Very cool stuff ZenMan!

Zinnias are a garden staple but I've never played more than saving seed. I favor the cactus variety and these crosses of yours are fantastic! I like what you're doing and in reading your other hybridizing thread it's looking like I might have found a new hobby. Thanks for all the posts and info and please keep them coming.

I picked up some tall cactus, mid size candy cane, and Burpee's Envy that I'm going to try to add as a clump planting rather than my traditional rows. Might be fun to see what can come out of the mix!

Wes said:Zinnias are a garden staple but I've never played more than saving seed. I favor the cactus variety and these crosses of yours are fantastic! I like what you're doing and in reading your other hybridizing thread it's looking like I might have found a new hobby.

Hi Wes,

I think you will enjoy your zinnia project. By growing zinnias in close association as you plan to do, you may get some free cross-pollination courtesy of the bees. But you can get more dependable results if you "be the bee" and do your own cross pollination. I showed a couple of ways to do that earlier in this message thread. It's really quite easy.

I grew some zinnias indoors this Winter, and this is a picture of a recombinant that has some of the "star-tipped" genes.

Its bloom is approximately spherical. It has some accessible stigmas, so I can cross-pollinate it without the trouble of removing part of the petals to expose the stigmas. And its petals have yellow edging at the ends, as if the petal was just "outlined" in yellow. I hope to grow some seeds from it in my outdoor garden this Spring and Summer.

Don't hesitate to post pictures of your zinnias.

ZM

Looks like it is outlined in neon. Another impressive bloom.

Very cool! The form makes me think of a mum.

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy these wonderful zinnia threads. Although I don't comment, I've gone through many of them on the various sites. It's a lot of fun to see your crosses and the photography is excellent. I know it takes a commitment of time to make these posts. I just want you to know it is appreciated.

Hi Loretta,

Thanks for your kind words.
If you are interested in doing some zinnia breeding of your own, I would be glad to provide information and counseling on that. Many, perhaps all, of the commercial heirloom zinnia strains have "run out" in many decades of seed production field growing. So one easy way to enter zinnia breeding is to grow some of an heirloom strain, expecting to see a large number of "off-type" culls, and simply save seed from the best few specimens that you get. You might make some crosses between your best specimens. I am currently growing a couple of 4-row beds of California Giants Mix, and I am curious to see whether I get any good on-type specimens out of that.

I have been pursuing this zinnia hobby since 2005, so understandably I have made some progress and had a couple of lucky mutations show up. I have a zinnia strain under development that I refer to as Razzle Dazzle and one variant of that strain is a nearly globe-shaped bloom, something like an Allium (flowering onion). It is an unusual "look" for a zinnia.

As with all All-Things-Plants pictures, you can click on it for a larger version, and see it a bit larger still by hitting your F11 key (to remove your Browser's heading material). That gray background is the out-of-focus concrete wall of the basement utility room where I grow my indoor zinnias. That indoor-grown bloom is fairly mature and I suspect that I can save seeds from it now to plant outdoors in my zinnia garden. I will be very curious to see how its seeds turn out. That kind of suspense is one of the advantages of breeding your own zinnias. It makes the daily trip into the zinnia garden interesting, and sometimes an adventure. You never know when an exciting mutation will appear. More later.

ZM

Well you've turned it into a bit of an art form, haven't you. You take advantage of the sculptural qualities of the zinnia. An "allium" zinnia sounds fantastic. You have inspired me to buy zinnia seeds this year but I never planted them unfortunately. I didn't do the heirloom thing though. I guess going forward, I should look into that.

Hi Loretta,

" You have inspired me to buy zinnia seeds this year but I never planted them unfortunately. "

Fortunately zinnias are easy to grow. I plant the seeds 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep, sometimes a little deeper if the soil is sandy, and sprinkle the seedbed every day until they germinate. Sometimes they come up as quickly as in 2 or 3 days, and usually they are up by 6 days. Warmer temperatures favor faster germination.

" I didn't do the heirloom thing though. "

Some of the zinnia packets on the seed racks identify the variety as an heirloom variety. The California Giants and Giant Dahlia Flowered are two old varieties that fall into that category. But any zinnia variety can benefit from you picking the best specimens and saving seeds from just those. This is an earlier stage of development of one of my "Allium" flowered zinnias.

Quite a few of the Razzle Dazzle strain can approach spherical blooms. They start out looking more like the Razzle Dazzle strain of Gaillardias. This is one of my zinnias that resemble the Razzle Dazzle Gaillardias.

The Razzle Dazzles and their Allium flowered variant both owe their star-pointed petals to genes from my original Star Tipped mutant. Crossing different zinnias can lead to interesting results, and cross-pollinating zinnias is relatively easy to do, because the pollen-bearing parts (pollen florets) and the pollen-accepting parts (stigmas at the base of the petals) are easily accessible and large enough to handle easily. I hope to improve my Razzle Dazzle and Allium strains by adding a complete color range and larger blooms. And I hope to make some progress on that this Summer.

ZM

You think it's not too late to try a few? Maybe they will bloom by end of September but probably no seeds?
I like the color of the last two a little better. The first is still interesting. The color in that first allium type and the very first one in this thread remind me of the white delphiniums with black bees - they come off a little dirty but interesting.

Hi Loretta,

"You think it's not too late to try a few? Maybe they will bloom by end of September but probably no seeds? "

Zinnias bloom in 6 to 8 weeks and can set green seed in 3 to 4 weeks, so provided that you use the technique of saving green seeds instead of waiting for the flower head to turn brown, then yes, I think it is not too late to try a few zinnias.

I will continue to plant some zinnias for the next 2 weeks here in east central Kansas. Although I did start planting some zinnias outdoors late in April and I have some of those zinnias coming into bloom now. My zinnia gardening is a kind of multi-tasking affair.

ZM

ZenMan said:Hi Loretta,

Zinnias bloom in 6 to 8 weeks and can set green seed in 3 to 4 weeks, so provided that you use the technique of saving green seeds instead of waiting for the flower head to turn brown, then yes, I think it is not too late to try a few zinnias.

I was hoping you would say that! I'll have to do it then but they will be the usual fare.

LorettaNJ said:
I was hoping you would say that! I'll have to do it then but they will be the usual fare.

The usual fare can sometimes surprise you. This is a beginning-to-bloom Burpeeana from Stokes.

The petals have an unusual light border that looks like an outline around the petal. I like that effect, and I will save seeds from it for that reason. I think it would be neat to have a whole strain of zinnias in all colors with that outlined-petals effect. The "usual fare" can sometimes have some subtle differences that make them a bit unusual. I hope you will post some pictures of your usual fare zinnias. Be on the lookout for slightly unusual effects. Usual fare zinnias can look nice, and occasionally surprise you.

ZM

Like a reverse picotee. It's very sweet.
I have nothing to lose but time so I will plant a few tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have something to share.

Hi Loretta,

I'll be looking forward to your progress reports about your zinnias. I am planting a bed of my "exotic" zinnias today. More later.

ZM