All of our outdoor gardening is done in container plants on our large patio. A couple of large containers of red petunias is always a must. This year we purchased two small hanging pots of red impatiens from Home Depot - not expecting much of a show from them. To our amazement these impatiens took off like a "house afire". They got so heavy that we had to remove them from the shepherd hook and place them on the ground. A couple of violent thunderstorms/high winds broke off a few branches. Behind them are three pots of ornamental peppers that also grew well for us this year. A photo is attached.

Yeah, by far my best annuals this year were the impatiens. Also the coleus. I love red salvia, but they struggled. Marigolds (3 types) went wild after I finally got them in. The several kinds of Zinnia did great in deck pots (and I especially the Pinwheel Zinnias in one pot because I luckily got such good variety of color from just 4 plants.

Zinnia Zahara sunburst gets the prize from me second year in a row.


Grew this in deck container as well as in from yard by mailbox. Short, spreading habit. Needs very little water.

Well, in my case it is no surprise that some zinnia will be my best performing annual. It's hard to narrow that down to a single zinnia, but as always I got good performance out of Whirligig zinnias.

Whirligigs were derived from inter-specific hybridizations between Zinnia elegans and Zinnia haageana, so they usually get botanically classified as Zinnia hybrida. Most of my zinnias have at least some Whirligig "blood" or genes from other Zinnia hybrida zinnias (Merry-Go-Round, Carousel, or Zig Zag), so all of my home hybridized zinnias can be categorized as Zinnia hybrida.

ZM