Pls8xx, "One thing that has been on my mind the last few weeks is how important it is to me that a zinnia have a short compact plant form. I grow in a sand/clay mix rather than topsoil. It will hold plants upright fine when dry, but when wet the soil looses its strength and the tall plants become vulnerable to wind knocking them over." You have made a good case that you do need zinnias with a more compact plant habit. Last year, we had a very violent storm with high winds of 50mph and it blew down literally dozens of my zinnias. I had concrete re-bar tomato cages around a few of my more critical "breeders" and they were protected. But many of my big zinnia plants snapped off at the ground and many more lost their basal branches and some lateral branches. Interestingly, some of my big bushy scabiosa flowered zinnias and most of those F1s with a "scabi" parent came through just fine, with amazing resistance to the high winds. As is usual in a high wind storm here, for a period of hours we lost our electrical power, our telephone land line, and our cable connection. I studied the wreckage in my zinnia patch to see "what went wrong" structurally with my zinnias. As is usual for me, there were some surprises. I plan to apply what I learned from my "crash investigation" to make better decisions about plant structure this year. For one thing, I had planted a lot of Burpeeanas, from both Burpee and from Stokes. I had a lot of "out of the seed packet" Burpeeanas and some F1 hybrids from crosses that I made between Burpeeanas. (Incidentally, your picture of the "original" red Burpeeanas shows just how nice that Burpeeana bushy look can be.) To my amazement, some of the most disastrous structural failures were in my Burpeeanas. They have what I refer to as a "candelabra" stem structure, with basal branches coming out from the main stem at a 90 degree angle. Even though the stems look thick and strong, there is a kind of "joint" at the attachment point. Some of the basal branches that were in contact with the soil had actually sprouted roots and were apparently in the process of becoming independent plants. It's almost as if the stem joint was "willing" to detach from the main stem. But even higher up, those branches that cantilevered out from the main stem at a 90-degree angle seemed inherently weak. In almost all cases, the branches broke at their attachment points to the main stem. The plants that seemed resistant to branches breaking off had their branches leaving the main stem at a much more acute angle, like 45 or even 30°. So their branches were headed upward at the attachment point. For whatever reason, those branches seemed much better attached, even if the plant habit was more generally upward than outward. Despite the fragility of the Burpeeana plants in high winds, I plan to continue growing them and selecting the best flowers and plants. I will just be looking for stronger attachment points for their branches. If you want to emphasize compactness in your zinnia breeding, you can start with some strains that are already compact and cross some other zinnias with them. I personally have quit crossing the lower growing zinnias because I don't like kneeling and bending over to do my cross pollinating. I've always had a tendency toward lower back pain from my gardening, and a lot of bending over just aggravates it. However, short zinnias are interesting looking and fascinating in crosses, so I am thinking about constructing some really high raised beds that might bring those short zinnias up to a more comfortable working distance. There are some short zinnias that you can cross with tall zinnias that will produce some intermediate compact F1 hybrids, and the F2s from them should sort out into a wide range of plants that you could pick from for further breeding. Three of the shortest are the Thumbelina zinnia, the Zinnita zinnia, and Zinnia Short Stuff. Here is another view of Short Stuff and here is another seed source: Short Stuff at New England seed. Some taller but still very compact zinnias are Zinnia Swizzle cherry and ivory, Zinnia Swizzle scarlet and yellow, Zinnia Dreamland hybrids, Zinnia Magellan mix, and I just found that Zinnia Peter Pan mix is apparently still available. By crossing some of those compact zinnias with other zinnias you should have the basis for creating several new strains of compact zinnias, with various degrees of compactness. MM

I've never seen anyone who could keep KBG "100%" green during the hottest time of summer with just water, bestlawn. Of course, you are right, as I suggested, that fertilizing bluegrass in the heat is not recommended. But, if you want to maximize how green it stays in hot weather, that is what you would do. And, like I said, trying to keep your bluegrass as green as possible during the high heat periods is probably worse for the overall health of the grass than just letting it get a little bit more brown. There is a difference between keeping it adequately watered, which in my experience will result in some brown (like the pictures) and letting it get so dry it goes into true dormancy. Even just applying extra water to try do do so is likely to lead to fungus and/or disease problems for most folks that could be avoided by sticking to moderate watering and some browning. I think the advice to follow the golden rule of moderation applies here too. Try to keep it looking like a show yard in the hottest time of the summer is going to require too much water and too much fertilizer for the long term benefit of the grass, even if you succeed to some extent. Of course, there are probably places around where it doesn't get hot enough to get to that kind of problem and choices - but most of us aren't that lucky!

Well that is sounding encouraging. I winter sowed them last year and had great germination and potted up seven individual plants, so I am trying to figure out what to do with them. The only place I have enough sun for them is in the front of the house and I have been wondering if they are going to be a little too wild or messy there. It is in an open location that wouldn't be sheltered. I was trying to think of something to plant them with that would complement them and tame their effect a little, but the color is throwing me off. I rarely work with that color. Photos I have seen, look quite orange to me rather than a coral or an apricot. Of course, we all know how different the real life color can be sometimes too. To use that color, I am thinking I have to keep all pinks out of the bed and I'm not sure I would even like a yellow with it. Purples or blues, maybe violets? I am not feeling very creative lately but I need to get these in the ground soon. [g] The winter/spring rosettes sound attractive. Thank you both for the input. :-) pm2

There's nothing quite as cool-looking(temperaturewise) as BLUE flowers. I grew Phacelia a few years ago, best blue i ever saw, next to cornflowers. The bell-shaped blue flowers with icy-white anthers were beautiful, and stirred up images of cooler weather. They do have a short bloom time, hot weather just about stops the show, cutting back helps somewhat. Give 'em a try, i believe there are 2 or 3 varieties. Good luck, and enjoy.