Hi Dale, "How accurate are these estimations?" Reasonably accurate. The Burpee estimate is a bit conservative, because you might get first blooms in 7 to 8 weeks, depending on the variety and growing conditions. I have had my indoor-grown zinnias bloom in as soon as 5 weeks from insertion of the seed into the growing medium, under near optimal conditions under over-driven fluorescent lighting. "...tried growing Burpeeana and they didn't look anything like the pic..." Actually, I like the idea of the Burpeeanas, which are supposed to be large informal flowers on a good bushy plant that isn't excessively tall. Any zinnias will stretch and grow tall if you crowd them. But uncrowded Burpeeanas are supposed to make good two-foot "hedges" in a landscape. This is one of my "home-hybridized" zinnias, and it has some Burpeeana "blood" in it. Burpeeanas can get as large as 6 inches in diameter, but this home hybrid had very long petals that hung down. I referred to it as my "Pink Shaggy Dog". Even though it has some Burpeeana blood in it, it is not a Burpeeana. If those petals had stuck out in a more horizontal direction, that bloom would have been upwards of 8 inches or more in diameter. Although some of its offspring have had similar flowers, none in my opinion have quite lived up to it. I will grow more seed from it this year. I enjoy growing and breeding zinnias as a hobby, because that way you can get some flowers that you would never get from a commercial seed packet. There are dozens of different commercial zinnia varieties, which give you a mind-boggling number of possible crosses that you could make. I am just scratching the surface myself. I have been meaning to grow some green zinnias, and cross them with everything, to see what I might get. If you want to see some interesting variety, the Whirligig strain is a good one to grow. Most of the Whirligs have at least two colors in each bloom, and sometimes three. Probably half of my home-hybrid zinnias have at least some Whirligig in them. This is a picture taken in my Whirligig patch last year. I'll have another Whirligig patch again this year, and I will be looking for unique specimens to use as "breeders". I prefer the Whirligigs from Stokes because they seem to have more doubles than the ones from Parks. Although, single Whirligigs can look quite good, with a "daisy" like look. Incidentally, you will probably see some "favorite" zinnias in your zinnia patch year. I highly recommend that you mark them in some way to save seeds from them. You could tie a little colored yarn on them or attach some sort of tag. Just anything to help you to know which ones you want to save seeds from. You can make a surprising amount of progress by simply saving seeds from your favorite zinnias each year. If you want to make the process more interesting, you can make crosses between your favorites. Crossing zinnias is not hard to do at all. ZM

So is there any hope that some seeds are fertile in my seeds packet? Till now none of the seeds has proved to be fertile, all of the sown ones seem to be sterile? By the way how strong is the pepper mint aroma? I bought once for culinary purposes some mint stalks, but they had almost no aroma of mint, just some greenary scent. The market seller told me later that for culinary purposes some special kind of mint should be bought, which are bought very quickly by restaurants etc. Does your pepper mint have a strong mint aroma?

I've just collected some Lantana seeds and was looking for info on how to germinate them. I found the following in a scientific paper from Australia. It seems to confirm the experiences of members of this and other GW forums, that germination tends to be low, but can be improved by removing the pulp from the berries and providing sufficient light and heat (as would be likely in Texas as opposed to Massachusetts or Michigan): "Lantana seeds need high light conditions for germination and early growth (Gentle and Duggin 1997b; Duggin and Gentle 1998, in Day et al. 2003), and seedlings are unlikely to survive beneath parent bushes. The germination rate of lantana is low under both laboratory and field conditions, with estimates of 4Â20% (Graaff 1987) and 44.5% (Duggin and Gentle 1998, in Day et al. 2003). Germination rates increased from ten per cent to 46 per cent when the fleshy pulp was manually removed from the seed. This higher germination rate is comparable to that obtained from seeds collected from the faeces of wild birds. Seeds germinate at any time of the year given sufficient soil moisture, with most seed germinating after the first summer storms in northern Australia (Parsons and Cuthbertson 2001, in Day et al. 2003). This species has been nominated as among 100 of the "World's Worst" invaders." Here is a link that might be useful: Global Invasive Species Database: Lantana camara

My seeds arrived! Worried me a bit getting a tracking # from Phoenix Desert Nursery, they must be affiliated with the Cactus Store. For a second there I found myself wondering if I was ordering plants in my sleep! I will start these once I get the stuff in order, at least the Agave and cacti species. The Agave seeds are much bigger than I expected, as are the Trichocereus. These will be MUCH easier to work with than those wretchedly tiny Mesembs! If anyone has advice on sowing, by all means chime in. For now, I am thinking some kind of cactus mix amended with extra pumice, with a layer of sand on top. I will probably plant in plastic baked good containers, to help with humidity early on as well as for the excuse to buy baked goods.