Hi all,

Welcome to this ongoing message thread. Once again, the previous part of this continuing series, It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 19, has become rather long and slow to load or read, so we are continuing the series here for yet another fresh start.

The same guidelines apply here. Anything remotely related to zinnias is fine. As always, you are invited to post your pictures, and I don't have any size recommendations for your pictures because the forum now automatically re-sizes larger pictures to 550 pixels wide. I took this picture today of some of my indoor zinnias.

Some of my indoor zinnias are beginning to come into bloom. I am growing them under fluorescent shoplights. They are all hybrids of hybrids, many of which involved my "tubular" mutant, so I will be on the lookout for any strange effects from that.

So far nothing really exciting has bloomed out, but I enjoy growing zinnias both indoors and outdoors, and I still have several dozen indoor zinnias yet to bloom, so there is still a suspense factor.

As soon as the weather warms up some I will plant a lot more zinnias as seeds directly into the ground. I am much more limited on how many zinnias I can grow indoors. But despite that, the indoor zinnias are a kind of challenge, and fun in their own way.

More later,

ZM

Anyway, just checking in. I'll let you all know when I start to get germination. Happy zinnia-growing!

Martha

I think I'm going to do the Giant Reds, Uproar, Purple Prince and some Scaboisa's this summer.

Hi Martha,

"What are you doing up on the computer at 1:20 in the morning?"

Sometimes I am kind of a "night owl". Although I think the forum may be on Eastern Time and I am on Central Time. I haven't done any Winter Sowing as such, but I have planted some zinnia seeds in rows in the garden to see what they will do. I usually have some "volunteer" zinnias, so I experimented by planting a few rows to see if they want to "volunteer".

I have repotted some of my seedlings from 3-inch pots to 5-inch pots.

Some of them are beginning to bloom. I'll probably set some of them into the garden a little before our safe no-frost date, with the idea of covering them with a protective blanket if we have a frost. I've got some tomato plants that will get the same treatment.

ZM

Hi NC,

I haven't done any tissue culture experiments in the last few months. But I will definitely return to that activity to round out my zinnia hobby.

Some of my tubular recombinants are beginning to bloom, and this is a picture of one of them, taken today.

It's too early to tell if those petals are going to retain that rolled-up effect. I hope they do.

ZM

Hi Rose,

"I think I'm going to do the Giant Reds, Uproar, Purple Prince and some Scabiosa's this summer."

That's a good assortment. If the fancy strikes you, don't hesitate to cross them with each other. I don't know how much space you have available, but a few Whirligigs would add some novelty.

This year I am going to be on the lookout for variations caused by the tubular petal "blood". I think that this recombinant is influenced by its tubular heritage.

I took that picture today. It doesn't have near the extreme roll petals as some of JG's extreme rolls, but it is a step in the right direction.

ZM

I have been meaning to share some good news about a new plant breeding book that just came out recently. It is titled Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener by Joseph Tychonievich. It covers a lot of the basics and it has sections on the vegetables: Beans, Cabbage and other Brassicas, Corn, Lettuce, Squash, and Tomatoes. It has sections on the ornamentals: Columbines, Coleus, Daffodils, Dianthus, Hollyhocks, Roses, Snapdragons, and Zinnias. This is the first affordable book that I have seen that has information on breeding zinnias.

My first reference on breeding zinnias was the book Flower Breeding and Genetics edited by Neil O. Anderson. It is priced for professionals, at well over a hundred dollars. Because I have a passion for zinnias, and because it has a whole chapter on zinnias (authored by Dennis Stimart and Thomas Boyle), I scraped the money together to buy it. But its price limits how many people will buy it.

But this new book by Tychonievich provides an affordable entry level discussion of amateur zinnia breeding, and many other plants as well. Needless to say, I did buy the book.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

Hi all,

I am happy to report that my first two indoor tubular recombinant zinnias for the season are blooming out.

There are a couple of things about them that are very encouraging to me. For one thing, they appeared in my first dozen blooms, which means that they are fairly common, and I can expect to see more tubular variants this year.

For another thing, they are fairly different from each other, and from other tubular zinnias that I had last year. That confirms my suspicion that the tubular flower form is controlled by more than one gene--possibly by several genes. That means that a whole spectrum of new flower forms derived from the tubular petal form is possible. This is a close-up of the new tubular zinnia on the left.

It has longer than average petals for a tubular, in an upturned orientation. And its pale flesh color is new for the tubulars, indicating recombination in that area as well. It's not super good, but it is new and different, which makes it interesting to me. And its newness and differentness could be hints of better things to come.

ZM

I've been reading this thread these last few months, and enjoying all the entries! I am so looking forward to this year's gardening season! Here in the midwest, we have been having lots of cooler than usual weather and rain. Usually in our area, there is a very rapid transition of winter to summer, but this year the spring has lingered on, and it seems like forever until the seeds go into the ground.

ZM, your tubular zinnias are so unique and interesting. You definitely seem to have a line that you can depend on! I'm looking forward to seeing all the variations you will get with it. Have all of the flowers you have shown in Part 20 resulted from hand pollination? Have they resulted from crosses of two different parents or parents that have been self-pollinated?

JG

Hi JG,

Most of the seed that I am planting this year came from bee pollination of non-tubular "F1" hybrids last year. Those were produced by hand pollination between tubular and select non-tubular specimens. The selected non-tubular specimens, like most of my zinnias now, were highly heterozygous, and were hybrids of hybrids of hybrids, etc.

The heterozygosity of my original tubular is unknown. At first I regarded it as a unique mutant that occurred in my zinnia patch, but now I suspect that it was at least several generations removed from the original tubular mutation. It may have been a member of an unknown minor strain that has been "flying under the radar" in the zinnia seed fields for a long time.

You inquired last year about the dominance/recessive properties of the tubular phenotype, and I responded that it was apparently always recessive. So the seed I saved last year from my "F1" tubular x selected-non-tubulars are "F2" with respect to that cross, and can be expected to exhibit the many variations that come from the genetic recombination processes that occur in meiosis. Like you, I let the bees do most of my pollination work last year, so there may be a few surprises that result from that. As always, I will have a lot of culling to do again this year, but I am optimistic that I will see some new tubular-influenced flower forms this year. Which makes my zinnia growing kind of exciting for me.

You have shown some interesting pictures of tubular zinnias in your zinnia garden. I particularly liked this one of your tubulars.

I have enlarged your picture as much as the forum now allows. I really liked it much better when the forum would let us show pictures at full screen, or very near full screen.

The mystery still remains of how some of my tubular specimens managed to set seeds last year on their tubular petals without any help from me. Their stigmas seem to be fully protected in the tubular part of the petals.

ZM

It's still a cool and damp spring compared to the ones we've had before. I'd like to plow up my gardens one more time before I do any planting of zinnia seed, but the soil is pretty wet. It's probably best to wait awhile anyway because now there are several days in the coming week where it may freeze at night. Getting impatient here!

I wish I had been as careful with the seeds from my tubular flowers as you have been! I didn't get many seeds, and those that I did, I sowed directly into the garden. Wish now that I would have started them indoors! I never did get any offspring. I will have to look for them this year, and hopefully get one or two. The ones that I have seen before came from the Benary seed, if I remember right. Some of the Benary zinnias are very curled toward the center of the flower, then there are those that just stay fused..

Is it possible that some of your tubular flowers had both male and female parts like the usual yellow disk flowers on a zinnia? Have you ever seen anything like that when dissecting those flowers?

JG

JG,

"Is it possible that some of your tubular flowers had both male and female parts like the usual yellow disk flowers on a zinnia?"

Yes, it is possible, and on some tubulars it happens. On one of the early tubular specimens that I had several years ago, I split the petals to expose the stigmas for pollination and I discovered anthers at the base of the stigmas. This is one of those early tubulars that had internal anthers.

I really liked the look of that flower. It reminded me somewhat of a Calla Lily. It did set some seed but none produced tubular offspring. That disappointed me, but left me with an "appetite" for tubular zinnias.

So I fully expected to find lots of internal anthers in my fertile tubulars last year, but I found none, not even vestigial anthers. That was what amazed and baffled me. Why would such an obvious solution to their pollination not be there?

I knew from previous dissections that tubular petals could have internal anthers and hence the capability for self-pollination of the internal stigmas. But last year I split hundreds of tubular petals and found no visible anthers or any other possible pollen source.

Last year the majority of my tubular flower heads did not have any viable petal seeds. But a few heads had heavy sets of petal seeds, so that suggests that the ability to set tubular seeds could be genetic. A couple of years ago I had a zinnia flower head that was literally overrun with ants, apparently collecting some kind of unusually attractive available nectar. Perhaps some tubular petals contain an ant-attracting nectar and ants become the vector for their zinnia pollen. It's not uncommon to see a few ants on zinnia flower heads, and maybe they are casually gathering some zinnia nectar. As this zinnia year progresses, I will keep my eyes open for any clues to the mysterious pollination of tubular petals.

ZM

Even your young plants are an inspiration to others! When I think about some of the sad, languishing, spindly seedlings I've seen pictures in the forums......! Yours are an example what plants SHOULD look like.

What kind of potting medium are you using?

I am always receptive to your informed garden advice, and feel quite pleased by your kind comments. I try to have healthy zinnia seedlings and plants because they are an integral part of my zinnia hobby. My potting medium is Premier Pro-Mix, to which I add a little extra Perlite. I am currently using their General Purpose formula, although I have used their Pro-Mix BX / Mycorise Pro product in the past with good results. I would be using it now, except my local supplier is out of it.

I am continually improving and "tweaking" my soluble nutrient formulas. Growing plants in a sterile growing medium is almost a form of hydroponics, and early on I referred to books on hydroponics and hydroponics suppliers to add calcium nitrate to my nutritional arsenal. I am currently experimenting with additional trace elements like nickel and cobalt. And I am supplying some soluble silicon in the form of potassium silicate. Apparently zinnias will take up and use quite a bit of soluble silicon.

Again, thanks for your comments. I really appreciate and respect them.

ZM

Martha

It seems like one of the turfgrass fertilizers was a Si-Ca-Mg but that's all I remember.

I'll have to pester you about this; I'm so interested. You could really improve disease resistance in your zinnias besides all of the other attributes inherent to this element.

Hello Martha,

" I thought I'd check in since my wintersowed zinnias have begun to germinate."

Many gardeners are very enthusiastic about winter sowing. There is even a Winter Sowing forum here on GardenWeb. I have never tried it in the past, because I was not sure there was a big advantage for zinnias, since they won't germinate in cool soil.

However, we had an early freeze last Fall, which knocked at least three weeks off of my outdoor zinnia season. So this year I have been looking at ways to extend my outdoor zinnia season, including Winter Sowing.

I usually have a few "volunteer" zinnias from seeds that got knocked out of zinnia heads by birds or whatever. Since those seeds have laid there all Winter through freeze after freeze and somehow germinated in the early Spring, I decided to try an experiment of deliberately planting several rows of zinnias in the first week of April just to see what they would do. A few seedlings are just now appearing in those rows.

It has been almost Summer-like here the last few days, but we are expecting some Winter-like weather later this week, so I may decide to give those exposed seedlings some cover for protection from possible freezing cold.

I have also embarked on a Winter Sowing experiment with some zinnias this year. But I wanted something bigger than milk jugs or water jugs as protection, so I assembled what they call a "low tunnel" to protect a whole bed of winter-sowed zinnias. I was very skeptical of whether that would work, but I have quite a bit of zinnia germination in my winter-sowing low tunnel.

ZM

Martha

I have been using Silicon as a beneficial plant nutrient for my zinnias for many years, possibly as early as 2006. I had been purchasing some foliar products from Dyna-Gro and noticed their product called Pro-TeKt, so I ordered a bottle of it and liked the results. I had very little problem with Powdery Mildew on my zinnias after starting to apply Pro-TeKt as a supplemental nutrient, and my plants seemed physically stronger.

I was using quite a lot of it, so, to save money, I looked for a generic source of its active ingredient (Potassium silicate) and found it at a hydroponics supply company. I purchased a gallon of the concentrate. Pro-TeKt is a good convenient source of soluble silicon, but if you are using a lot of soluble silicon, you can get more silicon for your money with a generic Potassium silicate.

There is a lot of online information on the benefits of silicon to plants. I purchased a copy of the Handbook of Plant Nutrition shortly after it came out, for my own reference. It includes a section on beneficial elements, which included Chapter 19 Silicon. I also purchased the book, Mineral Nutrition and Plant Disease, and it has a Chapter 17 Silicon and Plant Disease.

So, there is a lot of information on the benefits of Silicon to plants. Rice farmers find it nearly a necessity, for strong stems to prevent the grain heads from drooping into the water.

Silicon also benefits zinnias by contributing to their stem strength, as well as to strong cell walls which contribute to disease resistance. And strong cell walls affect the whole plant, including the floral parts. I will be including potassium silicate in my foliar nutrient applications again this year. I have already included it in the liquid nutrients I used on my indoor zinnias, tomatoes, and eggplants.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

Trying to catch up after being out of town for 10 days....the grass grew about a foot, and my once-tilled gardens were full of tiny weed seedlings! Then there were several downpours. But today after two days of sun, I was able to till up the gardens once again, and the seeds go in tomorrow! I get kind of obsessive-compulsive with my seeds...if one drops on the floor, I hurry and retrieve it...it may grow up to have the most interesting or beautiful flowers ever, LOL....

I have never added silicon to the soil, but I'm hoping that the equivalent of "green manure" in the way of grass clippings and well-composted leaves that I add every year will help some with depleted nutrients, if indeed silicon is something that is usually in the soil here in adequate and available amounts..

The winter sowing is an interesting possibility. I would think that if it worked here, I would see some volunteer zinnia seedlings in the spring. That has happened with Zinnias peruviana and haageana for me, but not with Zinnia elegans. There may have been a seedling or two with elegans, but if so, they never grew to maturity. I got a shipment of Zinnia elegans from American Meadows, and the instructions said that the seeds could be broadcast in the fall after the first killing frost...the horticulturist there said that the seeds could be expected to germinate in the spring....that they had a protective coating that allowed them to do this. Maybe I'll test that idea this coming fall with a few seed! I would expect that the germination rate would be reduced, especially with a plant that has originated from a tropical/semi-tropical climate, and with all our freeze-thaw cycles, but maybe not! Let us know how your fall-planted seeds do, ZM! Martha, do you always have to protect your winter-sowed zinnias in the spring?

I have seen pumpkin, sunflower, and tomato seeds germinate quite well after being in the soil over the winter. The beauty of those is that they come up much sooner than any seeds I may have planted in the spring!

JG

Hi JG,

We missed you. We went from freezing a few days ago to 90 degrees today. With respect to the Winter Sowing of Zinnia elegans, I have seen and grown a few volunteer Z. elegans/violacea every year for the last several years. Last year, one of my echinacea-flowered breeders was a volunteer. In Maine, volunteer zinnias had to survive being in the soil at near zero temperatures for months at a time.

This is the first year I experimented with the deliberate Winter Sowing of zinnias. Gallon jugs are too small for the scale of my operations, so I chose to use a couple of low tunnels as my "containers".

I planted my Winter-sown zinnias the first week of April, which would be about six weeks before the usual safe no-frost date here, and about two months before the recommended warm soil temperature for planting zinnias. I opened my Winter Sowing low tunnels today to see what they produced.

I opened the North sides of the tunnels (they run East-West) so as not to hit the little zinnia seedlings with much direct Sun right away. I was pleased to see that I have a lot of head-started zinnia seedlings on a much larger scale than I could do with my indoor fluorescent lighting setups.

The zinnia seedlings are mixed in with a bunch of weed seedlings, mostly Lambs Quarter and some native grasses, so I have a lot of weeding to do to make them part of this year's zinnia garden.

I consider this zinnia Winter Sowing project to be a success, and I will probably expand on it next year. The low tunnels are almost like little unheated greenhouses.

ZM

I am not distributing seeds, but if you want to see some interesting zinnias of your own, grow some of the commercially available Whirligig strain. Save seeds from your favorites, and you will be engaged in your own zinnia breeding program. And try your hand at making crosses between different zinnias. It is not hard to do, and considering all the different varieties of zinnias that are available, you will never run out of new crosses that you could make.

ZM

Your tunnel for winter sowing is impressive--now I know what winter sowing really is--kind of a cold- frame approach to getting plants started early! How much earlier (than the zinnias you sow now) do you think these seeds sown early will bloom? I've seen that zinnias are facultative short day flowering plants...do you think all plants will peak out in flowering at the same time? You probably already know this from the plants that you've started early indoors, and then set outside.

I managed to get two of my biggest gardens seeded. I felt I had to work quickly as there are frequent threats of scattered thunderstorms, and I wanted to get things in when it was still dry. Funny thing--every spring when I have everything tilled up, and there are perfect conditions to plant the seeds, our huge maple trees here also decide to drop all of their seeds on the newly plowed gardens...what good timing!--happens every year!

My main garden has seeds that are 80% Extreme Roll progeny. Then I added some whirligigs and Benaries for good measure (for the pure colors, size of blooms, and color patterns). The second biggest garden has a mixture of zinnias I have not yet tried to grow, or from seed companies where I have never ordered before.

Still have several smaller gardens to sow, including the State Fair plot.

There is a copious amount of weeding to do and that is my work cut of for me today! Oh well, at least it contributes to the compost pile! Just wish it wasn't so hot!!

JG

"How much earlier (than the zinnias you sow now) do you think these seeds sown early will bloom?"

I am not sure, since this Winter Sowing of zinnias thing is new to me. My Winter Sowed zinnias have their third set of true leaves, so they definitely have a head start. How well they make use of it is still to be determined.

As third leaf plants, they are about half the size of my usual indoor third leaf plants. So growing in the cool conditions of the low tunnel seemed to reduce their size. I assume that they will start to grow faster and larger as the temperatures warm up. I planted 8 rows of hybrid-hybrid zinnias today, so the race with the Winter-sown zinnias is on.

"...do you think all plants will peak out in flowering at the same time?"

All plants of the same age might, but I expect that plants of different ages will bloom at different times despite the differences in day length. Other factors must be at work. I had an indoor zinnia bloom after three sets of true leaves, and I have never seen that before. It looked kind of pathetic and I don't consider precocious blooming as a good trait. It was growing with other zinnias under fluorescent lights controlled with a timer that was giving them 17 hours of light and 7 hours of dark. Maybe there are genetic factors. Actually, I wish I knew some way to keep zinnia plants vegetative, so I could get more cuttings off of them. Maybe I should experiment with even longer day lengths on my indoor zinnias.

It sounds like you are going to have a big zinnia year. I sure hope you get a bunch of Extreme Rolls. I am hoping to make this my biggest zinnia year, but I have a lot more planting to do to make that happen. I am hoping for some new and better forms of the tubular petaled zinnias. I will be growing a lot of zinnias this year with tubular ancestry, so recombinations could produce some new forms.

I think the tubular petal form is controlled by more than one gene, just as I think your Extreme Rolls are controlled by more than one gene. More than one gene implies a variety of possible forms. You showed a picture of one that I consider to be an Ultra Extreme Roll, and it had very long thin petals. You might get an even more extreme form this year. And you might get some more Ultras.

ZM

I can't wait to see what you get from your current plantings! And also, to see how advantageous your early planting is. I bet you get a lot of variation in your tubular offspring..the unpredictability makes it exciting.

Conditions couldn't be better for starting seeds here now. The majority of the commercially obtained seeds that have been planted are already up--they germinated in 3-4 days, which is fine with me! My own seeds are taking longer---probably my storage conditions are not so optimal as those of the seed companies, but it may be that harvesting before complete maturity may set them back a little, too.

I hope we both get some new mutations this year...potentially beyond our imaginations .. And, I am also hoping for some inheritance of the Extreme Roll trait..

Well, there is much to do here, trying to weed flower beds and keep new beds weed-free, and of course, participate in the local plant sales, both donating and buying...wish someone else was experimenting with zinnias here...

JG

Martha

Hi JG and Martha,

This is sort of a progress update on my Winter Sown zinnias versus my in-ground sown zinnias. My first in-ground sown zinnias were planted May 18th, which was only a few days after a below-freezing night. They came up rather promptly, in 4 to 6 days, and this is what they look like now.

That picture was taken about an hour ago, when we had early morning sun (it is cloudy now, and starting to sprinkle.) This picture of some of my Winter Sown zinnias was also taken about an hour ago.

They were planted under the low tunnel the 6th and 7th of April. We had at least three killing frosts after that, but the tunnel kept them safe (except for some mole damage that is visible on the left side of this next picture).

Moles are an ongoing problem in my garden. I have some mole traps, but I am still unable to dependably place them on a used mole tunnel. I used to tolerate moles because they are said to eat grub worms, and grubs are harmful to plant roots. But I have since learned that, although moles do eat grubs, the primary diet of moles is earthworms, and earthworms are my friend, so I am now waging a somewhat unsuccessful war against the moles in my garden.

But in the meantime I am very pleased with the results in my Winter Sown low tunnel, and I plan to expand on that next year. My Winter Sown zinnias look like they are a week or two away from budding out, and they are far ahead of my first sowing of in-ground zinnias. Of course, I will be making staggered plantings of zinnias in-ground for the next month or two.

Martha, your winter sown zinnias look like they have at least their third set of true leaves, which gives them a good head start. And that soil of yours must be extra rich. Hopefully no moles will go after your earthworms.

ZM

Hi Martha,

I don't know how your picture got upside down, but I have taken the liberty of turning it rightside up here.

That looks like a good sunny spot for your zinnias, and with all that enrichment you have done for the soil, I have high hopes that you will get some great looking zinnias in that bed. That's a nice looking mailbox.

ZM

Hi Martha,

This is a mystery why the picture would appear upside down to some viewers and rightside up to others. Just out of curiosity, what browser are you using? I usually use Firefox, and am using it now, but awhile ago I looked at the picture in Internet Explorer, and it appears upside down in both of those browsers.

Changing the subject, this picture was also taken today. It is a bloom of one of the zinnias I started indoors, and it shows scabiosa flowered influence.

It's not extremely good, because the center is not symmetrical, but it is kind of unusual. Several of my indoor zinnias have been "interesting", but none have been exceptionally good. At least, none so far.

ZM

I do have moles. Though I haven't noticed them in the beds, just the lawn. There was a section of lawn by the house that was completely crisscrossed with mole tunnels. There was no where to step that wouldn't sink down into a hole. My husband heard from some one that the moles can be good for the lawn since they eat grubs and do a bang up job of aerating. It does make mowing a challenge.

We're having tons of rain this month. I'm not looking forward to the mosquitos. We have mostly cool shade, which means buzzing, biting bugs any time of the day and night. But, the plants sure like it. Especially as they recuperate from transplant shock. Some of my zinnias roots were pretty tangled with their neighbors and I had to be rougher than I wanted to get them apart. They seem to be OK so far. Happy zinnia-ing.

Martha

Hi Martha,

Safari may somehow be smart enough to correct the upside down pictures. While we are on that subject, does your second picture appear to be on its side in Safari? In my browsers, it is lying on its left side. I didn't meddle with it because I could tilt my head and see it OK.

I took this picture of one of my tubular petaled zinnias yesterday. I probably won't be taking any pictures today, because it is raining here, too.

I am hoping for some different tubulars this year from recombinations in hybrids that I have made using them, but that one is a "conventional" tubular. From a distance, they look almost like "regular" zinnias.

I, too, am not looking forward to the mosquitoes that this rain will encourage. I must be somewhat allergic to them, because their bites leave itchy welts on me almost like wasp stings. We live in a rural area with creeks to the north and to the south of us, and the mosquitoes can become quite numerous in wet weather.

I had heard that Purple Martins would eat enormous numbers of mosquitoes and I was considering investing in a Purple Martin house and a tall pole to mount it on. My online research revealed that English Sparrows become a pest by building nests in Martin houses, and that they even attack the eggs and baby Martins in their nests. Martin people recommended trapping and killing all the English Sparrows prior to erecting a Martin house, and the traps to do that were going be an additional investment.

They are wire-cage live-catch traps, because if you catch other "innocent" birds, you want to release them. But killing the trapped English Sparrows entails putting on protective gloves, reaching in and grabbing the English Sparrows and manually killing them. I'm not squeamish about that, because as a kid on the farm it was my job to wring the necks of the chickens for our weekly Sunday fried chicken supper (we referred to dinner as "supper" back then). My mother supervised the operation and fried the chickens (she was not as good as Kentucky Fried, but she was as good as most fried chicken places). She immersed the chicken in boiling water to loosen the feathers and my sisters got the job of pulling off the feathers. My mother then burned the pin feathers off over an open flame. Burnt feathers have a smell. But I digress.

Obviously I couldn't wring the necks of the English Sparrows, but I would develop some technique for killing them. I planned to dispose of them in the trash. But I was not looking forward to all that trouble and money spent in order to build up a population of Purple Martins to control our mosquitoes.

And then I learned that the claims for mosquito control by Purple Martins were somewhat exaggerated, so I dropped the whole idea and went to Plan B, which was a Bug Zapper from Amazon with an optional mosquito attractant.

That seemed to work fairly well last year on our mosquitoes, and the zapper seemed to kill about as many or more mosquitoes as those expensive Mosquito Magnet traps that burn propane to get the carbon dioxide to attract mosquitoes.

The bug zapper also allowed me to kill a large number of Hawk Moths, which lay the eggs that create Tomato Hornworms. Up until then, horn worms were a terrible problem in my tomatoes, but last year I had only three, which I hand picked with some large forceps. I think it is time for me to deploy my bug zapper again.

ZM

Martha

"Would you mind if I post a few this weekend and ask you how they appear to you at your end?"

I wouldn't mind at all. Post away. Incidentally, do you have access to any browser other than Safari? I kind of doubt that Internet Explorer is available for iPad, but I think Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox have versions for Apple, and possibly for iPad. This is an article about the best browsers for various platforms. It seems to be fairly up-to-date. It would seem to indicate that Chrome is available for the iPad, although Safari is best for general use on the iPad. This article, The Best Safari Alternatives for iPad might have some relevant information.

ZM

.

It looks like the winter sowing may give you flowers sooner...Martha, you look like you have incredibly rich soil there! The zinnias should appreciate that! By the way, on my computer, the pictures that you posted lately aren't right side up, but on my iPad, they are!

ZM, your tunnel-raised zinnias are looking great! Besides getting flowers earlier, you can also have the luxury of planting when you want, earlier on. Sometimes in the spring when it is warm enough to plant, there may be too much rain to do it, and you have to wait for a dryer time.

My seedlings (ones planted earliest) look like this now:

I put down the seeds, then cover lightly with potting soil to make sure any hardpan doesn't make it difficult for plants to emerge. I am going to have to mulch between the rows before the weeds take off...will probably use leftover hay.

JG

One other thing I wanted to say is that the tubular zinnia you showed is wonderful! Your tubulars are becoming so large and full! Can't wait to see what else comes up for you...

We have a martin house here that the martins first moved into and then the sparrows took over...also a bluebird house that the bluebirds first used and either wrens or sparrows took over! But, we do have barn swallows that are very effective in getting the mosquitoes as do the bats that come out at dusk...

JG

Hi JG,

"It looks like the winter sowing may give you flowers sooner..."

It looks like WS will give flowers sooner. Some of my WS zinnias now show buds, and many more are about to.

Incidentally, we had a severe thunderstorm last night, with torrential rain, high winds and, worst of all, pea-sized hail. My WS zinnias were somewhat protected by the furled fabric overhead (I also left furled fabric over my tomatoes deliberately as hail protection). But my in-ground zinnias had no such protection, and nearly all of them sustained at least one bruise from the small hail. You can see the bruises in this current picture of some of my first-sown May 18th seedlings.

Incidentally, they are not as far along as your early in-ground seedlings. That one extra-large seedling in your picture looks quite interesting.

"I put down the seeds, then cover lightly with potting soil to make sure any hardpan doesn't make it difficult for plants to emerge."

Your technique is sure working nicely. I have added sand to my soil to emulate sandy loam, and hopefully that sandy soil isn't too difficult for the seedlings to penetrate.

ZM

Number one is on its left side.

Number two is upside down.

Number three is on its right side.

Number four is correctly oriented.

Hope that helps.

ZM

Kansas and Oklahoma have really been getting pounded by the weather! The storms that have been so severe for you bring lots of rain for us, but not so much the hail and high winds. Hopefully with the moisture and warm temperatures, your zinnias will quickly recover from the hail damage. That was another benefit that the covers provided your WS zinnias, and also the tomatoes. Here, I just have the problem of weeds..and I'm hoping some mulch will control the worst of that. I may even try to put some down today, despite the very wet ground.

I am finding it interesting that some kinds of my Extreme Roll seeds (I divide them by the plant they come from) have much higher germination rates than others. I don't know if that is due to self-incompatibility and thus outcrossing by pollinators, lethal mutations, or some other factor.

Martha, on my computer, the fourth and last of your photos looks right side up (Internet Explorer browser). On the iPad, all pictures are right side up (Safari browser)..

JG

Hi JG,

"... Your tubulars are becoming so large and full!"

Some of them are much larger than the original "mutant", and I hope that trend will continue. But all of my tubulars aren't large and full. There is quite a bit of variation in their flower form, which means that several genes are at least affecting them, even though those genes may not belong exclusively to the tubular petal form. This one has a lot of "hidden" pollen florets, but presents its petals almost as separate flowers in themselves, and I think that characteristic has potential.

I know that zinnias are composites and that each component of the bloom, petal or floret, is actually a "flower", but if the tubulars were to present each petal a lot more separately, the zinnia bloom could resemble an umbel, and I think that could be a splendid variation. That is going to be another goal as I am evaluating the recombinant flower forms that appear this year.

ZM

Your post appeared while I was doing mine. Weeds are always a problem, and I have two compost piles mostly full of weeds that I have removed in the last year. I prefer to pull up weeds, root and all, but sometimes I just skim them down with a sharp hoe. Next year, with my Winter Sown tunnels, I plan to erect and cover the tunnels a few weeks before my intended planting date, hopefully to pre-germinate a lot of those weeds so that I can skim them down before sowing my zinnias. This year the tunnels were as beneficial to the weeds as they were to my zinnias.

I also notice big differences in germination between different individual zinnias. Some approach 100% while others germinate very low numbers. Sometimes zero. I have high hopes for your Extreme Rolls this year, as well as for my Tubulars. Part of the fun of breeding zinnias is the anticipation.

ZM

That last tubular bloom is really beautiful! Both the form and the color. Keep up the good work!

I've been checking on my zinnias daily, as I continue to plant a variety of other plants. They're all standing up straight and tall, so they are adapting to their new spots. We've had perfect weather for getting the garden established for the season. Rainy nights and sunny days with gentle breezes. I hope this continues well into June. I've had lots of volunteer native sprouts, as well. I'm planning to move some Virginia Creeper seedlings to my fence line. I love the look of a fenced covered with thick foliage. Virginia Creeper is also a host for some of the largest and most beautiful moths in Michigan, and its berries are a delicacy for many different birds.

I'm anxious for the zinnias to start blooming. I hope to have a show that cars will slow down to admire. I hope to post pictures soon.

Martha

Hello all,

I have made a little progress on my quest for my own "Extreme Rolls". I took this picture today of a relatively new bloom on a tubular recombinant plant.

The flower is not nearly as large as JG's Extreme Rolls, and the petals aren't as slim. I think it is rather odd that a tubular x non-tubular cross produced an uproll, but I guess there is some logic to it. I expect that other tubular recombinants may also produce uprolls, and I plan to inter-cross them as a step toward getting better uprolls. At least their stigmas are accessible.

ZM

The last two flowers you posted are very interesting. The color of the first is a really nice shade of red/coral, and it has upright central petals as does the rolled flower you showed last. I don't think I ever got such a spherical shape in any of my Extreme Rolls. That last one almost reminds me of a red clover flower--a very unusual flower! The red veins on white is also different. I think you have been very busy over winter making crosses! Neat flowers!

I am slowly getting my zinnias mulched...and I still need to start several more small beds--the rain sets me back as I like to till the soil well right before sowing. Here is one of the smaller patches I completed. You can see that I sowed the seeds a little too thick in some cases! And sunflowers, tomatoes, radishes, squash, and yarrow are nearby....could we call that companion planting?

JG

Hi JG,

That mulching looks like a good idea for several reasons, not the least of which is you can walk through the bed without tracking mud or dirt back into the house. I use sand mulching for that reason, and because pillbugs don't like sand, and earthworms do. Earthworms eat a little of the sand for the same reason that chickens eat small rocks or commercial granite grit. The sand in the gut of the earthworm serves the same purpose as the grit in the gizzard of a chicken, to substitute for the lack of teeth to chew their food.

This butterfly visited my zinnia patch today, and I managed to catch this picture of it. It flew a second after I snapped the picture.

That zinnia was one of my indoor zinnias that I moved out to the garden. It very possibly was one of the zinnia plants pictured in the first message in this thread. I think that butterfly is one of the tiger swallowtails, but I'm not sure which one. It sampled nectar from several of my zinnias. I keep some of my indoor zinnias that I would normally cull, just for the benefit of butterflies and hummingbirds in the early season.

I don't have anything competitive with your Extreme Rolls yet, but I hope to make some progress in that direction this year. And I am hoping to get something worthwhile out of my tubular recombinants. More later.

ZM

Martha

Hi Martha,

Thanks for the probable identification of the butterfly. It looks a little different from the picture of an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail in my butterfly book, but I understand that there can be some genetic variation in butterflies, sometimes just between the sexes. I certainly don't have a better identification for it. One of the reasons I enjoy growing zinnias is the butterflies and hummingbirds.

Sometimes, when I am pollinating a zinnia, a hummingbird will fly right by my ear and, that close, the sound of their wing beats is quite loud, and startling. So far, a hummingbird has not accidentally run into me, but the sight of their sharp beaks so close to my face is a little daunting. I usually wear my glasses so they don't accidentally poke me in the eye. They are not as easy to take pictures of as butterflies are.

I mentioned earlier that some of the variations of my tubular petaled zinnias could hold their petals in a spread-out way so that the bloom resembled an umbel, and this is another of my tubular variants that sort of do that.

Still not a really strong umbel look, but I have hopes for an umbel-flowered zinnia strain eventually. I now need to get those tubular petals to flare out more at the end and show more of their inside-the-petal color. I wouldn't mind if each petal looked like a little morning glory, or some similar flower.

And it would be good if the outside of the petals had better color, too. I think that is possible, because both JG and I have had zinnia specimens with a good white on the backside of the petals. I just have to do some more cross-pollinating to move those genes around. More later.

ZM

I don't think anyone would recognize that last flower as a zinnia unless he were told! It looks like many tiny calla lilies poked into some floral foam! Interesting form....

Got my main garden mulched and it looks like so:

I do like the hay as it allows me to walk out there between the rows when the garden is wet. It was time for some sort of mulch because the rain was spattering mud all over the leaves of the plants. I've been criticized for using hay because of all of the potential seeds in it. That never has been much of an issue, fortunately. And in the fall when I plow it under, it adds to the organic content of the soil.

The butterfly picture is really nice! I've only seen some Mourning Cloaks thus far and several kinds of skippers. I'm trying to include food for butterfly larvae among my different garden plots like dill, spicebush, pipevine, pawpaw, rue, several kinds of milkweed,etc. The zinnias seem to satisfy all kinds of butterflies for nectar! Here, we are also restarting a beehive as our last colony got invaded by wax moths after the bees swarmed from it twice.

JG

Hi JG,

Your garden looks really nice in that setting. Are we looking North in that view? I say that, because despite the nearby trees, the garden itself seems to be in full Sun.

I agree with your comments on that "umbel-like" tubular zinnia. In that form it isn't particularly decorative, but I think it shows potential for evolving into a flowerform that would be attractive. Some of my current tubular influenced uproll-ish blooms are not particularly good looking. This one is "past its prime".

The tubular influence does tend to produce "spherical" blooms, which I like.

I need to start checking my maturing blooms for viable green seeds. It would be good to get a new generation started this early in the year. If I find any good green seeds, I probably will remove their embryos and plant those inside to accelerate the process. I may even experiment with the in-ground planting of embryos. So far I haven't tried that.

I didn't know that you were also a beekeeper. That should ensure good pollination in your zinnias, and is an interesting separate endeavor. I don't think that anyone in our immediate rural area has beehives. At least, I don't know of any. We do have honeybees pollinating our zinnias, but I think they are from "wild" hives, probably in hollowed out dead trees in the nearby wooded creek areas. More later.

ZM

I really like the last flower you showed. The color is interesting with lots of pink, and green, on the underside.
I wonder if the tendancy for those upright petals in the center comes from scabious flower genes? Very nice!!

You are moving along quickly with your generations of zinnias--already thinking of starting plants from immature seeds this season! I think you are going to get some very neat results this year! ....fascinating how the forms of your flowers are evolving.

That photo of my garden is looking south in the afternoon. The trees at the edge are redbuds--they volunteered and I let them stay to add color in the spring. They don't seem to create a heavy shade for the plants in the center.

All I can do now is look over the many seedlings that are here...don't see anything too unusual. There were a few "albino" plants that didn't make it as well as some with three leaves at a node. It seems that the first leaves of the Extreme Roll plants are wider/more elongated than those on the other zinnias.

JG

Hi JG,

"I wonder if the tendency for those upright petals in the center comes from scabious flower genes?"

The scabious types do have fully filled in centers. But I have seen my tubulars with two completely different arrangements of petals. The umbel-like flower form of the tubular pictured above has the petals headed in all directions, such that the flower forms almost a sphere. But other tubular blooms have all the petals headed upward, forming a bloom that looks almost like an old-fashioned broom. This is a recent picture of a tubular whose petals point as much upwards as possible.

However, in the past I have had "conventional" flowered zinnias that had the "spherical" arrangement of petals, like this one.

That one isn't such a good example of spherical, because most of its petals head outward and downward, and it is the downward petals that are approximating a sphere. But I think the truly "spherical" petal distribution gene may exist independently of scabious, conventional petal, or tubular petal flower form. That is an unproven conjecture, but most of my current tubular petaled blooms don't have scabious genes yet. It happens that both of the recent "spherical" blooms had a tubular parent, and that a few of the tubulars are showing the spherical petal orientation, but I suspect that the spherical petal orientation gene is independent from the tubular petaled or scabious flower form. It just happens that some of the tubulars have it and can transmit the gene. But this is kind of guesswork at this stage. I do like the spherical petal orientation, because it resembles a dandelion flying-seed ball.

I'm kind of waiting for my Winter Sown seedlings to come into bloom now. Some are budding. Nothing else new in my indoors-grown zinnias right now. I am still planting zinnia seeds in-ground.

You mentioned you have some three-leaves seedlings. I still give those special treatment, because I still hope to stabilize that trait in a strain of zinnias. I used to think that was impossible, but I saw some results last Fall that made me think an inheritable version of the "threesies" might be possible.

ZM

I see you just registered on GardenWeb June 5th, so let me welcome you to GardenWeb. And welcome to zinnia breeding. It can be an absorbing hobby.

I used to grow Thumbelinas and cross them with larger zinnias to get the equivalent of today's Magellans and Dreamlands. Thumbelinas are amazing little zinnias, that can start blooming when they are only three inches tall.

I quit working with shorter zinnias because I didn't like to bend down or kneel to work with and pollinate their shorter plants. And the Thumbelinas are so short that Pillbugs (Rollie Pollies) can sometimes be a problem with them.

"I spent a ton on seeds"

That's understandable when you are just starting out. Hopefully you will save seeds from your favorites this year and have plenty of your own seeds for next year. I still buy some commercial zinnia seeds from time to time, just to "add to my gene pool". But with any luck, you will have better zinnia seeds that you have saved this year than any that you could buy.

Hopefully we can help with your pest problems.

ZM

Martha

I've been reading 'Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener' and in the section about zinnias it talks about removing the disk florets but the author doesn't descrbe how it's done (i.e. only breeding to the ray florets as the female parent). I would also be concerned removing that many florets would kill the flower. Does anybody do this? Was it described in a previous " It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part X?" If so can someone direct me to the appropiate one? I'd also be interested in knowing when to harvest the flowers as well.

TIA (Thanks in Advance)

With respect to removing the disk florets, that is done by "picking" them with tweezers or forceps or twissors. Just grasp the neck of the floret and pull it out. Some zinnias have very few florets and, if it is a good zinnia, I take the floret I have removed and use it as a brush to apply pollen to another zinnia's stigmas to cross pollinate it.

If a zinnia had a whole lot of florets, I would consider that as a bad trait, so I wouldn't be trying to use it as a female or as a male. I would just discard the plant unless I wanted to keep it for the butterflies and hummingbirds.

I saw you message in the Hybridizing forum about deer destroying some of your hybrid peas. My sympathies. Zinnias are not a favorite of deer, so hopefully you won't have a recurrence of that tragedy with your zinnias.

ZM

So the zinnias I've seen in previous years that last a long time in garden but the disk keeps get taller with a ring of stamens progressing upward are the 'bad' ones?

Also when do you harvest the flowers?

(Thanks for the sympathy re the peas -- it wouldn't be quite as frustrating if they hadn't waited until almost the last moment (i.e. I could had the seeds)).

"So the zinnias I've seen in previous years that last a long time in garden but the disk keeps get taller with a ring of stamens progressing upward are the 'bad' ones? "

Well, they are to me. Obviously that is a purely subjective opinion, and not shared by many. For example, the award winning zinnia "Zowie! Yellow Flame" has just such a tall cone of floret flowers, and it won the All America Selections in 2006. So, it's a matter of taste. Those tall cones of dead florets are not attractive to me. But obviously a lot of people don't mind them.

"Also when do you harvest the flowers?"

Hopefully, before the birds eat the seeds. I learned the trick of saving green zinnia seeds from JG (JackieR gardener). She is one of the experienced and resourceful zinnia growers and breeders who participate in this forum. Last year, as an alternative to planting green zinnia seeds, I extracted the embryos from green zinnia seeds and planted two flats of zinnia embryos. They came up in two or three days. Embryo culture can speed up a second generation of zinnias.

A lot of people save the dried brown zinnia heads and shuck the seeds from them. That can work, too. As the old saying goes, "There is more than one way to skin a cat."

ZM

The zinnias that won the bud race here were the scabious zinnias...in a week or two, I hope to see my first few flowers. We are expecting a big storm tonight, and I'm hoping the plants aren't harmed by hail, wind, and/or flooding. With my micro-crop of zinnias, I feel a tiny bit of what each farmer goes through with respect to his crop every year..what a difficult (but important) job.

I don't particularly like a lot of disc florets in my zinnias, but those are the parts of zinnias that are associated with the nectar, and attract the bees and butterflies, so I let them go. Also, obviously, they are critical for seed production! Often the flowers that interest me most here, though, don't have a whole lot of disc florets, but a few so that I can do some manual crossing.

ZM, those globular, tubular flowers are both pretty and novel! It looks like you have an entire family of them! The last one with the deep rose coloring was nice!

JG

A zinnia is a composite flower, so there are actually many little flowers bundled together on the same 'stem'. Each 'petal' of a zinnia is part of a little female, or ray, flower that has a ovary, stigma, and style ("pistil"). If you look toward the base of the petal, you will see those female parts. The central part of many zinnias have little yellow disc flowers. Those flowers have both pistils (female parts) and stamens (male parts). The yellow part of those disc flowers will be covered with pollen when mature. The female parts of all the small flowers of the composite zinnia can receive pollen from the disc flowers of the same plant, or from another plant. It's possible that each flower, whether a disc or ray flower, could be pollinated by the pollen of a different disc flower (although not probable). Insects are responsible for much of this pollination, but we can intervene! Each seed produced (developing either at the base of a ray flower or a disc flowers) may have a different male parent. If you get a chance, read through this thread from part one. ZM has done a really good job of providing photographs and descriptions of the flowers and how they can be crossed! The seeds produced by the disc flowers are smaller and more rounded while the seeds produced by the ray flowers are flattened and thinner.

JG

Hi everyone,

The first of my Winter Sown zinnias bloomed out a couple of days ago, and several are now in bloom. This is a sample.

The parents of these zinnias were not tubular, but they had at least one grandparent that was tubular, so there is a chance that some tubular traits will reappear as the genes recombine. This is one of the WS blooms that exhibits some tubular influence.

I am pleased with the results of my Winter Sowing experiment, and plan to expand on the WS operation next year, with at least one new low tunnel.

I am continuing to plant in-ground zinnias as fast as I can prepare beds for them (which is not very fast). I will be planting in a new bed this afternoon. We have thunderstorms and possible hail predicted for this evening. More later.

ZM

Martha

"...if it would make sense to plant seeds among the plants already growing so there would be "fresh" plants later in the summer?"

I actually tried that last year, and it didn't work well. The tiny seedlings were shaded by the big older zinnias, and they grew into spindly weak plants. It does make sense to do succession plantings of zinnias in different spaces. Just don't put the new zinnias in direct competition with the older zinnias.

I plan to continue planting zinnias in-ground up until about the second week of July. The later zinnia crops look better in the Fall when the earlier zinnia crops are going to seed and looking decrepit and becoming susceptible to mildew. Young zinnias are resistant to mildew.

ZM

Hi everyone,

I am encouraged that a significant percentage of my Winter Sown zinnias are showing tubular characteristics, even though their parents were non-tubular. Also, I am seeing some variations in the tubular flower form, as I had hoped. This one exhibits rather thin tubes with a pointed flare at the end.

I am curious how it will look as the flower matures. This one has well flared tubes with an intense red color.

So far, well over ten percent of the recombinants from non-tubular zinnias with a tubular grandparent show tubular influences. And significant variations in the tubular flowerform are appearing. So I feel this approach to breeding tubular zinnias is validated. Now I hope to get something "really good" from my recombinants that are yet to bloom this year.

ZM

Hi Rose,

" I'm still waiting for mine to sprout."

How long have you been waiting for your zinnias to sprout? The Winter Sown zinnias whose pictures I have been showing were planted on the 6th and 7th of April under a low tunnel covered with agricultural fabric. They were a little slow to germinate due to the cool soil that time of year, but the tunnel made them 6 to 8 degrees warmer, so the tunnel functioned somewhat like an unheated greenhouse. My zinnias came up in a little over a week in the low tunnel, which considering that they were planted inground over a month before the usual planting time, was pretty good.

At this stage in their breeding, my tubular zinnias might not be considered to be pretty because their petal structure is so different and un-zinnia-like. This is another of my Winter Sown tubular recombinants.

I am not sure that one is even tubular, but its petals seem to be influenced by some tubular genes. As they develop, some of the tubular blooms can resemble conventional zinnias, like this one.

Its tubular petals open out into almost conventional petals at the end. That isn't exactly what I am going for, but it does show that tubular petals can take many forms. I am hoping to get some tubular flowerforms that are truly as pretty as conventional zinnias, but I haven't achieved that yet. However, I do expect to get a lot more tubular zinnia blooms in my recombinants this year, so I am hoping to at least make some progress in that direction.

ZM

You are doing so well with the tubular zinnias! I like them all...the ones with long, narrow tubes are so interesting! Now that you have an enriched gene pool, you are going to get all kinds of variations of that trait. I know that there are other composite flowers like gaillardia and chrysanthemums with that mutation along with the coneflower 'Henry Eilers.'

I've got lots of buds on my plants now, and I am doing my final weeding. After that, it will be strictly observation of flowers (my favorite part). I've got some scabious plants, the Select Seeds "Gumdrop Candy" ready to bloom. Wonder what percent will be scabious? I keep my fingers crossed on that one. Also have a number of buds on my Extreme Roll progeny. Wish that trait was as inherited as the tubular one!

JG

JG,

"Now that you have an enriched gene pool, you are going to get all kinds of variations of that trait."

I am hoping that I will get lots of variations of the tubulars. For one thing, I need to get them in a complete color range. This specimen makes some progress in that direction.

I have lots more recombinants budding out, so hopefully I can make some significant progress with the tubulars this year.

Goclon,

I see you registered just yesterday, so welcome to the party here on GardenWeb. I am sure that others, like JackieR, can offer more good advice on the basics of breeding zinnias as a hobby, but since you can grow zinnias, you are already part way there.

I would recommend growing several different kinds of zinnias of the types that you like, and first of all, just pick out your favorites. Zinnias have a lot of variations, and just deciding on the ones that have traits that you like can be a fun thing to do. You can either save seed from them and have a bunch of zinnias that you like better next year. Or, better still, you can make crosses between your favorites and have some great surprises from them. It's not hard to cross zinnias, so I recommend that you try that.

If you read backwards in these message threads (they are connected with links head-to-head and toe-to-head), you can find a lot of details on that. Or we can add some details here if you like.

Again, welcome to GardenWeb and to this potential fun hobby. I think that quote from Ancestry.com is applicable here to zinnias. "You don't even have to know what you're looking for...you just have to start looking."

ZM

That last tubular flower is great! I love the color, the contrasting veins, the long tubes, and the dark red center! That has got to be the wildest flower you've shown yet! Was that a result of planned crossing, or did that occur from a random cross? I wonder if all the flowers will be similar on that plant? Looking forward to the flowers you have coming up!

The flower I have that is furthest along is merely a scabious example,and not fully opened. You might say it has tubes..of the scabious variety, LOL...

JG

My first zinnia of the year is about to open up today or tomorrow, and I'll be able to tell the color. I'm very excited to find out what this mystery zinnia will look like... I'm guessing purple or pink, as that's what my seeds have been dominated with historically. I'm still leaving all crossing up to nature, and I have saved seed from everything that I could. There's a major anticipation factor when you go in "blind," waiting to see what pops up. It may be the most generic zinnia you've ever seen in your life, or it could be a complete oddball. This particular one and all of them in my small garden are hybrids of a hybrid of a hybrid... etc. I don't actually know how far back I've personally planted these, at this point.

After reading everything that I've missed, I particularly enjoy the flower that ZM posted on June 5th. And JG, your most recent picture reminds me of candy hearts for some reason. I guess the color, and the almost heart-shaped petals. Looks "sweet."

Hi TC,

Welcome back. It has been a long time. You may have noticed that I am using the "flower mode" on my camera to throw the backgrounds out of focus, at the expense of limited depth of field in the bloom itself. Actually I wish I had gotten the background more out-of-focus in this recent picture of a new tubular recombinant. Its stem had an odd angle from a recent wind storm, and the ground appears as the background in the picture. That is not good from an artistic standpoint.

The lighting was bad when I snapped that and I think the picture suffered because of that. But the zinnia itself is a bit unusual. Maybe I'll get a better picture of it in a few days.

I agree with your opinion of the June 5th picture. I really like that nearly spherical flower form, and I will be giving it preference during my selection processes.

There is always suspense and anticipation when waiting for a new zinnia bud to open into a flower. So we will be awaiting a picture of your new zinnia bloom, whatever it is.

ZM

Mine are outdoors and experiencing wet-weather fungus and Japanese beetle de-foliation but we are doing our best to have them last a bit longer. Here is a recent pic of a new bloom:

Here's the garden:

Nice close-up pic. Did you use a special lens to get that close?

Yes, a zinnia plant will continue growing and expanding if you harvest cut flowers from it. Just be careful to take just the stems and whatever stem leaves are attached to the stem, and to leave the nodes (branching points) on the plant so that it can put out new branches. And try to make a clean cut. Scissors or pruners will do.

"And I assume disease is non-existent when growing indoors, yes?"

Infrequent, but not non-existent. In the Fall, I usually take a few cuttings from my favorite "breeder" zinnias, and bring them indoors. Sometimes a disease or pest will come in on a cutting. Last fall I transplanted a whole plant into a pot to grow under fluorescent lights, and it apparently had some spider mites on it. Spider mites on outdoor zinnias are usually kept in check by natural enemies, but they had a population explosion on my indoor zinnia and killed it before I could kill them.

When you are growing zinnias indoors there are three formidable enemies: aphids, thrips, and spider mites. Outdoors, there are natural enemies and conditions that keep them in check. But indoors their populations can explode in less than a week.

A systemic drench of a product containing imidacloprid will control the aphids and thrips by entering the internal system of the zinnia to protect it from within, but the spider mites can problematic. Imidacloprid doesn't kill them. The only systemic control that I know of for spider mites on zinnias is prohibitively expensive.

You can apply a systemic drench inside, but spraying inside could be a bad thing, and taking your plants outside to spray them isn't always feasible, especially in sub-freezing weather.

Bottom line: growing zinnias outside is relatively easy, but inside, not so much. As a hobbyist, I enjoy the challenge and grow zinnias year round. But growing zinnias inside can be "interesting".

ZM

PS. I am glad we don't have Japanese Beetles here in Kansas.

JG,

"That has got to be the wildest flower you've shown yet! Was that a result of planned crossing, or did that occur from a random cross?"

I'm glad you like it. That was not from a random cross. It was an F2 progeny from an F1 cross whose female zinnia was one of my aster flowered zinnias designated as E20. I applied a lot of pollen from my original tubular "mutant" (E2) to E20 and grew a couple of rows of those hybrids last year.

None of those hybrids were tubular, but I was reasonably sure they had tubular "blood", so I planted the seeds from those rows of F1s with a reasonable expectation of getting some tubulars, which I am getting. Actually, I showed a picture of E20 year-before-last in the then-allowable 986-pixel-wide format. Just so you don't have to dig for it, here is a picture of E20, the grandmother of that "wild" tubular.

I am hoping for some more tubular recombinants from that cross. E20 was one of my better aster flowered specimens. It should have several ways of modifying the tubular petal flowerform.

ZM

"Can the old mexico zinnias or the zinnia marylandica hybridize with the zinnia elegans?"

The short answer is no. Old Mexico is a tetraploid version of Z. haageana and so it has 48 chromosomes. Zinnia marylandicas (a man-made species) are allotetraploids of Z. angustifolila (22 chromosomes) and Z. violacea (elegans) (24 chromosomes) so the Zinnia marylandicas have 46 chromosomes.

You might actually get a few seeds from the crosses you mentioned, but they almost certainly would be sterile, or possibly produce plants that would be sterile. To avoid sterility in your hybrids, you should cross between specimens that have the same number of chromosomes.

I have stuck with just Zinnia violacea (elegans) and the Whirligig cultivar, which was derived from a cross between Z. violacea and Z. haageana.

The Whirligigs are recombinants from that interspecific cross, and for that reason they have some remarkable variations that aren't pictured in the catalogs or on the seed packets. I heartily recommend that you include Whirligigs in almost any zinnia breeding program.

And there are at least two strains of Whirligigs, one that is primarily double (from Stokes, for example), and one that is primarily single (from Parks, for example). I prefer the double strain, but for maximum variability you might want to try both strains. Both strains cross easily with Zinnia elegans to produce some interesting results.

ZM

"Earlier on in the thread, the tubular petaled zinnias seemed particularly interesting! Are they derived from cactus-form zinnias?

Mine were not derived from the cactus strain. It appeared as a single mutant in a patch of two-tone zinnias that were probably derived from Whirligigs. I aggressively crossed that mutant with most of my breeder class zinnias. Recombinants from those crosses are now producing a variety of tubular type zinnias.

"Also, is it too late to put out zinnias for seeds that I can plant in the fall or winter indoors?".

I'm not sure I understand your question, but zinnias bloom in 6 to 8 weeks from seed. I am still planting zinnias here in zone 5b (possibly now 6a with climate change). You could still plant zinnias, get blooms, cross them or self them, and save viable seeds this Fall. I do not recommend growing zinnias indoors for anyone other than advanced hobbyists.

The exception to that is starting zinnias indoors a few weeks early prior to setting them out in the garden in the Spring. That should be doable if you have a good fluorescent light setup. I was surprised by your zone 7b in New York.

ZM

I could be wrong about this, but I don't think that Jazzy is tetraploid, which means it is just a selected and perfected version of Z. haageana. Which means you could have a shot at crossing it with your Violacea/Elegans to get your very own interspecific crosses.

With regard to your 150 seeds of Whirligig/Carrousel from the Internet, that isn't the most cost effective way to buy them. If you want to grow a lot of Whirligigs, you can get a much lower per-seed cost by buying in quantity. Stokes Seeds sells a quarter pound for $14.60 and Hazzard Seeds sells 2000 seeds for $10.89. Both are good deals, and give you enough for an extensive planting, which is likely to produce some interesting results.

Not all caterpillars hatch out into butterflies. Some become moths. Right off hand, I don't know of any butterfly that uses zinnia as its food plant. But I don't know the situation in California. Any caterpillar that chooses to munch on my breeder zinnias is a goner.

I am looking forward to pictures from your zinnia garden. I have been meaning to grow White Wedding, and just haven't gotten around to it yet.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

I'm loving all the photos everyone is submitting! LKZZ, your zinnia patch is so bright and cheery! And you can save lots of seeds from it, too, for next year. Veggie, if you want to identify that little caterpillar, get a good close-up shot of it and submit it to bugguide.net, and you most likely will get it identified within hours.

ZM, the deep pink/red flower you showed is gorgeous. You are getting such good colors! I almost forgot about those aster-flowered zinnias you had...they were classics. Wouldn't have imagined you would have crossed them with a tubular, but what a good idea!

Well, many of the plants from the scabious seeds that I planted are starting to bloom, and I can safely say that I will be lucky to get 5% true scabious form. I saw the one pictured below, and thought it would develop into a nice example...but wouldn't you know?-- it has a "twin" very closely adjoined on the same stem, and of a paler color! Zinnias can do funny things. There are buds on most of my plants in two of my earlier-started beds...so am hoping to get more flowers soon. Thankfully, we had some rain in the last day. I was afraid we were headed for a dry spell. I'm hoping that the moisture will encourage the flowers.

JG

Thanks!

Thanks!

There is no commercial strain of tubular zinnias that I know of. I have no idea which available strain is most likely to mutate to tubular. If I had to make a wild guess, it would be the scabiosa flowered cultivars and the Whirligig based cultivars.

I am not even sure that the mutation occurred in my zinnia patch. Based on its odd ways of propagating itself in the absence of bee pollination, I think it is very possible that the tubular strain may be a very old strain that has been "flying under the radar" in some commercial zinnia fields. And it just shows up occasionally in a seed packet.

But I have seen one only once in my lifetime, so I think that getting a tubular is extremely rare. I was just very lucky to get one. (Or unlucky, if this tubular project turns out to be a waste of time.) If you should get a tubular, consider yourself also very lucky. But don't devote your whole zinnia breeding project to a quest for a tubular.

I was aware of the rare existence of the tubular flower form in zinnias from a fuzzy picture posted years earlier in another garden forum (Dave's garden). I asked the poster to save seeds from it and send me a few and he agreed, but I never heard any more about it or received any seed. My guess is that it either didn't have any seed, or the poster didn't know how to save zinnia seed, or decided to keep them for himself (I wouldn't blame him for that.)

My guess is that in those rare cases when someone gets a tubular, they just pull it up as a "defective" specimen or just leave it to grow out its life cycle. Only a small percentage of people who grow zinnias save seeds from them.

In my opinion, the original tubular strain has limited ornamental value. I am just messing with it because I think it has the potential to evolve into a more ornamental form through hybridization, recombination, and selection. I am posting pictures as a progress report, and not as a tease to get other people to look for tubulars.

"How much space do you need to have to breed zinnias?"

I have worked with as few as 120 square feet, but I felt very limited by that and actually accomplished more with my indoor zinnia growing during the Winter that year. You will have more fun if you can grow several hundred zinnias. Breeding zinnias is a little like playing a slot machine -- the more times you pull the handle the better are your chances of hitting the jackpot.

"How long does it take to go from (green) seed to flowering for the average zinnia?"

It takes 6 to 8 weeks to first flower from green seeds, provided you breach the green seed coat (which is impervious to water because it is still alive). If you just plant the green seed without doing that, you can add 2 weeks to allow for the seed coat to die and become pervious.

Occasionally, for special specimens, I remove the embryos from the green seeds and plant embryos instead of seeds. That was discussed in a previous Part of this message series. It's not as hard to do as you might think, provided you have X-Acto knives.

The forum participant and fellow zinnia breeder, JackieR, taught me that I could save green seeds in the Fall instead of waiting for the seedheads to become brown. It is important that the green seeds be mature enough to have fully developed embryos inside, and that you spread them out to dry thoroughly before you package them. That tip has been a big help to me, because it helps me avoid seed loss to seed eating birds, and seed loss to pregermination in the seed heads in a rainy period.

ZM

One of the first zinnias to bloom in my biggest patch was an extreme rolled flower...not an impressive one..but it gives me hope that I may see better examples as the summer goes on.

.

JG

Hi JG,

That twin-headed scabious specimen might be worth saving seeds from, just to see what you get. One head seems to have white-on-the-outside florets, while the other one apparently doesn't. For commercial scabiosa flowered cultivars, 5 percent on-type is about what I usually get. Some of the early Candy Mix yielded about 10 percent on type. But I have some Candy Mix seeds that yield considerably less than 5%, maybe in the one-percent range. I won't be planting them again any time soon. I can live with 5-percent, because I normally cull in the 90-percent range anyway.

"The flower I have that is furthest along is merely a scabious example, and not fully opened. You might say it has tubes ... of the scabious variety..."

You might, indeed. I probably should put more emphasis on adding scabious genes to my gene pool, because getting away from the "fuzzy yellow starfish" look in pollen florets appeals to me. And I really need to try harder to get interactions between scabious and tubular flower forms. This recombinant hints at the advantages of scabious genes.

This closeup shows the details of the florets a little better. It is just a crop from the original large image that comes from my camera.

Those aren't true scabious florets, but they differ some from the usual "fuzzy yellow starfish", and make it easier for me to like what is actually a single zinnia. I know that my prejudice against single zinnias is unjustified, and someone is going to breed some stunning single zinnias, perhaps starting with the Parks strain of Whirligigs. I can't wait to see more of your extreme rolled zinnias. And other interesting zinnias that appear from your gene pool. A lot of your zinnias have "the right stuff".

ZM

"So far no blooms! I've had marigolds, cosmos and sunflowers flower this season, but no zinnias!"

Just out of curiosity, when did you plant your zinnias? It seems a bit odd that we in Kansas and the Midwest should be ahead of you in California. The W. Atlee Burpee seed company used to grow their zinnias preferentially in California, because of the favorable climate there. They probably still do.

ZM

Talking about scabious and tubular petals...I was surprised to see a scabious flower today with half of its guard petals tubular in form. Will know if that is possibly genetic or environmentally caused when other flowers on that plant bloom.

JG

"I'm not sure if I have the space for a few hundred zinnias out of doors!"

Growing zinnias inside is not a practical alternative to growing them outside, regardless of space considerations. Grow as many zinnias outside as you can, even if it is only a few.

"Or can they grow like normal houseplants w/ supplementary light?"

No, they cannot grow like normal houseplants because zinnias are not houseplants. No book on houseplants that I know of mentions zinnias.

"How much dwarf zinnias can you grow in 80 sq ft?"

A dwarf zinnia can be happy in about one square foot, so the answer would be 80. But once again, that would be outside, and not inside.

ZM

"I planted my zinnias very late. Probably in mid-April and early May."

They should be in full bloom by now. Zinnias that I planted on May 18th are now in full bloom.

"I've had buds, but they are no good! They die or get eaten by bugs!"

Bugs might destroy the occasional zinnia bud, but not your whole crop. I think you have a nutritional problem with the bed where you are growing your zinnias. Once we solve that, you will be "covered up" with zinnia blooms.

In the absence of photographs of your zinnias, I can guess that your zinnias are suffering from specific nutrient deficiencies. What have you been feeding them? The two most likely deficiencies that come to mind are calcium and boron. Zinnias need about twice as much boron as most flowers.

Boron can be tricky, because too much boron can be toxic. That is pretty much true of everything, but in the case of boron the "window" between too little and too much is much narrower than with most nutrients.

All complete soluble nutrient formulas (like, for example, Miracle-Gro) contain some trace elements, including boron. But it is a "safe" lower level, that isn't enough for zinnias until you adopt a program of regular foliar feeding with it. I routinely add a little extra boron in my foliar feeds of zinnias.

Calcium is another nutrient whose deficiency can cause bud problems. I have sprinkled my garden with pelleted gypsum (calcium sulfate), so calcium deficiencies are less of a problem for me, but if the buds look a little weak, I add some calcium nitrate to my foliar feed.

Your current lack of zinnia blooms is a symptom of a problem that needs to be fixed. If you can, please post pictures.

ZM

This thread has gone well beyond the 100 mark (that used to be a limit imposed by GardenWeb) so we are starting a new part to the thread, It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 21. See you all over there.

ZM