before I discovered it..so I am anxiously waiting for more flowers from that plant. Also I am using some of that pollen and applying it to the extreme rolls. The little pink semi-tubular scabious flower that I had produced a number of seeds which I have already harvested. I am cross-pollinating the extreme rolls as much as I can. I would really like to get away from that prevalent purple color, so as new flowers come out, I will cross-pollinate with flowers of another color and cross the offspring of those in the future. I know if you were a next door neighbor, you would be a great source of advice....and maybe a pollinator, too, LOL....it would be nice to have that zinnia patch of yours next door, too.....it would be interesting to see what all you are growing there ;-).

Here are some of the flowers today:

{{gwi:12517}}

{{gwi:12518}}

This one is a relaxed version of the white flower I showed earlier, and from a different plant.

{{gwi:12520}}

JG

Veggieswirl,

Have you seen the Zinnia haageana flowers? You might enjoy working with those, too. They tend to be shorter, with some very interesting patterns...here is a shot of some of them that I picked from my garden today, in a miniature vase:

{{gwi:12522}}

These are called 'Persian Carpet.'

JG

This post was edited by jackier_gardener on Sat, Jul 13, 13 at 16:36

JG,

Your extreme rolls are all kinds of breath-taking. That first one is my favorite, because its petals are so slim and you can "see through" the bloom.

Maybe Persian Carpet genes explain your unique extreme roll phenotype. Incidentally, Veggie mentioned that she has Jazzy, which is an improved form of Persian Carpet. Persian Carpet is now in the category of "heirloom", which means the seed growers aren't so careful in roguing them. Aztec Sunset is a dwarf form of Persian Carpet. This is one of my indoor Aztec Sunsets from a few years ago.

{{gwi:1839}}
I was going to try to cross it with my regular zinnias, but never got the pollen to take, either way. There is a big difference between the size of the florets and the stigmas between the two species. And possibly in the pollen grains, as well. Next year I plan to get some kind of microscope to support my gardening studies. Hopefully one that I can take pictures through. More later.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

This post was edited by zenman on Sat, Jul 13, 13 at 23:40

That Aztec zinnia looks green- is it like that or is it my screen? Anyway, it would be interesting to see it in Z.elegans.

Hi Goclon,

It's not your screen. The picture does have a bluish cast (the pot and the label in it were white plastic) because the illumination was from cool white (6500K) fluorescent lights. The petals were tipped lemon yellow, which is a rather cool yellow and the bluish light made them look greenish.

There are several green petaled strains of Z. elegans, and the greens are a bit different from one strain to another. I haven't grown Benary's Giant Lime, so I can't comment on its color. I have grown the heirloom zinnia Envy, and it is a little too green for my taste. I have also grown the Tequila Lime and so far it is my favorite green.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

This post was edited by zenman on Sat, Jul 13, 13 at 23:45

I am working with zinnia haagena and have a very lovely plant with several buds in a pot. No blooms though! I should get several soon. I have the jazzy mix and have about three or four plants, with one that should bloom soon!

ZM,
I am also going to try to get the pollen to take on the Jazzys to my other zinnias, but we will see how that goes! I get a lot of help pollinating. I am also hybridizing pumpkins and sunflowers, and I get so many bees! I don't even pollinate my pumpkin/gourds, because there are always bees in them. Big sunflowers with pollen are the favorites of bees. When I had my Chianti sunflower, the first flower of the season bloom, I saw a bee on it and felt bad because it is a pollenless variety, however, I am hybridizing it with pollen varieties. I am going to cross pollinate myself, but... there are a lot of insects to help!

Hi!

Veggieswirl, please do post some pictures of your 'Jazzy' zinnias. I would love to see how they are different than the 'Persian Carpets.' Somehow I missed them in the catalog this year. You've got an enviable situation with your long growing season!

Love looking at everyone's photos!

ZM, I don't think the rolled trait could come from the Zinnia haageanas. I've never seen anything among them for petal shape other than the flat, slightly curved look. They are fascinating because of all the patterns the different plants show in their flowers. And also, the very dark colors and color contrasts they have that other zinnias don't.

One thing that my rolled flowers seem to have in common are the purple-backed petals...sometimes I wonder if that trait isn't linked to rolled petals.

{{gwi:12525}}

{{gwi:12527}}

{{gwi:12528}}

{{gwi:12530}}

JG

No jazzy blooms yet. I am in zone 10. When the jazzys bloom I will post! I just took a picture of one of my white weddings, and I will post it sometime today or tomorrow. One thing I have noticed with my jazzy plants, and I have about 5, is that the leaves are a different shape. I hope they cross with my others!

This was my first zinnia bloom of the season. Pink. I have had a few since then and will post more picture later! The zowie is barely opening, as is the white wedding. I think it was Zenman that suggested this, but I dug, and put plant food in, and just went nuts, and hopefully didn't get too close to the watermelon and cantoloupe, but... I planted 40 to 50 more seeds, so I should have a founding generation of hopefully 80 to 100 plants. I plan on leaving the nest in about a year, and that will suck because I will not have a place to garden likely, but, on the bright side I should be on zinnia generation three or four. I guess I will take full advantage of the likely year round growing conditions I have. Hopefully the coldest nights will not kill the zinnias. I am zone 10. The coldest it gets is high 30s every 3 or 4 years, but usually the coldest nights are closer to 45, with very little frost. The zinnias should survive if grown in the ground!

JG,

" I don't think the rolled trait could come from the Zinnia haageanas. I've never seen anything among them for petal shape other than the flat, slightly curved look."

I have to agree, I have never seen anything like your rolled petals in the Haageanas. I haven't seen anything like your extreme rolls anywhere. Some Whirligigs have rolled petals, but nothing extreme. So the origin of the extreme rolls will remain a mystery, at least for the time being.

Your white extreme rolled specimen is splendid. I have been hoping l would get a white tubular. So far no pure white, but I do have some light colored ones, like this one.

{{gwi:12532}}
I have some successive plantings that haven't bloomed yet, so I still have hope for a white tubular this year. More later.

ZM

Those tubulars and extreme rolls are magnificent Jackie and Zenman! I wonder what I will have blooming a year from now when I move out of my parents house! I just have commercial seeds for now. Hopefully I will get interesting stuff. I am debating when I should start generation 2- November or February/January when they are more likely to survive, but we will see. Might be worth it to plant November seeds. I will probably plant the floret seeds, so if they die they will be just the floret seeds and not the prized petal crosses. I have had two day zinnia sprouts now. I love how the packet says 7 to 10 days. I am growing mine in full sun and planted them Sunday. One packet says 3 to 10 days and that is more accurate. I have about 45 to 50 plants well beyond seedlinghood, and directly sowed some large amount of seeds recently- Maybe between 50 to 100 but have a lot of space. I cull some plants, so while I had 60, I culled a few, and some died. so I have 45 to 50 beyond seedling hood. I planted whirligigs, cactus, and peppermint stick over the past few days, and maybe about 15 to 35 of each, along with some random commercial seeds.

This post was edited by veggieswirl on Tue, Jul 16, 13 at 21:22

Hello everyone. Just wanted to share one of my own that I particularly enjoy:
{{gwi:12534}}

"If you introduced some whirligigs, some scabious, some cactus, and some Benary zinnias in your garden one year, let them cross freely and gather the seeds for next year, you would be astounded at all the combinations you would see! "
That is precisely what I did, last year. Seems that my local pollinators consciously avoided any of the flowers that I thought were interesting, and much prefer the plain pink ones. Kinda humorous when you think about it. I started a few years ago with only a single purple zinnia and far more yellow, orange, red, and ended up with entirely pink now. That's how it goes sometimes.

Hello!

ZM, the light-colored tubular flower is nice, and even shows some toothiness in the petals. It looks like it is going to be a full one, too, when it has finally opened up. It will be pretty! You must have been doing a lot of cross-pollination to get all the colors you have in the tubulars. What was the color of your original tubular flower?

Veggie, save your seeds this year. You will have lots of recombinants from this year's garden. Even if you move to a place where you don't have room for a garden, you can continue your hobby at a student or community garden. That's what I did when I had no gardening space where I lived.

Telescody, I remember that I grew flowers several years in a row without adding new commercial seeds to my mix, and I got predominately purple. I've noticed through the years that the biggest and most seeds come from the purple zinnias, so I can't help but wonder if certain pollinator populations prefer certain colors of flowers. Maybe the name Zinnia violacea that's used in place of Zinnia elegans sometimes has some significance. Does your pink flower have patches of white in it? What else do you have there?

I don't have any rolled flowers to show that look different than ones I've shown before, but I will mention here that some are going to be very full! Here are pictures of my two biggest zinnia patches this year. The first one is all from seeds I saved from previous seasons except for maybe 1/5 of the whole patch, and the second photo are flowers all grown from commercial seeds.

{{gwi:12535}}

{{gwi:12537}}

JG

How much time, in a matter of weeks, passes between blooming and collecting the seed? I find myself preparing a large pot to plant my zowie, and either Envy or White wedding petal seeds that are about to bloom. I have some kind of beautiful purple opening up too. I'm hoping they'll be ready to plant by early August because they could probably grow through to about mid December if not through Christmas or even later!

JG,

" What was the color of your original tubular flower?"

My original tubular was a nice pure red. But I crossed it with many different zinnias, including some that had white parents. I just haven't gotten a pure white tubular yet, but I think that recombinations in zinnias that are coming along to bloom later this month or next could still produce a pure white tubular this year.

"...the light-colored tubular flower is nice, and even shows some toothiness in the petals."

Yes, there are toothies in the tubular mix, and I took this picture today of a tubular with definite toothy traits. I am quite pleased with this specimen, and it is a priority breeder.

{{gwi:12538}}
I hope to go further in this direction, with even more teeth and longer teeth in the tubular flared petal end. I also want longer petal tubes.

I haven't made any direct crosses between my toothy specimens and my tubulars yet, so I am currently depending on recombinations from parents that had toothy heritage. I hope to make some direct crosses between toothies and tubulars this year. I think that zinnias can "do" a flower form like the Centaurea montana that I pictured several messages above. I won't be too surprised if this quest also yields some other interesting zinnia flower forms. More later.

ZM

Hi Veggie,

"How much time, in a matter of weeks, passes between blooming and collecting the seed?"

If you use Jackie's technique of saving green seeds, about three weeks. If you use the "conventional" method of waiting for the zinnia seedheads to turn brown, five weeks or so. Jackie's method is far and away the best way, because it helps avoid seed-stealing birds and seed damage by a wet rainy spell, which can cause zinnia seeds to germinate in the seedheads.

When you are shucking the seeds from a brown seedhead and you find brown seeds with little brown roots sticking out, you can be sure that those seeds were good at one time, but that now they are dead.

ZM

Okay link me to Jackie's technique! I'm eager to plant generation 2!

Hi Veggie,

"Okay link me to Jackie's technique! I'm eager to plant generation 2!"

OK, if you are eager to plant the next generation as soon as possible, you will be using something a bit more complicated. Jackie's technique applies to saving green seeds and drying them for storage, as if they were regular brown mature seeds.

If you pick a zinnia's green seeds and plant them immediately, they are slow to come up (two or three weeks) because their green seed coat is still alive and impervious to water. It takes quite a while for the seed coat to die and become pervious to water. So you need to open the green seed coat in some way so that water can quickly get to the embryo and stimulate its prompt germination.

First, you will need to learn to distinguish the difference between a viable green seed that contains a living embryo, and one that does not contain a living embryo, to avoid wasting time working on an empty green seed. This picture shows the difference. Notice that the petals are still alive and have color.

{{gwi:1020}}
Basically, a viable green seed is "fat" and "heavy", because an embryo has volume and mass. You will need something like an X-Acto knife or a scalpel to "operate" on the green seed to breach its seed coat in some way, to allow water to get to the embryo. A few ways are shown in this picture.

{{gwi:12539}}
There is a learning curve, but with a little practice this will go quite easily. You plant the breached green seed about a quarter inch deep, just like you would a regular zinnia seed. Keep the seed bed moist and the seedlings should emerge in two or three days.

You may noticed that one of the embryos in that last picture was "nearly naked". Actually, it is not too difficult to remove the embryos from the seedcoats and plant embryos instead of seeds. This picture shows a group of green seeds selected for embryo extraction.

{{gwi:12540}}
And this picture shows the embryos extracted from the green seed coats, ready for immediate planting.

{{gwi:12541}}
The embryos are the white things. The removed seed coats are green and black. I have planted as many as two trays of embryos at a time. You treat the embryos the same as if they were seeds, except you are a little more gentle with them. You don't want to knock off that little pointed root tip.

I usually add a little Physan 20 to the water that I water the embryos with, to kill any bacteria that might want to attack them. I don't know that that is necessary. I just do it because I usually have some Physan 20 handy. Physan 20 is necessary for rooting zinnia cuttings, to keep them from rotting.

ZM

I have a technique that I will try on my own, and see if it works. One of my zowie heads was kind of dying due to an insect nibbling at the stem so I just pulled it off and am drying it, should be ready soon to plant. I'm basically dead heading and drying the heads in a dry place, similar to how you dry sunflower seed heads. This works with my marigolds. In other news, a beautiful butterfly just visited my zinnia containers and nectared. It had to be there for like three or four minutes going from flower to flower! The dead plants in the background are my sunflowers. The zinnias it is nectaring from are my pink thumbalinas, and as you can see, I have many blooms! Feel free to help me identify it! I usually just get cabbage whites and a bunch of skippers, so I like the unusual and pretty ones!

This post was edited by veggieswirl on Thu, Jul 18, 13 at 18:05

Hi everyone,

Veggie, your technique should work fine as long as the flowerhead is mature and has those fat green seeds in it that ZM described. If it hadn't been around long before you cut it off, it may be that the seeds weren't ready yet, or, only the seeds closest to the base of the bloom were mature. Interested to see how your method works! I think that butterfly you saw (really pretty!) may be a Gulf Fritillary.

ZM, your toothy flower is nice! You are quickly making progress with your line. That one looks like it has some scabious zinnia in it.

Well, I don't have anything so unique to show ;-(, just another Extreme Roll, and purple, of course.

{{gwi:12542}}

JG

Thanks! I definitely thought it was one of those brush footed butterflies! The following link is my go-to for butterfly IDs- http://nathistoc.bio.uci.edu/lepidopt/
Also- good work! You're no where near SoCal right? This butterfly is not native to the midwest I don't think!
Additionally, I have dead-headed an additional zinnia bloom and am drying it. This particular bloom bloomed about a week ago, so the seeds should be ready to plant next week! The zowie opened up three or four days ago. When I saw your technique that Zenman likes to use, and saw what it required, I was like, I should just try what works with the marigolds sometimes! I just kind of stumbled upon this particular technique and am eager to see if it works!

This post was edited by veggieswirl on Thu, Jul 18, 13 at 20:35

Hi all,

I did do some direct tubular-on-toothy pollination on this toothy specimen today.

{{gwi:12543}}
This is another of my current tubular blooms. It, and some others like it, remind me of strawberries.

{{gwi:12544}}
And this is another of my light colored tubular blooms.

{{gwi:12545}}
It was very hot here today, and we seriously need some rain. The farmers harvested the wheat in the surrounding fields today, and wheat chaff was flying in the air.

When I was getting tubular pollen today I noticed a number of very small black ants in some of the tubular flower heads. I think they must be getting some of the zinnia nectar. I don't think they are aphid herders, because I didn't see any aphids. I did find one of those ants inside a floret that I was gathering.

Previously I had seen one of those small black ants entering and emerging from one of the tubular petals. I am beginning to wonder if those small black ants could be accidentally pollinating some of the enclosed tubular petal stigmas. More later.

ZM

I had a two toned white and purple bloom today! Awesome! Thanks to Burpee and Botanical Interests, I have a bunch of pink seeds, so I am only going to plant none- pinks for my subsequent generations. Reds, two toned purples, jazzys. Enough with the pink!

This is one of two of my favorite zinnia flowers so far! Definitely saving seeds here!

Here is my other favorite, saving seeds here as well!

Veggie,

Is that last zinnia a bit greenish, or is that just the lighting? I have been meaning to grow and cross-pollinate some green zinnias, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

ZM

No, it's greenish. I think the lighting makes it look less green than it actually is. I planted some envy, and this might be envy!
Edit: The picture is pretty accurate to the green, it's not too green, but green!

This post was edited by veggieswirl on Sat, Jul 20, 13 at 16:00

Veggie,

Since you planted some Envy, I think we can assume it is Envy. Now the question is, what will you get if you cross that greenish zinnia with other colors?

ZM

I will be aggressively crossing. Especially with that first one I posted. So hopefully I can get two tone with green as one of the tones! That will be one of my breeding treasures. I will carefully mark the envelope those seeds are in! Also, I think the petals are kind of rolled on that one as well!

This post was edited by veggieswirl on Sat, Jul 20, 13 at 23:00

Hi!

We've had some extremely hot, high humidity weather here that has made it very hard to get out in the garden for more than 1/2 hour at a time. Yesterday, though, we were lucky to get 3/4 inch of rain which helped immensely. I was afraid that we were heading for a summer drought.

ZM, that very toothy flower you have will definitely be a good parent along with your tubular flowers. You are pretty bold in making outcrosses. I should follow your example and be a little more risky with my crosses. I am always thinking that I should be very careful in retaining the extreme roll line so I do a lot of selfing. I think this year though, I have to work in more colors. For the most part, the really colorful flowers I get with the roll have been done by insects. This year I have a lot of the rolled flowers so I will be a little more experimental with the crosses. I have a good number of plants with the following phenotype:

{{gwi:12546}}

I wish these plants would produce more pollen, but I will be happy to try and self a few plants while the rest I will outcross.

Off-type recombinants often look like the following:

{{gwi:12547}}

{{gwi:12548}}

For once, I got a white one:

{{gwi:12549}}

Some of the seed packs this year for cactus flowers produced the following, for example:

{{gwi:12550}}

{{gwi:12551}}

Veggie, can't wait to see what your crosses produce! Those flowers you have now are just beginning to open. Wait until they are fully mature! The green zinnias are always fun to see. I think they are close relatives to the Benary zinnias as they show a lot of rolling in their petals. Some breeders have crossed green and red zinnias to get 'Queen Red Lime' hybrid zinnias-- the possibililities of those kinds of crosses are interesting!

Your butterfly reminded me a little of several fritillaries I have seen this summer here in Indiana, but it wasn't the same--so when I looked under fritillaries in my butterfly book, there it was!

JG

Veggie,

" Also, I think the petals are kind of rolled on that one as well!"

Those petals do have some uproll. However, I have been trying to match Jackie's extreme uproll, with no success. It is not at all uncommon for a zinnia to show you what looks like a lot of uproll when the bloom is first opening, like this one, for instance.

{{gwi:12553}}
In just two days those petals have become very ordinary, and that specimen is scheduled for being culled. But I think you can get some unusual results by crossing your green zinnia with other colors. I have got to grow some greens and cross them.

ZM

JG,

That first picture is the return of the hyper extreme uproll !!! That thing is more than spectacular. It could be the predecessor of a future successful new commercial zinnia strain. That thing would be so amazing in a full range of colors.

By all means get a viable seed at the end of each of those petals, by selfing or crossing in other less uprolled colors, or even by crossing in different colors of large flowered zinnias. And use every grain of its pollen somewhere.

My experience with crossing the tubulars and getting a whole generation of non-tubular F1s, followed by an F2 generation in which the tubulars popped back in many different ways, could very well apply to your hyper uprolls. Just get those things labelled and "pregnant". I get so excited every time I see one of your pictures of them.

ZM

JG,
Those medusa zinnias are beautiful! I sincerely hope my zinnias turn out like those! Where did you get those seeds?

Wow we should be started another thread soon! Um...Hazzard's and Stokes were the Whirligigs you recommended, and I want larger zinnias as well as shorter ones. I know you are not associated with any vendors or seed exchanges, but recommend a few! My petals have remained in that uproll. Many zinnias when opening have that, but this one seemed to keep the uproll. The petals are kind of curled still. Nothing has changed from the picture. So I kind of have curled petals, not quite a roll but curled petals! I have a white zinnia that just opened as well! This is getting really exciting!

You schedule your cullings? I just pull up plants if there are issues like the plant is dying cos the dog trampled it. I got my envy from Burpee, but not from the catalog, from Target. I think I'm going to stick to a few commercial strains for next year, than start seed exchange seeds. I want certain traits!

Veggie,

"You schedule your cullings?"

Not formally, but I don't always pull a cull immediately. Sometimes I want to see it develop more. And I usually notice some zinnias that have developed enough to qualify for culling early in the morning, but don't pull them then because they are still wet from rain or dew or sprinkling.

I cull later in the day when the zinnias have dried out. I don't like to handle wet zinnias, because it could spread disease. And pulling wet zinnias is kind of messy. I filled a black contractor bag with culls today. You are right, it is about time to start a new thread.

ZM

JG,
"Does your pink flower have patches of white in it? What else do you have there?"
It doesn't seem to have patches of white, just the side effect of poor growing conditions. As for what is what, last year I grew a huge mixture. I think I had Zahara Coral, Big Red, Giant Flowered Mixed, Envy, Candy Cane, Thumbelina, and some kind of white zinnia seed, plus my own from previous years. As you've mentioned, I can definitely see some traits from before. Here's a picture of my little raised bed, with zinnias growing between peppers.
{{gwi:12555}}
They're all pink except possibly the one in the foreground, which appears to be yellow with an orange center. I'm really hoping that it is yellow, because the only yellow flowers that I had last year were from my very first zinnia plant, which was yellow, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. That's not to say that the flower couldn't have gotten the yellow from elsewhere, but I'd like to imagine it came from my plant. I'm eagerly keeping an eye on that one.
Also, JG, the latest zinnias that you posted are absolutely gorgeous. I'm guessing it's your camera, but they all have a very pleasant soft glow to them.

ZM, nice explanation about the seeds. That's a good solid technique. I have experimented with germinating embryos as well and can confirm that they do behave like you've described, coming up much sooner because of the seed husk. I'm more of an indoor growing person myself, and I'm going to grow zinnias this winter. I may experiment with some odd techniques to see what could happen, like intentionally bending the stems and shaping the plant, cutting liberally and watching what comes of it. I will keep everyone updated for sure.
Here's a "Common Buckeye" butterfly sipping some nectar on this hot day:
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How many zinnias are needed for a good breeding program? I don't have that many. I have a founding generation of about 50 to 70 plants.

veggieswirl, I'd say the minimum is a single zinnia. You can get some weird results by selfing the plant, and the offspring could be different from the parent. Then you can cross the parent with the offspring or the offspring together, or self one of them... at that point you're looking at 2-3 plants. So realistically you could carry on some meaningful crosses with two plants. You won't see the huge differences like if you planted 2,000 plants, but there's something there. I personally handle around 5-30, while JG or ZM may handle in the hundreds. Here's a couple pages that I found interesting: [link 1] [link 2]. If those go offline, just search "Mendel's peas" for some neat stuff.

You folks trump me so bad it isn't funny but I would like to post a few pictures that novices like me encounter. I do love my zinnia's, within 60 yrs I plan to be like zenman :) lol

Anyways... pink through pink.... I was hoping this zinnia would be taller but I probably crowded too much..

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and of course a benary's giant

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you folks inspire. thanks for looking..

South Country Guy- your garden looks like mine! Crowded! With Marigolds! I just had to cull a zinnia today because it was too crowded and wilted and died. I have some zinnias just mysteriously die. It sucks! One of my jazzys is dying!

Veggie, fortunately most of my zinnia's are "inside" the border and have free reign. I hoped the pink zinnia would pop out of the lavatera but I was wrong...I am saving seed and although many years behind I will be trying.

Hi all,

I agree with Veggie that it is about time to open a new part to this series of message threads, so see you all over at It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 22.

ZM