I have photos that demonstrate the differences between pinched Zinnias and unpinched ones. Amazing difference! It is sooooooo hard to sell people on the idea that they should bring home their brilliantly blooming zinnias from the nursery and pinch the flowers off. I am obsessed this year with teaching others this, not only with Zinnias but just about every other plant as well. I have containers with unpinched Swizzles and Magellans, for demonstration purposes. The blooms are one third of the size of the pinched ones, and only one bloom per stem, with barely any side growth. The pinched ones have AT LEAST 8 or 9 bud on them now,with blooms the size of my hand!! Incredibly perfect plants, I cannot stop bragging on them. This is what I preach to others about doing "initial pinching" of all annuals: If you bring home a plant that only has one bloom on it, stick it in the ground, and after about a week, you have to take the bloom off, what do you have left? Nothing. You have to wait about 2 weeks to get new buds or blooms. So, if you are going to have a delay of blooms, why not do it when you first plant them? And then have masses of blooms the remainder of the year?? And still, I cannot get even my own father to do this!! Kenneth, I wasnt aware of removing the leaves at the top when pinching, I usually just leave them. Do you do this with everything? Zinnias seem to bloom on the 4th sets of leaves, so I always pinch when the stem gets past the third set. This seems to be the magic number for me. deep_roots, I did pinch my gigantic Zinnias, and they still bent on their own horizontally and are starting to grow upwards. I hope this will be sufficient, as I didnt stake them. Am considering building some heavy duty cages for them, while they are still small enough to do it. Could never get too many zinnias!!!!

at link.. 4th down .. the blurb says: If you see split stems this is probably due to drying out followed by watering. i always thought.. they were just growing faster than they could cope ... and considered it cosmetic.. and the solution to that problem.. is to quit sticking your head inside the plant.. and enjoy it from a little more distance.. other than to whiff the scent.. lol nothing to worry about.. IMHO ... ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

Unfortunately, I think, there's two types of growers and I do believe that advice is different depending on your goals. If you want to take a flower to the flower show, then you do things you wouldn't do if you just wanted a big bushy plant...IMO. I got hooked on Dahlias from a friend who couldn't care the least about them. He brought me a clump that had to be from a 3+ year-old plant, and it was what he had split off because that plant was "too big" for his garden. He proceeded, after several beers, to literally rip tubers off the clump and, without considering which end was up, stuffing them into various holes in my garden beds. Most grew, and were covered in many flowers. Call it luck or whatever you want, but Dahlias are left by many in the ground to grow into larger and larger clumps. I have to believe that most of those clumps have many stems. I received this year, for the first time, a clump rather than a single tuber. It is Firepot, and the tubers are about the size of ping-pong balls or a little smaller. I assumed they sent me a clump because they couldnÂt separate the tubers from the crown with enough assurance theyÂd get eyes on each tuber. Currently, each of my 3 Firepot clumps has a single sprout. Meanwhile, some of my single tubers have shown multiple starting sprouts. If I had to decide, I would let a clump grow whatever number of stems it wanted (within reason, considering how much area I want it to take up) but I would trim single tubers to a single stem. No long years of experience involved in my decision, just my interpreting what IÂve read. Cheers, Russ

I am no expert but do experiment. I recently started diamond frost in a glass of water under lights. Light stimulates the plant and helps it to grow roots. I used a small juice glass and topped it off when needed and used a lot of fat stems. After 2 weeks I had good roots to plant up. The roots are brittle so a lot of care needs to be taken. I put them back under the lights for another week and can see the roots through the plastic cups. The other method I did was take a fat stem and pinned it down on potting soil in a throw away lettuce container with a lid. I know several places it has rooted because again I can see roots through the plastic. This will be a little messier because at some point I will have to separate plants or plug the whole thing into a pot. Double impatiens may rot in water. The pinch poke method works really well. Use the growing tips even if you can't get all the flowers off. Just take tip cuttings and poke in potting soil, I don't cover. For 2 weeks it will look like slow death but slowly you will get better and better looking little plants. Coleus is so easy I would think any method would work. Good luck.