I bought a packet of Burpee's cockscomb celosia and ended up with some sort of amaranth plant.

I bought a package of Burpee pink peony poppy seeds and they are blooming in various shades of pink, white, red and purple. Very pretty though not what I thought I was getting.

Magellan Zinnias are a lovely big flowered variety and like all zinnias easy to grow from seed. There is a coral, scarlet red and dark pink.

I brought Burpee's intense red poppy seed. They turn out to be orange poppy.

Burpee's clearly labels the packet "Big Red." I am sure that Burpee's is being paid for the use of its name on the pack, even though the package is fraudulent. Burpee's has many different zinnia packages at such places as Home Depot and Walmart. The company counts on consumers not caring what they get.

Yes, the Park Big Red are well known, but evidently that name is not exclusive to Park.

If you contact burpee with the lot # on your package they will replace it for you

Alas, who keeps old seed packages? In addition, I found that Burpee's mixed Burpeanna seeds were disproportionately orange (almost 70 %). So the sloppiness is not limited to the "Big Red" zinnias. The solution for me is to not buy Burpee seeds.

Hi Mantis__oh,

" ...I found that Burpee's mixed Burpeanna seeds were disproportionately orange (almost 70 %). "

I grew a couple of beds of Burpeeana Giants this year, using 5 packages of seeds that I bought directly from Burpee's online store. I got a much better distribution of colors than you got. There were several shades of orange, but altogether they amounted to less than 30%. I got purples, reds, yellows, pinks, roses, whites and off-whites, and several hard-to-name pastel colors. There were several variations of the flower forms, from spikey petals to twisted "fantasy" petals.

I am going to save seeds from some of my favorite Burpeeana specimens and grow them next year in an effort to "improve" the strain. By saving seeds, I can get separate colors. And I am going to cross some of my "home brewed" hybrid zinnias (I breed zinnias as a hobby) with some of the choicest Burpeeana specimens. By doing that, I can get a greater variety of colors in my home-bred zinnias. I have several different zinnia breeding projects going at the same time. Some people might say that I "have too many irons in the fire", and they could be right.

I notice that my Burpeeana Giants zinnia seeds came from Holland. Did you happen to notice the country-of-origin on your Burpee seed packets?

ZM

Order from Hazzards or Swallowtail Seeds. They come true to color.

I purchased Candy Cane Red on White Zinnias under the Burpee label and they came out as small pink and yellow zinnia flowers with little streaks of red barely visible. I think that advertising one thing on the cover and having the contents be something else is unethical. I will have to think twice about using this brand again and I am glad to know I am not alone in reporting the unethical practices of this company. There is no excuse for false advertising.

Burpee's did refund the "Big Red" zinnia after I sent a picture. At first, the representative suggested it was just color variation due to weather.

I bought big red this yr & they are perfect & beautiful and they are red