Hello Oakley,

Great zinnias! They aren't all California Giants. I see at least one Cactus Flowered (the orange one in your second photo). They all are great and your zinnia foliage looks really healthy, too.

Congratulations.

ZM

I wondered why several of the flowers were different. The orange cactus flowered happens to be my favorite. There's another one, bottom right that's pinkish white.

You've been a great teacher!

Quick question. Do you ever bring bouquets inside and if so, do you wash the heck out of the flower centers to get those teeny tiny spiders out?

Hi Oakley,

I don't bring bouquets inside, but I do spend some time with my better blooms getting pollen or applying pollen, and I frequently encounter a flower spider when doing that. But I wouldn't describe flower spiders as "teeny tiny". Counting their leg spread, they are 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter. They are waiting on the bloom for the visit of a small pollinator, like a skipper, which they consider to be prey and a food source. So the flower spiders are not "teeny tiny". I am wondering if your "teeny-tiny spiders" are flower spiders, or what they are. And what is their food source?

ZM

These were teeny tiny. I had a stem next to my bed that I had just brought inside and a couple of teeny tiny spiders were in the center of the flower, anthers? I had to look that up. :) Very tiny. That's when I jumped out of bed because I never thought to water the flower before bringing it inside. It's definitely not a skipper.

Kind of like this, it came from the bushy center Whenever I bring flowers inside to put in water I lay them on a paper towel and I've seen a lot of little spiders come out from the petals. Hydrangeas get them too. No damage to the flower though. Who knows what they're eating. Ants? :)

Where are you located? If we plant zinnia seeds directly in the ground up here, we won't get blooms until mid-summer earliest, and our "annuals season" is pretty much over by mid-September, maybe a couple weeks longer if we're lucky. So there's kinda no point.

Mxk, I'm in z7, central OK. You could still grow them if they sell the plants at garden centers but I read they grow faster from direct sowing, but I don't know if that's really true or not. At least your weather cools off faster than ours!

Hello Oakley,

Zinnias can do a first bloom in 7 weeks from germination, so Mxk could see blooms from seeds planted in-ground now. So whether there is any point in planting them depends on how long you want the blooming season to be. When you buy garden center zinnia plants you may be saving only a couple or three weeks versus planting seeds.

ZM

I usually see blooms about 5 weeks after seeds sprout. I don't notice any tiny spiders but these green spiders love to make their home in Zinnia blooms.

Hi Tiffany,

Yes, under great growing conditions you can get a first zinnia bloom in a mere 5 weeks. My indoor growing conditions are sub-optimal and I see only a few blooms before 6 weeks. Zinnia genetics may be involved in that. I strongly suspect that there are unusual zinnia characteristics that we haven't seen yet.

Great photo of a flower spider. I am still wondering about those " teeny tiny spiders " that Oakley is seeing. Your second photo indicates that your zinnias are nicely healthy. Although it won't be your fault if some foliage spores blow in.

ZM

5 weeks doesn't sound like a lot, but when your "season" is only 12-16 weeks give or take, you're missing out on about half of it.

I plant zinnias every year, wouldn't be without them -- but they are started indoors under the lights and set out as transplants.

Tiffany, very pretty! Zenman, it was last year I saw the spiders. Plural. Babies.

Today I suffered the consequences of growing such lush Zinnias. I was standing on the porch getting ready to turn the hose off and something black started circling me and I started flapping my arms and a black wasp got me on the shoulder! It was a female, males don't sting and they nest in the ground. Good luck finding the nest! I wasn't standing near a flower either. Hurts. :(

Thanks, ZM! I haven't scattered seeds purposely yet this year. The plants there now just came up from seeds that fell last year. I was waiting to see which, if any, marginally hardy plants were still alive, to know where my holes are this year.

After I bring over 100 pots inside, I don't have a square inch left for seed sprouting. It's fun that Zinnias can be so manipulated and enjoyed by such a wide range of gardeners & locations. A good range of suggestions here. :)

Ouch, sorry, Oakley! And thanks to you too!

I wonder if the spiders were just baby spiders, starting their journey out into the garden?

Hi Tiffany,

Newly hatched spiders would be "teeny tiny".

ZM

Hi Oakley,

" Today I suffered the consequences of growing such lush Zinnias. "

I would argue that your bite was not your zinnia's fault. Perhaps that wasp was alarmed that you were flapping your arms. It's kind of spooky that there is a black wasp with me here in my Study as I type this. A few weeks ago I got one on my window sill by spraying him with Windex. Maybe this one has come for revenge.

ZM

I'm in California, Zone 9/10... this is the first year I've done zinnias from seed (Giant mix), and it took them 3 months to bloom! I started seeds in March (indoors for warmth), transplanted to garden end of April. I saw first blooms in 1st half of June. Still going strong now, at the end of September. I suspect the heat has to do with time from seed to flowers.

Hi Linda,

Three months would be about 12 weeks, more than twice as long as my zinnias take to bloom here in Kansas. Maybe a photoperiod is involved. Just out of curiosity, how tall are your zinnias when they bloom at 3 months? Considering how fast zinnia plants grow, your zinnias should be maybe 6 feet high after 3 months. You mentioned that your zinnia seeds were a "Giant mix". Could you be more specific? There is a zinnia variety called California Giants or Giants of California, and when they were first introduced nearly a century ago, the "Giant" referred to the plant, and not to the bloom size. I grew some for their spoon-like petals. (You can click on these photos to see them larger.)

I included them in my hybridization program with the hope that they might introduce some changes to my other zinnia petal forms. Some of my California Giants had a more conventional tightly packed flower form. In the future, I should pay more attention to variations in their plant sizes.

" I suspect the heat has to do with time from seed to flowers. "

You could be right about that. Unfortunately, neither of us has a practical way to control that.

ZM

Hi Zen-Man - They are now up to about 4' at the tallest, I think. They start out looking sort of single-petal-y and then they get really full. I bought one plant last year, and it was labeled "zinnia benarys gold metal mix". From trying to look that up, I arrived at a reference somewhere to "giant mix." I kept seeds from it, which I planted early in March. In the photo below (from a few weeks ago) there are actually 3 plants, I think. They were slow to bloom, and there was just one flower for quite some time, then gradually they started branching.

Found a photo of its first bloom, early June. They start out like that, then keep opening out to get round.