Hi Squishy,

I see you just signed up with Garden Web today. Welcome to the Garden Web. As it happens, I grow and breed zinnias as a hobby. Zinnias are easy to hybridize, because their pollen florets and pollen accepting stigmas are reasonably large and accessible, as shown in this picture.

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You can cross two different zinnias by rubbing the pollen floret of one on the stigmas of the other.

"Any vital things a beginner should know?"

Yes, in order for your crosses to produce hybrids that can produce seeds of their own, you need to cross zinnias that have the same chromosome number. And for beginners, at least, it is best to cross zinnias within the same species. The most common species of zinnia is Zinnia elegans which is now being called Zinnia violacea, and they have 24 chromosomes. The second most common species in the marketplace is Zinnia marylandica, which is a man-made species with 46 chromosomes. The Profusions, Pinwheels, and Zaharas are all Z. marylandica and they are unsuitable for breeding with most other zinnias. Their seeds are also more expensive because Marylandica is a manmade species.

"What successes have you had in your zinnia or violet crosses? "

I have been breeding zinnias for several years, so I have made a lot of crosses and most of them have been successful, to varying degrees. I like to cross giant cactus zinnias with Whirligig zinnias and with scabiosa flowered zinnias. And then I like to make crosses between my various hybrids. And continue that by making crosses between my hybrids of hybrids, and so on. That process can build up some very complex zinnia ancestry. And I also make back crosses to selected commercial varieties. Whirligigs were derived from interspecies crosses between Z. violacea and Z. haageana and, because they contain some genes from two different species, they make very interesting crosses between regular zinnias. I owe much of my success to my use of Whirligig zinnias in my zinnia gene pool. There is no such thing as a "typical" Whirligig zinnia because they come in such a variety of colors and flower forms, but most Whirligigs combine two or three colors on each petal, like this one.

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But the real value of Whirligigs is that when crossed with other zinnias, they bring out traits that didn't appear in either parent, including variations on the flower form. I don't know if Whirligig zinnias are available to you in New Zealand. As I recall, they aren't available in Australia, partly because Australia has some very strict customs regulations that make it difficult to import seeds. But Whirligigs are available from some seed companies that sell internationally.

There is a message thread called It can be fun to breed your own zinnias over in the Annuals forum that you are invited to participate in.

ZM

Hi Squishy,

I was just like you before, for me the beginner's flowers to breed are the Lily family (you can start with liliums, erythonium, gladiolus, amaryllis, tulips or any lily type flowers).

It's better to breed hardy perennials, as they tend to save you money then keep on buying more fresh seeds each growing season (some new annuals might be apomixis - it means no matter what you cross it will turn just like before or sterile, or fertile but very low on seed production). The best is to breed: easy, little care to no care at all but will still growing perennials.

Tips for beginners, breed perennial flowers that's available in your local florist (it's cheating, but you'll get a fresh pollen from a cut flower, as some flowers might not bloom at the same time together)

Example: tulips. As you live in NZ, and you can only grow small amount of hardy tulip species, esp those came from Mediterranean climate. You can cheat by crossing them with florist tulips, then sow the seeds and let nature select which one is hardy to your climate, then select, select, select. With this, you can be the one only who breed hybrid tulips for warm climate and have your own array of colors, shape and types of your own. :)