George Thanks for the information I will be attending. Thank you again for the seeds I will let you know how they do. Jeana

Legacy77a, It is hard to say, but not necessarily. It would depend on how greenish they were.....sometimes when harvested green they do sprout and sometimes they don't. The more the green has faded to a whitish-green or a tannish-green, the better, though. If you want to test their germination, let them sit for a week to ten days which is sort of a dormant period for them. Then, wet a paper towel or coffee filter, lay a row of 10 seeds on it, wrap them up in the paper towel, put it in a plastic zip-lock bag and put it in a cool, dry location. Check every day to see if the seeds sprout, and how many sprout. After a couple of weeks, all of them that are going to sprout will have sprouted. From that, you can estimate if your germination rate is going to be 10% or 50% or 90% or whatever. And, you'll know if your seeds are viable or not. Patty, That's all I do. When I clean up the garden debris, I just leave the flower heads that I want to self-sow. I don't generally tear the flower heads apart and scatter the seed around, although you can if you want to. Sometimes, too many seedlings do come up in one small area and you can either transplant the extras while still vey small, or just pull them up and discard them. Generally, though, wind and rain will scatter the seeds around on their own. If you pile the chopped leaves onto the beds only a couple of inches thick as mulch, the odds are that the seeds still will sprout in the spring. If you put the leaves much thicker, though, they might prevent or slow down germination of reseeding annuals like zinnias. If you want to play it safe, save some seed to plant next spring in case your plants don't self-sow. That way, you're covered either way. I suppose this is an extreme form of winter sowing, minus the containers. I do it all the time. I even gather wildflower seed from one pasture and sow it in another just by scattering handfuls of it around the pasture after the first hard freeze. That seed will lie dormant and at least some of it will sprout in the spring. When plants self-sow naturally, whether in a cultivated garden, in a pasture, in a woodland, etc., those seeds also have to deal with plant debris and, generally, the debris doesn't hurt the seeds or keep them from germinating. All kinds of annuals and half-hardy perennials self-sow in my garden with little or no help from me, including zinnias, four o'clocks, poppies, larkspur, evening primrose, angel's trumpet, swamp hibiscus, morning glories, moonvine, hummingbird sage, black-eyed susan vine, cypress vine, cardinal climber vine, ornamental peppers, some tomatoes, some herbs (including catnip, catmint, some basils, parsley, cilantro, etc.), clasping coneflower, hollyhocks, french hollyhocks (malva), kiss-me-over-the-garden gate, and verbena bonariensis. Often, pumpkins, winter squash and gourds self-seed as well. In my garden today, I already have verbena bonariensis, malva 'Zebrina', angel's trumpets, tomato plants and hummingbird sage that have sprouted in the last month or so from seed that ripened and self-sowed in late summer. Of these plants, the tomato plants will not survive and come back next year, but the others usually do if their roots get large enough before it gets really cold here. The reason some people have better success with winter-sowing than with self-sowing seed in their gardens is often that their gardens have too much wind or too much rain and their self-sown seed blows away or rots before it can germinate in late winter to late-spring, depending on the type of plant it is. In my garden, I let "the usual suspects" self-sow as they choose, and I winter sow other plants in containers if I know from experience that they have not self-sown successfully in my garden in the past. Hope this info helps. Dawn

"Shake and Bake" refers to the nickname given to the state of California, which it is not only named for, but it is the state flower for :) California is often referred to as "Shake and Bake, USA WELL DUH!...lol, FANNA WHO IS Hysterical laughing at herself for FORGETTING THIS FACT about Callie! See I am afraid to TRY any Poppy for breadseed because what if someone sends one they THINK is safe and it isn't? JASMINE, I ACCIDENTLY TYPED THE WRONG NUMBER! All is WELL it WAS Margos I was working on and since I believe I meanted the gift she gave me it was clear it was just a slip of the finger or brainwave or something along those lines..... Lisa I stayed up last night til 5:00 am or would that be stayed up this morning til? Oh well, which ever that is what I did. It is just a matter of me bring ODC and can't stop until I feel HAPPY with the results....lol!!! WOW you all are sending in some REALLY REALLY good stuff!!! Wendy, thanks for my GIFT...I will be on a CHOCOLATE high tonight, haha! That was so sweet of you to think of me, thanks again. I am actaully taking a breather at this minute to eat supper then I will get back to the seeds. :) Fran I will go ahead and post #11 thread!

Hi Bob, " But the reason for my coming aboard is this. I wonder if any of you have any seeds of these unusual types that I could purchase. " I think that many of my "breeder" zinnias do go beyond what you can buy commercially. And I think that some gardeners would enjoy growing some of these "new look" zinnias. However, I think that the best way to make these new strains available to gardeners in general would be for some seed company to acquire some of my selected seed stocks, increase their quantities in commercial fields, and offer them commercially. There is past precedent for following that path. If some seed company were to contact me about acquiring some of my seed stocks, they probably would want to have an exclusive on any strain or strains that they might acquire, and they wouldn't want to hear that I had already been selling or otherwise distributing them. So, much as I would like to share some of my new zinnias, I think the best way to do that would be through a commercial release by an existing seed company. However, none of my new zinnias are in stabilized strains yet, and I don't anticipate that will happen in the near future. I am still crossing and recombining genetic factors to see what new things can come out of that. I am creating new zinnias for the fun of it. Actually, I am not creating new zinnias, I am coaxing the zinnias to show me new things they can do. I have said it before, zinnias are full of surprises. But I am not sharing or trading or selling zinnia seeds, because I hope to develop seed stocks that would be suitable for acquisition by a seed company. And I very much enjoy the process of working toward that goal. However, my primary goal is still to have fun breeding my own zinnias. And to help other gardeners experience the fun of developing their own new zinnias. " I've done the 'scabiosa' for about 5 years now and have a strain that produces a lot of those types. " We would love to see pictures and/or descriptions of some of your scabiosa types. If you can, post pictures of them. " But I love some the other unusual ones as well. " As I have suggested to others, the Whirligig strain of zinnias contains a lot of new genetic factors, because it was derived from an interspecific zinnia cross. I think that Whirligigs from Stokes Seeds are the "secret sauce" in some of my new zinnias. You are already familiar with the power of numbers in plant breeding. 11,000 daylilies is a lot of plants. So, if you can apply that same numbers principle to zinnias, you can enjoy some real "zinnia surprises". Welcome aboard, Bob. ZM