Hi Jack,

Uh, I can't seem to see the center color on that one? Where did your "little friend" come from?

Good closeup photo, tho.

ZM

Haha. It's a little stinkbug that lives in my house. They come in for the winter but it has been 60° so they woke up and visited my flowers.

As my plan-of-three zinnia grows it is distorting somewhat. You can see how the third leaf grows in smaller the further up the branch it is. Sometimes the third leaf at any given spot is barely visible.



You can also see how flower buds form on the underside of leaves.



I had to use flash for that picture because there was no way to get adequate l light on the bottom of the leaf. But it's the same part of the plant in both pictures, just different sides.

Hi Jack,

Wow! Ingenious photography. I notice those Haageana leaves are nice and slim, instead of wide. This is a pic of a couple of zinnias that I will be re-potting to 5-inch square pots soon. This picture taken today.

You can see their roots crowding the walls of the "clear" 3.25-inch square orchid pots. You have to click on the photo to see the large version to see those root details. This tall photo works much better here than it did over at GardenWeb.

ZM

I like those roots. I will probably be repotting mine in the next week or so.

Hi Jack,

I re-potted mine to 5-inch square pots. Can't see the roots now.

In about a month I will be repotting my 5-inch pots to 8-inch square pots. I have a few 10-inch square pots if I need to go larger for a few breeder zinnias.

ZM

Why would you actually need a 10" pot? If a zinnia is a keeper by the time you'd need a 10" pot you'd already have ample seeds saved, no?

Jai_Ganesha said:Why would you actually need a 10" pot? If a zinnia is a keeper by the time you'd need a 10" pot you'd already have ample seeds saved, no?

Hi Jack,

I probably won't need a 10-inch pot this year. I didn't last year, or several years before. But if a zinnia is really a good keeper, there isn't any such thing as too many seeds.

There is a zinnia genetic factor that is fairly unusual that has bearing on this. Early on in my crosses between scabiosa flowered zinnias and "other" zinnias, I got an unusual zinnia bush that seemed to have unlimited power to put out new branches with new blooms, even though it already had dozens of mature seedheads from which I could save seeds. That zinnia plant became a huge tumble-weed-like shrub before a killing frost stopped its production of new blooms. At that time it had several hundred blooms in various stages of development -- a couple of orders of magnitude more than what is normal.

Unfortunately its seed production got destroyed in a freak failure of the wine cooler I was storing my zinnia seeds in while we lived in Maine. The cooler, which was like a small refrigerator, shorted out somehow and "cooked" all of my zinnia seeds. I hope to get a more reliable way to store zinnia seeds longtime, but for the time being, and in recent years, my seed storage is room temperature.

That scabious hybrid did show one of the things that "zinnias can do". I hope to see a recurrence of that genetic recombination. It is debatable whether that feature is a good thing or not. That plant was covered with maybe 75% dead brown seed-heads and 25% young new seedheads and that wasn't really attractive. But if I do get a recurrence of that "fountain of youth" genetic combination, I will use a 10-inch pot to extend its development. And maybe even a larger container.

And I am shopping around for a thermoelectric cooler to hopefully provide safe cool storage for zinnia seeds. Several such "no moving parts" coolers are available. If we had room in our kitchen refrigerator, I would use it, but the fridge is usually overloaded with various food items. And I have zinnia seeds from several years in the past. I do need dedicated storage.

ZM

One of my adult Zinnia haageans recently became pretty elongated. It's care and environment (lights, heat, nutrition) was identical to the others. Its flowers were a plain unicolored yellow and its form was ordinary, so I culled it.

Just curious--have you ever heard of a zinnia stretching this way when it was NOT caused by light/nutritional deficiency? I'm just curious what could have caused it.

Jai_Ganesha said:Just curious--have you ever heard of a zinnia stretching this way when it was NOT caused by light/nutritional deficiency? I'm just curious what could have caused it.

Hi Jack,

I think it is very possible that the curious stretching could be due to genetic factors. I am seeing various responses by my zinnias, which are growing out of the same nutrient pool, in the same lighting situation.

If you didn't like what your zinnia was doing and you culled it, I think you are justified in doing that. I have made some similar culls recently.

ZM

I was going through old pictures and found this single zinnia. Nearly everything about it is ugly--flat bubblegum pink, single, full of pollen florets--but I see the toothed petals now and I don't think I even noticed it when it was growing.



Just wanted to share.

Hi Jack,

Thanks for sharing. A lot of people would think that was a pretty flower. I'm not usually a fan of single zinnias, but I believe they can look attractive. A lot of daisies are single. Speaking of daisies, their petals frequently have a special look, that is unusual in zinnias. Which is one reason why I would like to breed a strain of zinnias with that petal style.

Part of the "daisy look" is also rather frail narrow petals, somewhat uncharacteristic of zinnias. Zinnia hybrida can "do" a lot of things, many of which we haven't discovered yet (in my opinion).

ZM

ZenMan, your Zinnias are amazing, as usual!

@Jai_Ganesha ,
That looks like an invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. They are likely feeding on and damaging your Zinnia plants.

Quote from http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTN... :

"Adults and nymphs inject tissue-destroying enzymes and suck juices from fruit and seeds, creating pockmarks and distortions that make fruit and vegetables unmarketable. Damaged flesh under the skin turns hard and pithy. They can also feed on buds, flowering structures, leaves, and stems, including feeding through the bark of the branches and trunks of young trees. "

http://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2...

http://ento.psu.edu/extension/...

Please check it out. I'd hate to see them destroy all of your work and lovely plants.

Well dang. Thank you.

It is gone now. We had a freakishly warm day when it was about 50° which is why I think it appeared.

They tend to gather in colonies and hide in attics, inside walls and such for the winter, so keep your eye out for more.

I am still relatively new to Pennsylvania. I think there is another species of stink bug that lives further south that I am more used to. But I don't know exactly what kind.

I do have some Bayer indoor houseplant insecticide. I will spray some this weekend.

Oh, you probably mean the nasty Kudzu Bugs aka Globular Stink Bugs. Yes, they are awful. They like to gather on my tropical potted plants in the fall which makes bringing the plants in before cold snaps a stinky fiasco.

You may not need insecticide on your plants just yet. Just check for the bugs and eggs. See the links above for pics. If you start seeing distortions on your plants, that can be a sign that they are feeding on them.

Thank you.

This particular plant has been a tricotyledon (leaves arranged on a plan of three instead of two) its entire life and it has also sprouted flower buds at the necks of other flowers.

I had initially assumed that being a tricotyledon and having flowers in weird places were related, but now I wonder if bugs chewing on it can cause the flowers to be in weird places. Is that a distortion?

You can see the bud at about 7:00 in the middle of this picture.



By many accounts it is ugly because it is single and small, but I actually like the deep rose color against the creamy white.

Hi Jack,

Maybe having a "resident" stinkbug isn't such a great idea. I do see that bud you mentioned, and it is curious. I would keep an open mind on that plan-of-three plant and I still strongly advise you to save as many seeds from it as you can. And, yes, that bloom does look good. Your plants continue to look healthy and well nourished. I am running an experiment with Miracle-Gro nutrients indoors, based on your obvious success with them.

ZM

Somebody elsewhere pointed out that the flower does not look as purple as much as red. Sure enough, I looked at it on another screen and it is more red than purple. In life it is somewhere in between purple/burgundyish. But definitely not red, unless I am colorblind.

I think I'm going to self all of the seeds and see what happens. That way, if there are any tricotyledon seedlings I can have more to start out with and go from there.

I like Miracle Grow. I don't care if it is not organic, because it works for me.

Hi Jack,

" ...and it is more red than purple. In life it is somewhere in between purple/burgundyish. "

I agree with that description. It is close to Cerise. Zinnias have a lot of color possibilities.

" I think I'm going to self all of the seeds and see what happens. "

That sounds like a plan. Hopefully it will put out some pollen florets soon. Sometimes I try to "scare" a zinnia to produce pollen by withholding water for a day or two. I'm not sure there is an actual cause-and-effect relation there, but there might be.

" I like Miracle Grow. I don't care if it is not organic, because it works for me. "

Me to. I am not an organic gardener, so I feel free to use whatever works.

ZM