There are 2 pollen florets already. You can see one of them in the picture. I used a paint brush and transferred invisible pollen to all the visible stigmas today. Now to wait and see if they "shrivel" in time. It's 2-3 days, right?

Hi Jack,

Yes, now that you mention it, two open florets are clearly visible in the picture, and "buds" for future pollen florets are also visible. So pollen isn't going to be a problem with that one. No need to "scare" it.

ZM

Two of my other Zinnia haageanas are ugly and plain yellow. My head says to cull them but my heart says "IT'S JANUARY AND THEY'RE NOT HARMING ANYTHING, KEEP THEM!!!!1"

So I'm going to keep them for a while longer until I need the shelf space or until they die. lol

Today there's much more pollen:

Hi Jack,

Ah yes, more pollen florets. Excellent. Each can have enough pollen to pollinate several stigmas and create several seeds. But, if you miss using a pollen floret for some reason, it can still form a "floret" seed at its base.

Zinnia floret seeds are shaped differently from petal seeds, but they can grow and produce a plant. The only difference is that floret seeds are almost always selfed, while petal seeds can be selfed (by florets on the same plant) or hybridized by pollen from a different plant. You probably already knew all of that, but some of the "lurkers" here might not.

ZM

Ready to graduate from lurking each day hoping for more posts. March is finally in sight and I have maybe nine peat pots for starting some zinnias indoors. My seed collection is starting to feel like a serious mental problem or some sort of 'gotta catch 'em all' compulsion.

Which would be good to start with if hoping for something weird? Some kind of scabiosa and Carousel? I can't remember off the top of my head if any of these have the freaky incompatible number of chromosomes. Is that profusion?

yoga mix
royal purple
benary's giant salmon
scabiosa candy mix
zinderella lilac
zinderella peach
thumbelina
lilliput
red
zarhara dbl duo
candy cane
macarenia
persian carpet
mazurkia
california giants
giant cactus mix
oklahoma mix
queen red lime
carousel
green envy
pink senorita
violet queen
purple prince
cherry queen
scarlet flame
oriole
canary bird
state fair
giant dahlia

LizzieEllis said:
yoga mix
royal purple
benary's giant salmon
scabiosa candy mix
zinderella lilac
zinderella peach
thumbelina
lilliput
red
zarhara dbl duo
candy cane
macarenia
persian carpet
mazurkia
california giants
giant cactus mix
oklahoma mix
queen red lime
carousel
green envy
pink senorita
violet queen
purple prince
cherry queen
scarlet flame
oriole
canary bird
state fair
giant dahlia

I'm not familiar with every variety you listed, but Zahara is Zinnia marylandica and cannot easily hybridize with regular (Z. elegans AKA Z. violacea) zinnias.

Persian carpet is Zinnia haageana and can hybridize with regular (Z. elegans AKA Z. violacea) zinnias but it is not especially common or easy. However, it is gorgeous so you should grow it anyway and take lots of pictures (I'm biased in favor toward it).

State Fair is a tetraploid mix so while it can hybridize with regular (Z. elegans AKA Z. violacea) zinnias the offspring are automatically infertile.

Candy Cane can breed with all regular (Z. elegans AKA Z. violacea) zinnias and I consider this a bad thing because it's so ugly. I hate it, but that's also a personal bias so if you love the look of the petals by all means go for it.

LizzieEllis said:Which would be good to start with if hoping for something weird? Some kind of scabiosa and Carousel?

For more variation among individual plants and blooms I would stick with Whirligig (AKA Whirlygig AKA Carousel), Scabious, and possibly cactus mixes. Cactus mixes often have more variation than they get credit for.

I would stay away from too many varieties. I come to plant breeding from a small animal background and it's extremely easy to do many different things poorly. It is much harder to do one thing well (or even 3 things well). Resolve to plant everything you've bought then weed through them and at the end of the year pick a low number of varieties/species/goals and stick to it. That's the surest way to success.

This one started out pale yellow with a richer yellow throat but as it ages it is turning more saffron with bright red streaks along the edges. I think it looks angry.

Jai_Ganesha said:For more variation among individual plants and blooms I would stick with Whirligig (AKA Whirlygig AKA Carousel), Scabious, and possibly cactus mixes. Cactus mixes often have more variation than they get credit for.

Hi Lizzie,

Jai has given good advice. I echo what he said. You mentioned these scabious: scabiosa candy mix, zinderella lilac, zinderella peach. I suggest adding Zinnia Cupcakes to that list.

http://www.territorialseed.com...

Several seedsmen offer Cupcakes -- I just picked Territorial Seeds because they have a larger picture. Scabiosa Candy has the advantage of a few pure white specimens in their mix, while the lightest Cupcake is apparently a pale cream.

Some seed companies still offer the original Scabiosa Flowered strain.

https://www.swallowtailgardens...

I do recommend growing and hybridizing with scabiosa flowered zinnias, but be aware that apparently all of the commercial scabious varieties have a problem with lots of off-type seeds in the packet. Be prepared to cull them fairly heavily -- but the good ones will make some very interesting hybrids with other types of zinnias.

Lizzie, we look forward to your continued participation here.

ZM

Hi Jai,

Thanks for your detailed response to Lizzie.

That yellow Haageana has a nice rich color combination. I planted some Haageanas (Jazzy Mix), hoping to get a 3Z that I could cross with some of my Hybridas, but no joy. I didn't get any threesies. I'll wait and see what their blooms look like. The Jazzy Mix is essentially the same as Persian Carpet.

I had forgotten how small Haageana seeds are. I think I will plant my South Garden (it is my smaller garden) mainly to Whirligigs. Maybe all Whirligigs. I still have some old commercial seed onhand, as well as some I saved in previous years.

This current indoor Z. hybrida bloom shows some strong Haageana influence in its "pointy" petal form.


ZM

Jai_Ganesha said:I'm not familiar with every variety you listed

Me neither. Many of these came from seed trades where the seeds were harvested from flowers someone else grew.

Jai_Ganesha said:I would stay away from too many varieties. I come to plant breeding from a small animal background and it's extremely easy to do many different things poorly. It is much harder to do one thing well (or even 3 things well). Resolve to plant everything you've bought then weed through them and at the end of the year pick a low number of varieties/species/goals and stick to it. That's the surest way to success.

Hmm, that makes sense. Guess I'll save my peat pots for something else/gifting zinnias. Do you make a point to grow your selected varieties near each other while also "being the bee"? Do you grow varieties not related to your current focus?

Jai_Ganesha said:This one started out pale yellow with a richer yellow throat but as it ages it is turning more saffron with bright red streaks along the edges. I think it looks angry.

This sounds like pretty much the coolest thing ever. Like a supernova. I've seen pictures of color fading as the flower grows that can look either nice or gross. How common is a deepening of color or appearance of a new color with zinnias?

ZenMan said:
Jai has given good advice. I echo what he said. You mentioned these scabious: scabiosa candy mix, zinderella lilac, zinderella peach. I suggest adding Zinnia Cupcakes to that list.

Whuhh! I've never heard of Zinnia Cupcakes. Looking at the pictures, it looks like Zinderella lilac and peach were taken directly from this mix. Is that where they're from? Do you still order seeds and if so, who do you use? Asking Jai_Ganesha, too.

Might not have this quoting thing down, we'll see.

LizzieEllis said:Me neither. Many of these came from seed trades where the seeds were harvested from flowers someone else grew.

I also have plants that were initially grown by other home gardeners. This year I have some packets of zinnias from the 1960s that were never opened. I am going to treat them with Physan-20 and plant them in May or June just to see if any come up. I also have Карусе́ль (Carousel) seeds harvested by a friend in Ukraine less than a mile from the Chernobyl radioactive exclusion zone. The pictures she sent me were of plants that were shorter, stockier, and darker than I would immediately think of, and the flowers were all bicolors of some sort or another. If nothing else, they represent a fresh genetic stock. But part of the fun of growing seed mixes and hand-collected seeds is that there's more room for variation.

Hmm, that makes sense. Guess I'll save my peat pots for something else/gifting zinnias. Do you make a point to grow your selected varieties near each other while also "being the bee"? Do you grow varieties not related to your current focus?

I only hand-pollinate examples that I like a lot. If I did it for every flower I'd never sleep. I do grow other things that aren't related to any particular goal, but in an "everything else" bed. Some years I have zinnias mixed in with everything else (like ornamental corn, Tithonia, whatever).

This sounds like pretty much the coolest thing ever. Like a supernova. I've seen pictures of color fading as the flower grows that can look either nice or gross. How common is a deepening of color or appearance of a new color with zinnias?

To be honest, I'm not sure. I had planned on culling this plant because the flowers were plain and yellow. They only had a faint hint of a bicolor pattern (pale yellow on paler yellow). The only reason I didn't cull it was because I have the space on my shelf so I just left it. Then one day I noticed it was suddenly turning red along the edges and the center had darkened.

Whuhh! I've never heard of Zinnia Cupcakes. Looking at the pictures, it looks like Zinderella lilac and peach were taken directly from this mix. Is that where they're from? Do you still order seeds and if so, who do you use? Asking Jai_Ganesha, too.

I don't know if the Zinderella seeds are taken directly from the Cupcake mix, but they're definitely the same flower form and closely related to each other. I want to reinforce that with all scabious varieties (including these two) be prepared to get more than half non-scabious blooms (as ZM also said). They don't stay "true" to form as well as other varieties. Any time you plant scabious zinnias, you will get a lot of non-scabious flowers. Year-to-year if you want to increase the number of scabious flowers, make it a point to kill all the non-scabious flowers nearby early (to prevent cross pollination). But you will still get non-scabious flowers (just in lower number). My genetics history makes me suspect there's an incomplete dominance and/or homozygous lethal allele in there which means there can never be a 100% true scabious flower form. Depending on the specific genetic difference(s) at the highest the most scabious flowers you'll get will be between 50% and 66%.

In terms of seed companies I really like Territorial Seeds at http://www.territorialseed.com... and Pine Tree Seeds at http://www.superseeds.com. In fact, I just wrote a review about Pinetree Seeds on this site. I don't know how to find it and link to it in the review section though.

Hi Lizzie and Jack,

With regard to the origin of the Zinderellas, I think we can rule out them being selected from either Cupcakes or Candy. Cupcakes and Candy plants are both 30 inches high, while Zinderellas are much taller, at 40 to 50 inches high. It's late at night, or I would have lots more to say, because both of you had said a lot of interesting things.

ZM

@lizzieellis
I'm a lurker here, love zinnias and have settled on a few favorites. Zowie is my number one favorite and the pictures are correct, there is a blush of pink at the base of the petals, it seems to get more pronounced as the plant matures. I like to interplant them with other tall pink zinnias, it really makes the unexpected hint of pink pop visually. Have some zinnias sprouting under lights already, I baby them and get them planted outside in April so I'll have blooms by June. Really livens up the perennial garden to have some spots of annual zinnias. Always some flowers to look at.

Some nice unusual tall zinnias available from peaceseedlings.com. They don't have pictures but ALL their zinnias are amazing.

And the other wonderful zinnias is Zahara, especially Zahara Sunburst. It is short and great for by my mailbox and in containers. I planted SO many seedlings that I picture giving them as gifts to special friends.

Breeding zinnias is a spectator sport for me. I do save seeds but germination is unreliable. Not sure what the trick is I always think I've chosen viable seeds but then they don't sprout. And I am a veteran "seed germinater" so I don't think I'm doing that part wrong. Just not good at spotting the viable seeds.

Jai_Ganesha said:I also have plants that were initially grown by other home gardeners. This year I have some packets of zinnias from the 1960s that were never opened. I am going to treat them with Physan-20 and plant them in May or June just to see if any come up.

Don't get the Physan 20 too strong. I ran some experiments. A dilution of 4 tablespoons per gallon is noticeably phytotoxic to zinnia seedlings. 8 tablespoons per gallon is almost herbicidal. One tablespoon per gallon seems to be tolerated by seedlings. Seedlings germinated in 2 tablespoons per gallon, but showed some signs of phytotoxicity. I have been using 2 teaspoons per gallon on my current germinating seeds. Those experiments were done on white cactus zinnia seeds from Hazzards. I still have some of those. Maybe I will plant them in my South Garden along with the old Whirligigs.

Keep us posted, but I expect seeds from the 1960's to zero-germinate. They might germinate if they had been stored in very cold, possibly cryogenic storage, but I will be very surprised if you get any germination at all from those. You might get some response from those ancient seeds in tissue cultures, but there you would just be looking for single surviving cells, and not a whole surviving embryo.

Jai_Ganesha said:I also have Карусе́ль (Carousel) seeds harvested by a friend in Ukraine less than a mile from the Chernobyl radioactive exclusion zone. The pictures she sent me were of plants that were shorter, stockier, and darker than I would immediately think of, and the flowers were all bicolors of some sort or another. If nothing else, they represent a fresh genetic stock.

Do you know anyone with a Geiger counter? If so, I would test those seeds. They might be radioactive. But they might produce some interesting mutations. Radioactivity has been used as a tool in plant breeding, although not so much anymore.

Jai_Ganesha said:But part of the fun of growing seed mixes and hand-collected seeds is that there's more room for variation.

Yes, I too enjoy the natural variation that zinnias exhibit, which is why I like to make hybrids between hybrids to amplify that variation. This bloom has a little of the loose, open, informal bloom style that I like.

I particularly like those long petals that hang down almost vertically, giving the bloom a lot of space-filling capability. Today I will be doing some cross pollinating, as well as re-potting. The weather outside here is cold and very windy. I am quite glad to be pursuing my hobby indoors under bright fluorescent lights.

ZM

SCButtercup said:@lizzieellis
I'm a lurker here, love zinnias and have settled on a few favorites. Zowie is my number one favorite and the pictures are correct, there is a blush of pink at the base of the petals...

Hi Judy,
Forgive me for responding to a message you directed to Lizzie. But sometimes I can't help myself. Zowies do indeed have pink and orange in the overlapping zone between pink and golden yellow. I have had "conventional" zinnias with approximately the same color combination.


Zowies are an expensive F1 hybrid, so you might want to experiment with saving seeds from them. True, the F2s would show variations, but you might like some of them, and the butterflies might like them, and some could be quite close to the original F1, without the expensive F1 price.

SCButtercup said:
Breeding zinnias is a spectator sport for me. I do save seeds but germination is unreliable. Not sure what the trick is I always think I've chosen viable seeds but then they don't sprout. And I am a veteran "seed germinater" so I don't think I'm doing that part wrong. Just not good at spotting the viable seeds.

Commercial seeds are germination tested for about 80% or better. I average 50% or less with my home-saved seeds. You may be doing fine. Just out of curiosity, do you use the trick of saving zinnia seeds in the green stage? The green seed technique has several advantages. However, it doesn't guarantee you will reach the commercial 80% level.

ZM

SCButtercup said: Some nice unusual tall zinnias available from peaceseedlings.com. They don't have pictures but ALL their zinnias are amazing.

That link didn't work for me, but I think I found them. Do you have any pictures of their zinnias that you've grown?

Jai_Ganesha said:I also have Карусе́ль (Carousel) seeds harvested by a friend in Ukraine less than a mile from the Chernobyl radioactive exclusion zone.

Holy crap. Are those safe to handle? I super hope they germinate if for no other reason that to see what you'd name them.

ZenMan said:With regard to the origin of the Zinderellas, I think we can rule out them being selected from either Cupcakes or Candy. Cupcakes and Candy plants are both 30 inches high, while Zinderellas are much taller, at 40 to 50 inches high.

Didn't even consider the heights. Any guesses then?

ZenMan said:Zowies do indeed have pink and orange in the overlapping zone between pink and golden yellow. I have had "conventional" zinnias with approximately the same color combination.

Especially love that third example with the majority of each petal in the pink/orange. Both the color distribution and the form with the little petals around the center and the toothy edges.

Is there a way to do a search within the forum without going through 14 pages of posts? I remember reading about boron/Borax and some other topics I want to find again.

I have not discovered such a way, but when you find the information do a screen capture or copy and paste it. That's what I do because I cannot possibly remember everything.

With my 50-year-old seeds I am planning for a 0% germination rate. The packets are really interesting so I am also going to frame them. Even if nothing germinates I still have a use for them which is why I bought them. For the record, I sprouted radish seeds that were at least 20 years old but possibly much older and they grew. And seeds which were kept dry but not super chilled in the Great Pyramids sprouted thousands of years later. So you never know.

Do you know anyone with a Geiger counter? If so, I would test those seeds. They might be radioactive. But they might produce some interesting mutations. Radioactivity has been used as a tool in plant breeding, although not so much anymore.

I don't have a Geiger counter in this country but my friend in the Ukraine does. In that part of Ukraine nearly everything is radioactive albeit in very small amounts. Because of the military/political situation and the uncertainty if nothing else I wanted to have the seeds in order to preserve them for her. I also got a commercial seed pack from the area.