Fran, maybe I'm just lucky with zinnias, maybe it's our hot humid weather, I don't know. But I've always had good luck with zins, even direct sowing before WSing. This year has been tough on so many things, but the zins have been spectacular.

I'm sure the seed quality has something to do with it, and soil quality, and I water like crazy until they're well established. After that they seem to take a little drought pretty well. While I use HOS on most things, I do sow and plant zins separately because the seeds are just so big and easy to work with. And now I only use minimal organic or earth friendly fertilizers and have lots of worms. I guess they fertilize and till for me.

Karen

I don;t know what I did that was so special. I got 2 or 3 different varieties of Zinnia seeds from a dollar store for only 10 cents each. And I got a good germination rate. And I planted them out into a new bed that we had added some compost and some potting soil. And now they are up and bushy and tall almost as tall as me 5'1. But now I do realize that I planted them a little bit to close. I can barely make out the purple coneflowers or the roses behind the zinnias.

But after the way they turned out I will be doing more zinnias this winter for next year I just have to find a better place for them to go. Which I already have in mind.

Paula

Gees, I don't know.
Did you check your soil?
Can you post a pic?

Hi Fran- Being just north of you, maybe we might have some similarities, so I'll try to help a little, although this is only my second year with them.

All of my beds are amended with a SERIOUS amount of cow-manure-based-compost. (Old manure, obviously.) The smaller beds that I have around the yard are 'instant' beds with the compost layer on top.

I learned last year that cutting them is good for bloom, so I start early by cutting off the not-so-pretty first blooms. It kills me, but I know they'll do better for it. Then they start branching. Although I don't grow them for cutting (I grow them for the HBs & BFs), I do take a little snip to the patch every now & again.

I plant them pretty close together...I'd say 3-4" apart for a good show. Mulch well.

I have had good luck with the taller varieties, as well as the "Starlight" mix, which is 10" I think. This year I have Red and Scarlet (which, by the way, are just slightly different in color if you're making a 'red' bed...you'll want to mix them rather than put them in one patch beside the other...mine looks just 'off' a little. 'Nuther lesson learned, I guess)

I cannot say the same for the Tapestry (I think that's the name- they are Livingston brand, and are orange/white mix), nor the Profusions, which are doing very poorly, as well as the Pinwheels. Something's eating them, I think. Also, I don't think I was cut out for container gardening, because the ones in there are also pathetic (Canary).

All get minimal watering, simply because I just don't have the time, but Ma Nature seems to take good care of that.

That's about it. I don't fertilize anything in my yard (except tomatoes).

Next year, I think I'm going to rip out an entire section of perennials and plant zinnias, just because they are just SO nice, and last so very long.

Good luck!

I can have problems with powdery mildew on zinniaa. A few years back I started giving them some systemic rose care food, it helps to deter diseases in roses, but it seems to work for all my mildew-prone flowers, like zinnia, monarda and balsam.

Fran,

My Zinnias usually look WAY better than they do this year, but I'll tell you what I've done in the past.

1. One thing that I think really goes well by them is I cut them. I'm always using Zinnias for cut flowers, and the plants LOVE it. They branch out and bush out like nobody's business when I do that.

2. I've planted them close together. For example, I'll plant three to four of the Elegans type in a 12in circumference.

3. If I see a flower that's starting to pop up its middle, I pinch it. It's starting to go to seed when it does that, and I don't want to take the energy away from the plant. Towards the end of the season (which seems to be October for my WS Zinns), I let them go to seed so I can collect.

This year, I still have seedlings that don't look so good. The recent heat and rain, and an extra feeding of fertilizer, seems to be helping them a bit, but some of them are still WAY behind where they usually are this time of year.
-- when it seemed I wasn't getting any action out of the Zins mid June, I direct sowed some Lilliput, intermixed them with the seedlings I transplanted in a front bed. They took off. So I am going to probably hold a little seed back next year and do the same, if it seems like its going to be an erratic season.
But after 3 years of WSing, I'm not used to my Zinnias being solemn performers...they are usually at the top of the list of the greats.
Here's the mix of DS Lilliputs & WS Thumbelinas:
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Linda

Every single one of my zinnia plants was devoured by slugs this year at the seeding stage.

Here is one thing I had to learn the hard way...don't be afraid to cut them and make sure you are cutting all the way down to the end of the stem for that flower when you do. It's hard....sometimes you want to leave the flower in the garden because it is pretty (I have this same issue with snaps!) but if you don't cut them, they don't rev up. i usually give an open bloom a day or two of admiration in the grden and then cut it and admire it inside!

The more you cut, the more you get, at least from the big Elegans variety I've planted.

Nan, I've just got to do that. I have enormous purple giants - almost 6 feet tall - and lots of others and I KNOW I should be cutting them. But...it's....so....hard! It really goes against my grain.

Mommyandme, I understand that one well. Last year we had flooding rains and I lost 55 zinnia seedlings and 35 dahlia seedlings all to slugs. Nothing I could do about it either cause they where either in a yard turned swimming pool or a mud pit that looked and felt more like quick sand.

Our weather has been really bizzare all spring and summer. Either really cold in June, the heat went on a couple of times until mid June with the thermostat set at 62 or it was drop dead heat and humidity. For the last month it's been a couple of days of horrible heat and humidity or it gets really cool again. Rain fall has been at a premium until today. Not even a thunderstorm all summer.

So I need to go out and cut what I do have and maybe that will make them fill out and look better. Will do that one tomorrow.

Not sure what kinds they are as the seeds where from trades and they aren't blooming what they where labeled.
I did have one zinnia pinwheel that bloomed a very small flower and was only about 2 inches tall. then it got a trip across the lawn in the mouth of a chipmunk.
{{gwi:400366}}

The rest look like these plants or they haven't bloomed yet. some where supposed to be 3 feet tall, others short.
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Fran

Fran -- Every single one of those flowers you showed above needs to be picked off where it meets the next set of leaves or the stem. It's as if they aren't quite sure what to do except set seed until that flower comes off. As soon as it's gone, they will take off, primarily because they are currently busy setting seed, but you wnt them to throw more flowers. I think you'll find you have much better flower production if you don't let your flowers get so far along in seed prodection until mid-September.

When they are seedlings, before they flower, I mean, and if I can bear it, I nip the tips off as soon as they get their 3rd set of true leaves. It is terribly difficult because, if nothing else, I want to see what color they're going to be!

Lime

Ditto what Lime said.
"...3. If I see a flower that's starting to pop up its middle, I pinch it. It's starting to go to seed when it does that, and I don't want to take the energy away from the plant."
And this year, the Zinns need all the energy into leafing out as possible.
Some of mine look like yours. They are just starting to get healthier looking.
In my area, I think Zinns are a whole month and a half behind (and that's not an exaggeration). --But their doing better than Petunias. Of the Petunias I planted out two months ago, the tallest is three inches. Crazy.

Linda

{{gwi:360836}}

I love lime green zinnias and the others here are from a Parks free packet of Pastel shade ones.
I always like to plant them close, actually now they are a jungle. They get morning sun and late afternoon sun. This bed was spread with dry molasses, cornmeal, diamectious (sp) earth and I used osmocote 14-14-14 over that I put down a thin layer of mulch. When all my plants have at least 4 true leaves I spray them with fish emulsion, that really seems to fortify them. I spray again about 4 weeks after the first foilage spray. I also plant them in the direction of the prefailing winds I think it might help with any powery mildew. I pick the first flowers and they really seem to take off then
Hope that helps

Busy, those zinnias are beautiful.

OK, outside working in the gardens. Cut the zinnias off, put the flowers in a vase. There appears to be a bit of branching on 2 of them now.

Nest year, will pinch them early, fertilize early, cut off the first blooms and plant them much closer together.

Now if only I could figure out a way to have mother nature cooperate too. Things like, warmer weather in June, no flooding rains in May and June that bring the slugs.

Thanks for the help.

Fran

busylizzy your zinnias are beautiful. I papertoweled my profusion zinnias to get a quick germination and then put them in newspaper pots and planted them when they were 2"-3" tall. They stalled for a little bit and now they are fully in bloom. But I also direct sowed a couple taller varieties in pots and they bloomed at least three to four weeks sooner. Go figure. I think direct sow is better. Even though my profusion were in paper pots, they still didn't like it. Also, I found that putting the plants in pots (tighter spaces) made them bloom sooner than the ones in the open yard space. Anybody experience the same?

My white Zinnias have about 5 blooms on them right now. I haven't cut any off. After reading this post I guess I need to cut the flowers off. How many should I do?

Cut the first flower to the first branch node is what I do.