ge1836 said:Are the petals long ? they look to be about an inch.
I dont know jack about hybridizing. But it must be thrilling to see new experiments bloom.
The bloom is bigger than it looks in that photo. The tubular petals are nearly two inches long and the bloom is almost 4 inches in diameter. I have been crossing these tubular petaled zinnias with larger zinnias in an attempt to make them larger, and that has been working fairly well. The original tubular petaled mutant did have tubes about an inch long with blooms 1.5 to 1.75 inch in diameter. Its petals were bright red inside and dull red outside. My goal is to get these tubular petaled things 6 inches across or larger. This one was significantly larger than the one in that last picture.
However, it did not have the bright yellow tube interiors, so it didn't have as much of a fireworks starburst effect. There are many kinds of zinnias, and I will be experimenting with crossing these tubular petaled zinnias with many of them. It's fun to cross various kinds of zinnias with each other. And even more fun to cross the crosses with each other. It's amazing the stuff you can get.
ZM
