Hi Chipeony, " I took out seeds from dry flower head last week and found out not only the petal had seeds, there were seeds everywhere. " Yes, you are seeing "seeds everywhere" because the petals are not the only flower part that bears a seed -- the pollen florets (small five-armed fuzzy yellow "starfish") also set seeds, and since they contain both a stigma and an anther bundle (which contains pollen), they can set seeds in the absence of bees. The pollen seeds are always selfed, but the petal seeds receive pollen from a pollen floret, which could be in the same bloom or a bloom on another zinnia. So the petal seeds have the possibility of being hybridized, while the floret seeds do not. " So, which was empty? " If you plant you flower beds by just scattering seeds on the soil and raking them in, you dont need to separate the good seeds individually. If you go to the trouble to plant seeds in rows (I do) then you want to separate out the good seeds and plant them,The empty seeds do not contain a developed embryo, so they can't germinate, and there is no point in wasting your time planting them. But it also takes time to separate out the good seeds, so you might just want to plant the contents of the seed head in your rows and just let the good seeds come up and the remainder rot to improve the soil. I choose to separate out and plant just the good seeds, partly because I am breeding my zinnias and frequently I select the best seeds to plant as an improvement step. Big seeds tend to produce bigger flowers. Longer seeds tend to produce longer petals. With a little experience you will be able to spot the viable seeds visually, but until you get that experience you will need to detect the embryo-containing seeds by feel. If you pinch the seed gently, you can tell by feel in your finger tips that it contains something. If you gently try to bend a seed, it will resist being bent if it contains an embryo. Use a limited amount of bending force, because you can break an embryo, and that will most likely kill it. Each seed, empty or viable, is accompanied by a chaffy scale, and they contribute "chaff" to the mix of viable seeds and unviable seeds. The chaffy scales look more like thin paper-like structures, and not a seed, so you probably won't confuse the chaffy scales with seeds. I separate out my good seeds from a head by pulling the head apart over a sheet of white typing paper under a bright desk lamp (or near bright fluorescent lights). The Zinnia elegans that I grow have considerably bigger heavier seeds than the Zinnia marylandicas have. so my seed sorting task is easier than yours. That is one of the minor reasons I prefer Z. elegans for my breeding hobby. But the main reason I don't grow the Marylandicas (Profusions, Zaharas, Pinwheels) is that they can't cross successfully with the Zinnia elegans (violaceas). Another reason is that the plants and flowers of the Profusions, Pinwheels, and Zaharas are much smaller than the zinnias I grow. I prefer bigger flowers and bigger plants. ZM

You can choose to continue your behavior without change, or you can reflect on the fact that our species has made it for >40k years among poisonous plants, and somehow despite the ubiquitous danger, our population has burgeoned all over the surface of the planet and survived to the year 2009. Even while cultivating butterfly bush as a specimen plant, which attracts stinging insects. Nonetheless, unless something has changed and we suddenly are unique and cannot look to the past for instruction, we are still, today, able to give our kids some credit for having innate genetic adaptations to listen to authority figures and to learn basic knowledge about things that may be harmful. And children may find the fine flowers of clematis beautiful and inspiring, and choose to play with the seed heads and create amazing worlds in their heads, just from a beautiful flower. Dan

Consider buying a good two wheeler. A good two wheeler is built way heavier than a lawn mower. They will stand up for years of brush mowing. I have similar setup as you in Florida--i.e 6 acres with 2 horses and a pony. If you set up a good rotation you could easily do 1 acres every week. It would take 1-2 hours to do depending on how fast you want to pace yourself with the mower I listed below. That would be all you really need to do for pasture maintainance. I brush hog my horse pastures about every 6 weeks. Keeps the weeds at bay and makes the grass grow thicker. If you have bahia grass like I do, I wold not recomend a 2500 lawn mower for this. It would not last for more than 2-3 seasons mowing this. The two wheeler I listed below is made of way thicker metal and built to withstand the abuse you get from pasture mowing. Some people will think I'm nuts for recomending a walk behind machine for 6 acres, but keep in mind, this is not a lawn and will not require mowing every week like a lawn. You can break up the mowing into sections. Now the recomendations for a compact tractor is sound advise. You may want to think about saving up for one in the future. A good sub compact or compact tractor will make life around a small 6 acre farm easy and the machine iteself will last a lifetime if well maintained. Something like a 10K John deere 2305 or Kubota 2350 would be all you really need and will far outlast 4 $2500 lawn mowers. But if you can't afford it, then you can't afford it. The two wheeler will also far outlast the lawn mowers also. Just more work. Here is a link that might be useful: Two wheeler tractor

as many seeds as liatris ligulistylis puts out it's amazing how few actually germinate. Dr. Liz, I got some plants from Prairie nursery a few years back and it was NOT the right liatris...happened to someone else I know too. The liatris bloomed a month too early and it was 2-3 feet shorter than our "real" liatris ligulistylis. When I contacted them about it, they insisted it was the right liatris. The next year it bloomed early and was too short again....definitely not the right plant. I got real liatris from prairie MOON nursery about 5 years ago and those plants have been excellent. I am sure prairie nursery has some good plants, but I would not advise buying liatris from them.