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.
