KarenHolt said:Hands down... Zinnias! ... Don't be fooled, I don't just collect, I grow. I had over 15 different zins in my gardens this year alone. I really never knew how beautiful, surprising and easy they were to grow. One of these days I will definitely do my own breeding. I'm still waiting on my greenhouse, lol. And a huge thank you to Zenman for opening my world and showing me the way.
Wow, Karen! That is so nice to hear that. If you are already saving seeds from your favorites, you are already breeding zinnias. But I hope you will start cross pollinating them, because that is key to getting new forms. And it is quite easy to do.
If you haven't already been growing them, I recommend that you include some Whirligigs in your mix. They have several things to recommend them. They are derived from inter-species hybridization between Zinnia elegans and Zinnia haageana and any crosses between Whirligigs and your other zinnias automatically inherit the name Zinnia hybrida. And most of them contain two or three colors on each petal.
They have other features as well. Some of them have a "toothy" appearance on their petal ends, and cross-pollination can transmit that toothy effect to solid-colored zinnias.
By crossing different "toothy" specimens together, a few of the progeny can have enhanced toothiness.
Toothy petal ends are just one of the things you can look for and breed for in zinnias. You never know when you will find a really weird looking zinnia.
ZM
