Christie, Benary's Giants do, indeed, have "some of those yellow things". They are called pollen florets. The stigmas are the thin yellow "forks" at the base of each petal that receive the pollen to fertilize the seed that the petal is attached to. "It's kind of hard to find tall single colors that aren't double. I want butterflies!" Well, the Zowie that you mentioned in the other thread isn't exactly single, but it puts out a lot of pollen, so it might be to your taste. However, all zinnias put out some pollen florets, which contain the nectar that attracts bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. So, if you have a lot of zinnias, you will have a lot of all three. If you actually want zinnias that aren't double, there are some strains of Whirligigs that have "run out" in open field culture, and have a lot of single bi-colored and tri-colored flowers. They look sort of like daisies, and can be quite pretty. One strain of Whirligigs that you might like is available as the Whirligigs from Parks. Based on your preferences, I think that you would totally enjoy growing a lot of them. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I much prefer double zinnias, and I have culled a lot of single zinnias that appeared in my zinnia patch. Some of them looked so pretty that it actually hurt me to do it. But I am trying to stick to my breeding objectives. Incidentally, not all zinnia florets are the fuzzy yellow "starfish" pollen florets that you usually associate with zinnias. The florets of scabiosa flowered zinnias have petal colors, and yet they also contain nectar for butterflies and hummingbirds. They can "smell" it and go for it. This is an example of a zinnia that contains the "scabious" florets. I have enjoyed crossing scabiosa flowered zinnias with "regular" zinnias to get some interesting results. The "scabi" florets have one important advantage over the normal fuzzy yellow florets, in that the fuzzy yellow florets die and shrivel after a couple of days, while the scabious florets remain as a permanent part of the flower, enabling the flower to build an impressive center of them. My hope is to breed scabious zinnias with much larger florets. I have made some progress in that direction. I don't know if I have a favorite color of zinnia, but I am going to be growing a lot more white zinnias next year. They look good in the evening, and they make nice crosses with other colors. ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)

Thanks so much for the prompt and helpful responses! Emailing Gregg might have been an option a while back, but I just got the email saying how backed up Vintage is on emails with all the orders they've had coming in (yay, keep it up folks - there are still some great roses on the list!). That's why it's so nice to be able to pose this question to experts like you! The bush isn't very tall, although with a second year plant it's hard to tell (yes, I pinched off last year's blooms faithfully), so Fred Loads looks like an outside chance. I'll check for white tendencies on the reverse, but I think it's pretty consistent color on both sides of the petal so it'll be Poppy till I have reasons to think otherwise. HMF doesn't have any height predictions for Poppy - any guesses from everyone else? Thanks for the ID everyone - it's kind of nice after all to end up with a relatively uncommon Soenderhousen rose, since Gene Boerner should be replaceable elsewhere. The color will be a bit of a contrast in my "pink and white" bed, but I suppose it could use some shaking up or I'll move it if it really bugs me. Cynthia

It’s a good rose in my garden (mild winters, cool summers). I get a good spring flush and an okay repeat on and off the rest of the year and which I think would be better if the rose were in better soil and if it didn’t have to contend with a tree dahlia growing right next to it. It’s tall and narrow (6’x3’) which is great when roses here typically grow much larger. Disease resistance in my garden (no spray) is above average (powdery mildew, cercospora, anthracnose and blackspot are what plague roses here). Last year:

This is hand blown but it has no mark to identify its origins. Does anyone have more info they can share with me?