This is my first year sowing Zinnias directly too. In the past I put them into little peat pellets, let them grow a couple weeks and then put them out. They where always magnificent, the envy of the neighbourhood! Then, last year we where selling the house, and I forgot to get them started. Around June, the agent told me that I needed more "colour" in the garden, so off to the nursery I went to buy my sure fire Zinnias, already started for me! I spent a fortune on them, they where in 4 or 5 inch pots, and almost 8 inches high when I planted them and the result was... PITIFUL! Those poor flowers struggled and clumg for dear life the whole growing season! So, I have become a big believer that direct sown, or sown very closely after germinating is indeed best! since you have so many seeds, I would perhaps throw down some seed when you think you "might" get away with it. but hold some back for the next few weeks, and overseed... This way if frost does get the first bunch, you will have more to try! I have not adivce for birds, but if the seed is burried or raked in, chances are I would think they would leave it alone. As for frost, my mother lives in a zone 1. (Yeah, not a typo). The thing all the old ladies do with their plants, because they do manage to grow things in those 50-75 days they can... is throw a blanket over anything that is frost sensitive for the night if the weather threatens. They all keep a stack of "garden blankets" handy. It is very easy then to cover large areas, quickly, with little fussing! And has worked with excellent results for as long as they can remember!

Ken, For a variety of reasons your zinnias have gotten off to a rather bad start. You probably started them too soon for what you intended to do. You can set zinnias into deeper soil, and roots can start from buried stems. Their growing conditions must have been very much not to their liking, because I have had indoor zinnias bloom as early as 5 weeks from when I planted them. I grow my zinnias under bright fluorescent lights with at least 16 hours of light per day. Zinnias don't get enough light on a window sill, and not enough day length. I start my zinnias in 3-inch square pots: If they are going to be inside for several weeks, I repot them to 5-inch square pots, and they can bloom in that size of pot. Actually, they can bloom in a 3-inch pot, but that is a rather sad sight of a zinnia being abused. ZM

mnwsgal, "Will they have time to bloom if I start some in the ground now?" Yes, even in your Zone 4, because zinnias will bloom in 6 to 8 weeks from sown seeds. You probably even have time to order some seeds online to sow in the next couple of weeks. I have been very pleased with the Whirligig zinnias from Stokes. Although I pretty much like all zinnias. ZM

Hi Patricia, "I'm in south west Louisiana zone 9, when do I plant? If you tell anything about the last frost or anything of sorts I'll still be lost." OK. We will try to come up with some actual planting date recommendations. But we will have to take into account your average climate frost dates. Zinnias are killed by frost, so we have to take that into account. Really, every gardener needs to be aware of the odds of a safe no-frost date in the Spring, and the odds of a killing frost date in the Fall. Notice that I used the word "odds" because, as we all know, Weather is not a certain thing. That uncertainty means that farmers and gardeners can't avoid gambling with the Weather. But any good gambler has a knowledge of the probabilities involved, and that holds true for gardeners. Fortunately, weather data has been gathered for well over a century in many areas, and that data has been used to compile the probabilities that you need to place your gardening bets. This is a link to the Freeze/Frost Data for the state of Louisiana. (I think there is one for every state.) If you click on it, that document will open in a new window. With a little window juggling, you can keep that document and this page readable, or you can just flip back and forth between the two windows. Notice that the data applies to specific locations in Louisiana. If you are at one of those locations, then fine, you can use that data. I live out in a rural area several miles from Ottawa in Kansas, so I have to interpolate between the two nearest locations here in Kansas that have weather data, one of which is Ottawa. That is fairly easy, because the data varies by only a few days from one place to the other. You can deal with probability numbers very precisely mathematically, even though they remain measures of uncertainty. I don't know if your location is listed in the table, but for the sake of argument, let's say that you are in or near Lake Charles. LAKE CHARLES AP appears in the table, so we will use that data as an example. There are numbers in parenthesis (1) (2) (3) (4) in the table headings that refer to these notes at the bottom of the table. Notes: (1) Probability of later date in spring (thru Jul 31) than indicated. (2) Probability of earlier date in fall (beginning Aug 1) than indicated. (3) Probability of longer than indicated freeze free period. (4) Probability of Freeze/Frost in the yearly period (percent of days with temperatures at or below the threshold temperature). We are interested in the safe frost free date in the Spring, so we will be looking at the Spring column data. The data is given for three air temperature values, 36, 32, and 28. A light frost can occur at an air temperature of 36 by radiative cooling. In other words you can get frost on your car windshield even though the air temperature is slightly above freezing. The tips of tender plant leaves can also be damaged by 36 F. The 32 refers to the actual freezing point of ice, in which ice can form on the surface of exposed shallow water, and tender plants will lose their leaves. The 28 F refers to a hard killing freeze, in which tender plants will be blackened and killed to the ground. We will take the middle ground, and use the 32 F data on which to base our outdoor zinnia planting data. That is a mere judgement call based on how much risk you are willing to take. So for Lake Charles airport, we have the dates Jan 24, Feb 19, and Mar 16 in the columns 90, 50, and 10. According to Note 1, this means that the probability of a frost occurring after Jan 24 is 90%, the probability of a frost occurring after Feb 19 is 50%, and the probability of a frost occurring after Mar 16 is 10%. That Mar 16 date is the least risky frost-free date, so I am going to use it and a month later would be April 16, so based on all that, April 16 would be the date I would use for planting my zinnias inground in the Lake Charles area. In case you don't want to plant your zinnias at the Lake Charles airport (and who does?), you might want to look at some other locations in the table. I hope your head isn't hurting by this time, but if it is, "no pain, no gain". My zinnia seeds are hand selected and hand pollinated by me, so I tend to plant them on the safer dates. But if you had some zinnia seeds that you are willing to take a long-shot gamble on, you could use the 90-percent-probability-of-frost-after date (10 percent chance of safety) of Jan 24 in the Lake Charles example, and plant zinnia seeds on Feb 24, knowing that you are doing a very risky thing. The Winter Sowing people would say that is OK, and I have had volunteer zinnias come up after a spending the Winter in frozen garden soil. So cold won't necessarily kill a dormant zinnia seed. But a hard freeze will kill a zinnia seedling. And zinnia seeds need warm soil for good germination. If you have any questions about any of this, just ask. It is kind of hard to "get your head around" those weather data tables. But they can be a good guide in figuring out how much risk you are taking. As an alternative, ask an expert at a local garden store. If Louisiana has the equivalent of county agents, they could be of help. ZM