Hi Céline, " But as I remember zinnia florets, I guess that they have the both in the same flower right ? Can I use a paintbrush as I do with the zucchinis ? ( a special for zinnia ) " Yes, zinnia blooms all have the female parts (stigmas) and frequently also have the male pollen bearing parts ( pollen florets). The stigmas are attached at the base of each petal, which is attached to the seed jacket, which is attached to the central cone of the bloom. Botanists sometimes refer to a zinnia bloom as a capitula. and the petals as ligules. But we are not botanists, so we will talk of blooms and petals. The pollen-bearing florets arise in the center of the bloom. You can use an artists paintbrush to transfer pollen from the florets to the stigmas, thus accomplishing pollination or cross-pollination. You can load your brush simply by touching the pile of pollen that appears in the center of a floret. Then touch the brush to the stigmas to apply pollen to them. Not that you have control over it, but a single grain of pollen can be sufficient.A successfully pollinated stigma will shrivel and die within a day or two. Un-pollinated stigmas will remain yellow and receptive for over a week, so you will have several opportunities to get them pollinated. After the stigma dies the embryo in the seed jacket starts to grow and matures as a green seed in about a month. You can pick green seeds and plant them immediately to start a second generation of zinnias, or you can dry them and then store them for use at a later time. If you choose to start a second generation of zinnias immediately, you will need to "breach" the green seed coat, because it is still alive and impervious to water. You can use a hobby knife or scalpel to provide a water entry route to the green seed in several ways.You can remove the embryos entirely and plant just zinnia embryos. I have planted as many as a flat of zinnia embryos at a time, and the embryos will emerge in a day or two for a really fast start of a second generation. By also growing zinnias indoors during the Winter, I get as many as four generations of zinnias each year, which speeds up my zinnia breeding goals. Even if you aren't growing a quick second generation, the green seed technique has several advantages, including that it helps avoid losses to seed-eating birds. " oh... Do you pinch your plant to get them more bushy and have more flowers ? If yes, when do you do it ? " If you aren't in a hurry to do a first-bloom culling, as I usually am, pinching zinnias is good cultural practice. Be sure to have at least one pair of true leaves before you pinch the growing point. You can get different effects by pinching after the second or third pair of leaves, or even more. You could wait for the appearance of the central flower bud, and pinch it. And, for even bushier zinnia plants, you can also pinch some or all of the lateral branches that form. I do invite your participation and pictures over in the "It can be fun to breed your own zinnias" forum. ZM

Lol Soultan! I have no idea...really. Maybe that's what Lora calls "BUM bulbs". I have quite a few of these kind. Snow White, Double Record and one of my Minervas would put up a leaf and when it's about 1 inch tall, it would turn yellow and die. The bulb stays firm even though they have been planted for months already. Striped Panther never put up a leaf or scape but gave out babies. "To throw or not to throw...that is the question!"

I was surprised by the small yield a batch gave. The zucchini sure gets a lot smaller! Of course I did eat a few (many) when I was checking on them and turning them :) I did not get all the seeds removed on a few strips and they were very flimsy after cooking and were not even put onto the drying trays (ate them, too) Guess there are some reasons for my low yield in addition to the tremendous reduction in size from drying. I doubt anyone who eats the finished product would guess they are made from zucchini. I added a quarter teaspoon of citric acid to the sugar used near the end of the drying time. It made them a lot like the sour gummy treats you can buy. I'm sure these treats are not very nutritious, but it is fun to see how much the zucchini can be transformed with a few readily available ingredients.

I'm doing good for an 80 year old. Do not spend much time on garden web since the changes. I'm into African Violets now. I have two shelf units-5 shelves each. I do the RRs for leaves and have about 50 now. My hoya are outside on the patio under the roof. Get some rain when the wind blows. I've sore of neglected them. I love when they bloom though. We sit outside in the evening and the fragrance is beautiful. I wished they bloomed more often than once a year. I may bring some inside and put some of the smaller leaved ones on a shelf instead of the violets. I am on Facebook more than here on Gardenweb. I can't get used to all the changes. It was easier before because i had tabs for the hoya forum, african violet forum, and the cactus forum. Now I just go to African violets and only when we are active in a RR, which is now. Most of the violet people went to facebook. Such is the times, changing, changing. Good to see you are still with the hoya. Keep up the great work.