Hello everyone,

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 27, has become rather long and slow to load or read, with well over 100 messages, 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, if you have any related pictures, you are invited to post them.

Winter is not far away, and I have been saving seeds from my breeder zinnias. We have already had a frost warning here, but it turned out to be a false alarm. The frost warning prompted me to cover some of my low tunnel hoops with ag-fabric to protect some breeder zinnias.

I hope to grow two generations of zinnias indoors this Winter, like I did last year. Only this year I intend to do better in controlling the indoor zinnia pests. I have some Spinosad spray to use in my initial skirmish with thrips. If they become resistant to that, I will switch to something stronger.

I anticipate some interesting results in my indoor zinnias, because they will involve some never-done-before hybrids between Razzle Dazzle, toothy, toothy tubular, aster flowered, Whirligig, and tubular zinnias. More later.

ZM

ZM - will get back to you about the supplement solutions, after I have everything in play.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"...will get back to you about the supplement solutions, after I have everything in play. "

No hurry. I notice there are some small weighing scales in the milligram accuracy range that are reasonably priced on Amazon. I'll probably have one of those in the next week or two, and be able to make reasonably quantitative weighings of small nutrient samples. The inexpensive models are limited to rather small samples, but that should be fine for my purposes.

Here is one of my current specimens that might resemble what one or the other of your embryo guys might bloom out like.

I am still busy planting green seeds for my indoor zinnia project. Several are up now. More later.

ZM

Hi Alex,

You have my sympathies for your mishap with your two indoor zinnias. When I killed some breeder zinnias with an overdose of Manganese chelate, it was, as I mentioned before, a "teachable moment" for me, at which time I realized that I had based my dosage rate on zinnia tissue analysis figures and not on accepted nutrient water analysis figures. Just chalk this up as one of the many "learning experiences" you may have with zinnias.

I think that in the past some railroads have used Calcium chloride as an herbicide to keep weeds from growing on their right-of-ways. In my mind, that is the only valid use I can think of for Calcium chloride. Many highway departments have stopped using it as an ice melting agent, because of its damage to roadside plant life. And home owners are also switching to "plant friendly" ice melters as well.

Aside from the phytotoxic effects of chloride, the Bonide Blossom End Rot Stop has an insane recommended dosage rate of four tablespoons per gallon. That dosage borders on herbicidal. The outdoor infrequent dosage for Miracle-Gro as a foliar feed is only one tablespoon per gallon, and for frequent use it would be less than one teaspoon per gallon. I start my indoor seedlings out on 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of nutrients in their plant water. If you had used Calcium nitrate instead of Calcium chloride at a rate of 4 tablespoons per gallon, it would have been at least as devastating as the Bonide -- at that dosage Calcium nitrate would also act as an herbicide.

Just so you know, when I feed my indoor zinnias with Calcium nitrate in their plant water, it is always weaker than 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of plant water. My Calcium nitrate stock solution contains one tablespoon of Calcium nitrate in a gallon, and I include one cup of that stock solution in a gallon of plant water. Since there are 16 cups in a gallon, my plants are getting 1/16th of a tablespoon of Calcium nitrate in a gallon, or 3/16 of a teaspoon per gallon. That Bonide 4 tablespoons per gallon dosage is 64 times stronger than that.

You did the right thing by washing your plants off as soon as you discovered their condition. Save the rest of the Bonide for use as a herbicide. You have a right to feel misled by the Bonide label.

I await your comments about the aftermath of this event.

ZM

Hi Alex,

"Good news is I see definite improvement; they are both alive and starting recovery. "

Considering the circumstances, that is the best news we could hope for. As the saying goes, "Where there is life, there is hope."

"Bad news is they look like crap and I'm having doubts as to the survival of the primary bud on the larger of the two."

If the primary bud dies, we can just consider that as a pinching of the bud. Zinnia plants develop better bushes if you pinch them anyway. Last Spring, in my battle with the thrips, I lost about half of my seedlings before I put the rest of them out on the deck and sprayed them with Acephate. The thrips had killed the growing point on all of those plants and the tips of many leaves. Some plants had only two sets of true leaves left alive. So those plants could put out only four branches from the base of those remaining leaves. But those branches developed leaves and new branches and the thrips ravaged plants actually developed into much better bushes. This was one of those plants.

ZM -

If the primary bud dies, we can just consider that as a pinching of the bud.

Yes, I'm taking that approach in my mind. Just impatience at this point now that I feel they're on the mend. As it happens, I'd been reading a bit this past year about the virtues of pruning and pinching, though primarily in perennials. I was planning to do the Great Experiment this next season with my perennial beds, to maximize the effect of the taller plants. Starting this fall with my special little hybrids is a bit disconcerting, though.

I remember the pics above of your pinched breeders - they did recover wonderfully. I will hope for the same with my charges.

Hi Alex,

The suspense and anticipation around the opening of a new hybrid zinnia bloom are what drew me to the hobby. There are so many kinds of zinnias available that the number of possible crosses you could make is virtually astronomical. This medium sized white cactus zinnia received a lot of Razzle Dazzle pollination a few weeks ago.

That plant went on to form a trailing bush about 6 feet wide one way and up to 8 feet across at its widest point. Its main branches were in contact with the soil, and had all struck roots so that most of the plant was no longer dependent on its central root system.

At first I was excited by this plant and thought I might cross it extensively. But then I considered the disadvantages of it. For one thing, I couldn't see how I could grow those vining zinnias indoors. And the idea of a ground cover zinnia strain didn't appeal to me. But if I get to a slow point in my zinnia hobby, I might experiment with it some more.

I assume it won't be too long until we see a baby picture of your new zinnia flower. Its recent stressful experience may result in a "stunted" flower that might not be representative of its flowers to come.

ZM

First pic: the two together showing the leaves, now trimmed of dead material. As you can see, the damage was extensive.

S6 x C1 a - to kinda let you see the shape of the bloom

Daddy's boy - definitely looks more like Papa than Mama. Noticed afterwards that this pic looked a bit blurry, but decided not to go back to reshoot. Sorry about that.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

Well, that's good news. You have what appears to be a definite F1 hybrid, and I have had wooly worms remove more foliage than that from a breeder zinnia. It will be interesting to see what that other zinnia's bloom looks like. You may have the opportunity to cross the two, which could lead to some interesting results next Spring.

Here are a couple more pics of that "spreading shrub" zinnia from a few years back.

There are some zinnia species that do form perennial shrubs, but they are very distantly related to our normal "garden variety" zinnias. There is a body of knowledge about prehistoric plants, but I haven't seen anything about what prehistoric zinnias were like. I have some theories on that, but they are unsubstantiated.

I am still busy-busy with my indoor zinnia gardening. I have some hybrid breeder seedlings developing their second set of true leaves. Today I will be washing some more pots in preparation for making some more plantings of seeds I gathered from the garden yesterday. We still haven't had a killing frost, which has given time for my late season pollinations to mature usable green seeds. That was good luck. More later.

ZM

Yes, hopefully, I will get the chance to cross these two, since they apparently are both survivors. I'm still sort of hoping I might see some bi-color effect in the next generation. I'd like to see a giant bi-colored cactus, or at least a large bi-color.

We had frost quite a while back, though we are getting a fairly decent fall this year, following our unusually cool summer. Color still on many of the trees. Here's a pic of some of the old apple trees at the edge of our property. Don't ever remember them being such a lovely gold.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"I'm quite taken with that orange spreading zinnia... That spreading habit is very desirable in my view, and the flowers appear to be an attractive cactus-y shape."

I have been keeping a journal of sorts all along, recording some information about my breeder zinnias. That spreading zinnia was planted indoors on 22 April 2011 in a square pot and transplanted outdoors in mid May. When I noticed its unusual plant habit, I designated it as a breeder zinnia and gave it the next available code name, which was E13.

Despite its many flowers, E13 was very stingy in producing pollen, so I tried to use all of its few pollen florets to self it and to cross it with some of my other breeders. Since it had an abundant set of pollen-less flowers, I pollinated its many open stigmas with pollen from other breeders. As a result of that, most of its seed set was F1 hybrid crosses with other breeders, and since it had so many blooms, I didn't make any attempt to label them individually.

E13 had a rather unlikely heritage. Its mother was C72, which was planted indoors 22 Sep 2009, a rather early start for my indoor zinnias that year. I used Bayer's All-in-One combination insecticide, fungicide, and fertilizer on it and I used Topflor plant growth regulator to keep its plant height under control on my shelves. My journal entry described C72 as "semi-Echinacea flowered magenta pink, centers start lavender and transition toward yellow. Guard petals are slightly corrugated, ruffled, and toothed. Semi-good."

C72 (E13's mother) came from a C46 petal. C46 came from a C6 petal planted 3 April 2009 (indoors), which was later transplanted outside. C46 was treated with Topflor 3 May 2009 to control its indoor height. Its central stem was the only bloom whose height was controlled. The journal entry for C46 was "Medium sized Echinacea flwd, toothy florets, apricot side branch was 3Z, guard petals down rolled and down-tipped. (Unusual guard petals) Central floret section extra tall."

C6 (C46's mother) journal entry: "Echinacea flowered. Pastel apricot based pastel lavender guard petals. Apricot florets. From B5 planted 18 December 2008. Apparently a large proportion of the florets are male sterile, so an attempt should be made to pollinate their floret stigmas." (That was done)

B5 (C6's mother) was planted as a floret seed from A3 on 6 March 2008 and was up 12 March 2008. B5 had a rather short journal entry: "Probable hybrid. bigger with longer guard petals than A3. Lemon yellow scabiosa type, larger than scabi [a semi-fast germinator]"

A3 (B5's mother) journal entry: "Park's Pastel Scabious Flowered selection. Whitish ivory suffused pink near marigold-flowered. Petal seeds are mostly hybrids with larger zinnias, primarily light colored or white. Planted 16 May 2007 transplanted out (into the garden) 2 June 2007." [We were living in Maine at that time, with a shorter growing season.]

Well, that traces the "shrub" zinnia all the way back to a now discontinued strain of scabious zinnias. I find it a little odd that E13's flowers showed no sign of scabious influence. And a lot odd that its plant was 6 to 8 feet across. However, in the past some recombinants with scabious genes have had large, very branched upright 4 or 5-foot plants with huge numbers of flowers open at the same time. Those plants are very un-zinnia-like and remind me of giant tumbleweeds. So the many flowers on the E13 shrub zinnia plant do have some genetic precedent.

I planted 10 pots of seeds from E13 today, one seed per 3.25-square-inch pot, as a sort of germination test, and to get some idea what the problems of growing these things indoors might be. I will email you the results of those tests.

My indoor seedlings seem to be doing well. I have been "watching them like a hawk" for signs of thrips or other indoor problems. So far, so good. More later.

ZM

ZM - I would be interested to hear the results. I'd asked you before about lineages, and when I saw that you were giving a complete list, I made a tree to follow it. You only gave me one side of each pairing, but it has evoked images. And it started with a ivory-pinkish scabious flowered. Hmmm...Glad you talked me into the scabious seeds - all sorts of interesting variations to look forward to.

Once again, I will mention the advantages of pre-germination. It has always been a great first step for me, eliminating the hassle of starting cells or pots that end up not germinating. And for whatever reason, it often seems to accelerate the process. Also, while I'm not sure yet if I'm personally going to want to mess around with denuding dry zinnia seeds since they're so small and the dark seed seems harder for me to see where seed coat ends and embryo begins, but it worked well with the green. The other really exciting result of my interaction on this thread was finding out that I could denude my pepper seeds and even eggplant (if I am very, ver-r-y careful) before pre-germination, and significantly increase germination. Likewise with some of the squash seeds, especially if they're kind of old. What a difference - no kidding!

And - drum roll, please - I just pollinated my first indoor zinnia bloom! Sort of nice that I don't have to wait for the dew to dry, and especially nice that I can simply turn the pot around to pollinate the other side. I was at first wondering if I should wait till the other bloom opened before I began pollination, and then said to myself "Heck NO!" :) Why wait? I'll still have the opportunity to make crosses with the other when it's opened - which, happily, it is just now starting to do. That is, I can see petal edges showing. Not as hardy a plant as the other has been, since the very beginning, but I remember reading somewhere years ago, probably in connection with some mixed packet of seed received from T&M before they went super-commercial and quality went down - IMHO - that one should be careful not to discard the slower germinating seeds, since some of these might be the more beautiful specimens. Have you ever heard that before? It's always made me hesitate with any mixed batch of seedlings.

So, aside from the 10 pots of E13, how many pots will you be planting this winter?

- Alex

Hi Alex,

" I'd asked you before about lineages, and when I saw that you were giving a complete list, I made a tree to follow it. You only gave me one side of each pairing, but it has evoked images."

In general, I don't know the male of the pairings. In special cases I do, but in most cases I just select pollen from breeders that have available pollen that day. And I have just an arbitrary criterion for selecting those pollen donors, as ones that have high "quality" and could potentially produce upgraded hybrids or potentially produce something new in an F2 generation. Sometimes I just act on impulse when selecting a pollen donor for a female breeder zinnia. And every now and then a bee will make a creative contribution.

"Glad you talked me into the scabious seeds - all sorts of interesting variations to look forward to. "

Yes, the scabious genes produce unique flower forms as well as some interesting variations in the plant structure.

"Once again, I will mention the advantages of pre-germination. It has always been a great first step for me, eliminating the hassle of starting cells or pots that end up not germinating. And for whatever reason, it often seems to accelerate the process."

Can you coach me in detail on how to do this? I have tried a few times, and wound up with zinnia roots growing through several layers of paper towel, that I had to try to cut away, and wound up planting some zinnias with paper towel on their roots. I think this is basically the classic method used by Deno. I just haven't gotten the hang of it. Today I replanted two flats of zinnias that hadn't germinated after two or three weeks. So your method could be a big improvement to my zinnia starting techniques. Maybe I used the wrong brand of paper towel.

"I'm not sure yet if I'm personally going to want to mess around with denuding dry zinnia seeds since they're so small and the dark seed seems harder for me to see where seed coat ends and embryo begins..."

Dry zinnia seeds are pervious to water, so there isn't much advantage to breaching or removing their seed coats.

"The other really exciting result of my interaction on this thread was finding out that I could denude my pepper seeds and even eggplant (if I am very, ver-r-y careful) before pre-germination, and significantly increase germination. Likewise with some of the squash seeds, especially if they're kind of old."

Many plants have seed coats that are much more impervious to water than brown zinnia seeds. You were quite ingenious in extending the technique.

" I just pollinated my first indoor zinnia bloom! Sort of nice that I don't have to wait for the dew to dry, and especially nice that I can simply turn the pot around to pollinate the other side. "

Yes, indoor zinnia pollination is much easier than in-garden pollination. And you don't have to fight the bees for access to the pollen. So, now you are creating F2 generation seeds, which naturally have a lot of new variation and new results due to recombinations of genes that weren't together before.

" I remember reading somewhere years ago, ... that one should be careful not to discard the slower germinating seeds, since some of these might be the more beautiful specimens."

I hadn't heard that, but there might be something to it. The slower germination is indicative of something different about that one. And something different could imply more beautiful. I am always intrigued by the different looks that zinnias can show. But beauty is a hard thing to define, and subjective by nature. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"So, aside from the 10 pots of E13, how many pots will you be planting this winter?"

Good question. I'm not sure, but I am still planting seeds. I currently have five chrome steel shelf units. Four of them have two shelves each (and a top shelf, which I don't count), and one of them has three shelves. So that is a total of 11 shelves. The shelves are 2 feet by 4 feet, and can hold 32 5-inch square pots per shelf. So 11 times 32 is 352, so that is at least approximately how many zinnias I can grow inside without getting some more shelving. Each of my PermaNest trays can hold 18 of my 3.25-inch square pots and a shelf can hold four of the PermaNest trays, so a single shelf can start 72 seedlings. Four shelves could start 288 seedlings and five shelves could start 360 seedlngs, which is 8 more than my 5-inch pot shelf capacity. I have a ways to go, because I have just one full shelf of seedlings, with another shelf about half full. Here is a picture, taken today, of a few of my zinnia seedlings. Looks like they are posing for a picture.

I like the "clear" square pots, because they let you see the root development situation in the pot. I am thinking about getting another shelving unit, but I may decide that the five shelving units I have will keep me plenty busy. I may decide to plant some more E13 seeds. I am kind of hoping you can get me straightened out on pre-germinating zinnia seeds. That could turn out to be kind of a game changer for me. More later.

ZM

ZM - I think the trick is in my compulsive checking of the seeds - LOL! They don't get a chance to grow through the paper toweling because I'm checking them daily and sometimes in the morning and in the evening. I'd suggest putting on your best OC cap and do the daily double check.

But to start at the beginning, I use lots of different paper toweling, so that's not really the issue. Though lately, mostly we buy whatever kind has the half sheets. And if you're getting the full sheeted variety, I'd suggest cutting them in half - less toweling to deal with.

I set myself up a plate or cookie sheet to work on, and a bowl of warm water off to the side. I label the towel piece at the bottom edge (the short side) with a pen - name and date, then dunk the towel into the water, squeeze out the excess and slap it on the plate. Usually, if I've got a bunch of seeds to start, I have all my towel pieces labeled and stacked dry to one side of the plate, and my seed packets in the same order stacked on the other side. (Oh, and another paper towel or dish towel to dry my hands in between seed packets.)

I have the damp toweling laid out vertically with the labeling on the underside. I then sprinkle the seeds in about the middle third of the toweling, trying to make sure they are spaced apart if possible to help prevent molding. Then the two ends get folded up over the seeds with the label showing on top. Set the packet aside and go to the next, stacking them on top of one another. If it's more than 6 or 7, I generally have multiple stacks. And larger and/or faster germinating seeds, I tend to put at the bottom of the stacks, just in case I don't check them as soon as I should, and I have to deal with the rooting problem you've described.

When I'm done, the packets get placed in a poly bag - the light plastic kind that you put produce in at the grocery - this seems to be best as the seeds can still breathe through this plastic. It helps to put them on something when you put them in the bag, just for ease of removal, like a plastic lid from a refrigerator storage container. I close the bag with a twist tie, often blowing up the bag like a balloon first, and then place under lights for a little heat. (Or you could put bags in the refrigerator if it's seed that needs chilling before germination.)

I start checking for germination sometimes as soon as the next day. With seeds that take a long time to germinate, it's sometimes necessary to mist the towels. And I also will rotate positions of packets in the stack. When I see germination, I can immediately remove the seed or let it sit for a little longer as I often do with slower growing seeds like peppers. I think your main hitch is simply checking the seeds more often. Like I say, put on your best OC cap and shoes. :)

Whoa - that's a lot of zinnias you're talking about starting under lights! I can see the benefits of being able to see the root systems - can't see them with my pots, but my system is working, so I guess I won't worry about it.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"I think the trick is in my compulsive checking of the seeds - LOL! They don't get a chance to grow through the paper toweling because I'm checking them daily and sometimes in the morning and in the evening."

OK, that seems to be my main problem -- not checking them very frequently. So, if I understand correctly, you have a stack of folded paper towels, double folded somewhat similar to folding a sheet of typewriter paper for insertion into a business sized envelope, only your paper towel halves were more the shape of an envelope before you folded up the bottom and down the top. So your folded paper towels are more square-ish. And they are all moist and inside a plastic sleeve.

So, each time you do a check, you remove the stack from the plastic container and open the individual folded towels, one at a time. And then put the stack back together and return it to the plastic sleeve. Have I got that right?

That seems like it could take quite some time to do an inspection if you had a large number of separate seed samples.

I think I am going to experiment with Snack sized Ziploc bags to hold a single seed sample in each bag (which I can label with a Sharpie marker) and try holding the bag up to the light to see if I can see the seeds inside the folded paper towel. (Incidentally, our paper towels are the half-sheet type). If I can't see through the paper towel by holding it up to the light, and I probably can't, I may try putting the seeds on top of the folded paper towel, so that I can see them directly through the clear Ziploc Snack bag. That way I can just look at the bags to see how the seeds are doing, without unfolding and refolding.

I'm sure your way works better, but I am just trying to think of some way to avoid all that unfolding and folding at each of the many inspections.

"I'd suggest putting on your best OC cap and do the daily double check. ...Like I say, put on your best OC cap and shoes. :) "

I am a little embarrassed to say it, but I am unfamiliar with that saying. What is an OC cap and shoes ?

ZM

I am just trying to think of some way to avoid all that unfolding and folding at each of the many inspections.

Zenman - I'm surprised at you. As committed as you have been to your project, and you balk at the prospect of opening and closing a couple of flaps on a number of little packets? I tell you, it's kind of like Christmas/Hanukkah/Diwali opening all those little presents, not knowing what you're going to get, man! It's as much a meditation as separating the seeds from the chaff. A breakfast and/or after-dinner ritual.

Well. OK, then. I've finished my rant. By the way, (I would have said BTW - exceptin' yall didn't know what OC was), I do sometimes hold the packets up to the light myself rather than open them - because you sort of can see the seed through the damp toweling, especially if it's started to sprout.

You go right ahead and experiment with those ziplok bags, but you'd better buy the cheaper, thinner ones, because the better quality bags have plastic that's too heavy - in my opinion. You'll mold quicker if you can't breathe. Don't experiment with any of your special breeders though!

Oh, and reading back through your post - yes, you have it right. An envelope-sized piece of toweling that gets folded only twice. I used to do a heavier folding job, but found that it was, in fact, a royal pain undoing multiple flaps. And, yes, more trouble when the root did occasionally grow through more than one layer of towel. Besides that, it really wasn't necessary unless the seeds are big and likely to roll out the sides. Mostly once they're wet, they tend to stay where they're put.

And once again, I'll say, it doesn't take all that long. It's not unusual for me to have 20-30 packets going at a time in the spring, and then another second shift later. It's a matter of minutes to check the packets. What takes time, of course, is when you start having germination. Then, depending on how fast your seedling is growing, you have to make a decision - do I need to plant these right NOW, or can I wait till tonight? There are advantages and disadvantages to that. The disadvantage of having to stop right then to plant whatever demands it, is an obvious one. An advantage, though, for me anyway, is that I only have to plant what's germinating right then - the others can wait. And, of course, I'm only planting what I know is going to/has already germinated. So I only have to do a little of the job at a time, without waste of my propagation mix.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

Thanks for re-posting the pictures. You did post them originally in Part 23 back on March 3rd, and we didn't give them the attention they deserved. Your method just might be an improvement on the basic Deno method, which just made a single fold on the paper towel, and implied that Scot Towels last better. That was in the Second Edition of his "Seed Germination Theory and Practice", self published back on June 1, 1993.

Incidentally, there has been some work on modifying and improving the Deno method, and you can find a lot of information on the subject, as well as public domain versions of Deno's publications, by doing a Google search on Deno seed germination theory and practice

Incidentally, I was quite interested in an online discussion of using a layer of hydrated Parchment Paper (AKA Baking Paper) to prevent the root hairs from growing into the kitchen paper towels that are used to maintain hydration during germination.

I was also interested in the discussions that an Optical Character Reader (OCR) was used to scan Deno's paper publications into a computer form, and that OCRs do make mistakes, so many (perhaps all) of the online versions of the Deno publications may contain errors that occurred in the scanning process. I'm kind of glad I have the original paper self publications, which I purchased from Dr. Deno.

"Zenman - I'm surprised at you. As committed as you have been to your project, and you balk at the prospect of opening and closing a couple of flaps on a number of little packets? I tell you, it's kind of like Christmas/Hanukkah/Diwali opening all those little presents, not knowing what you're going to get, man! It's as much a meditation as separating the seeds from the chaff. A breakfast and/or after-dinner ritual."

I understand what you are saying -- part of me (that OC part) actually wants to play with wet paper towels. But if this pregermination stuff works, I will be doing an awful lot of it, and I could get an overdose of wet paper Zen meditation, and other things that need to be done could be neglected. Such as meditating about those interesting cloud shapes and vapor trails. I am now thinking I need to buy some Baking Paper.

"And once again, I'll say, it doesn't take all that long. It's not unusual for me to have 20-30 packets going at a time in the spring, and then another second shift later. It's a matter of minutes to check the packets. What takes time, of course, is when you start having germination. Then, depending on how fast your seedling is growing, you have to make a decision - do I need to plant these right NOW, or can I wait till tonight? There are advantages and disadvantages to that."

You make a good case for your procedure. And I very well may experiment with your exact directions.

"You go right ahead and experiment with those ziplok bags, but you'd better buy the cheaper, thinner ones, because the better quality bags have plastic that's too heavy - in my opinion. You'll mold quicker if you can't breathe. Don't experiment with any of your special breeders though!"

That's good advice. I will not endanger my "high value" special breeders with unproven procedures. I do think my Snack sized Ziploc bags are pretty thin. Much thinner than some of our larger double-zippered plastic bags. The Snack Ziplocs are "go" for my experiments.

"Well. OK, then. I've finished my rant. By the way, (I would have said BTW - exceptin' yall didn't know what OC was), "

Touché ! You have totally cracked me up. They say laughter is the best medicine. Gotta tell you, I am feeling over-medicated. Your posts are very good. Scary good. Halloween season, ya know.

ZM

I've already got the plans in my head. We were on the road and stopped at a Big Boy Restaurant for lunch. They had the coolest landscaping incorporating a maze-like walkway through a sunflower forest. Have been enchanted by the memory of it. I'm thinking of planting sunflowers with zinnias in front of them along a widing pathway. It will be totally rad! I'll take pics. :)

Thank you so much for the link to the Deno manuals! I was sort of sad to sell mine, but realized what the woman customer was talking about as soon as she described them. I said, "Oh yeah - I've got two and a supplement at home in my library." She obviously needed them more than I did. I sort of played that scene already - what do I need with detailed data on germination practices for all sorts of stuff? With the references I still have, and what experience I've gleaned over the years, I pretty much can at least make the effort to germinate anything I might pick up. But I'm not much into exotic stuff now; no orchids, no fancy roses - give me simple and beautiful. Wabi-sabi: the aesthetics of transience and imperfection - that's my style.

Oh please, do report to me your findings about the parchment paper - if it works well, I will have to try it. If it doesn't I could always use it for baking. :)

I'm tellin' ya - those ziplok bags are too thick - unless they're off brand, maybe. But then I haven't actually tried them...I could be wrong. It happens. Recently.

Vapor trails?

- Alex

I had a couple random questions for you, resulting from my attempts to track specific colors. Color in flowers is a hard thing to control. One thing I noticed, and I'm NOT sure yet what is causing this is, is that my zinnias change color when they are moved outside. Here are some of the options:

1) PH: I have no idea if this is the cause, nor am I good about measuring the PH of my garden OR my potting mixes. I know I tend toward acidity, and I know I tend to over fertilize.

2) Nutrients: This is possible, as the color changes were most prominent when transferring zinnias from potting soil into unamended clay soil under deciduous trees.

3) Temperature. My grow tent maintains a temperature gradient from about 77 to about 84 degrees. Outside it's been a high of 75 with nighttime drops.

4) Light color. My indoor zinnias are grown under HPS with a touch of daylight tuned CFLs to help keep things short.

So here's what I noticed. I was well aware that many of my zinnias fade quickly in my tent. However, I'm concerned I'm getting paler colors across the board. Pinks, greens, and yellows don't seem to change much, but the BOLDEST of the red tones didn't show up until I planted the zinnias outside. At first I thought I was just comparing faded to unfaded flowers, but I don't think I am. It really seems like cooler weather is making the colors darker, bolder, and blue tones are showing up in the purple flowers much, much better. Flowers I considered "hot pinkish/magenta" when I initially planted them now seem more distinctly different colors, skewing more towards purple or red. I should have taken a picture of the most obvious example, one where the bud had JUST opened inside before replanting, with secondary buds that opened outside significantly redder than the initial bud.

I'm working on dropping the temperature in the tent to see if it changes how quickly my flowers fade, but it's not been easy with the wattage in there. I was wondering if you had noticed any correlation between temperature and color vividness, since you're much more rigorous about tracking things.

The other question is more low level. I know I've seen you mention it before, but I can't remember what you said. Do you dry and store the entire flower head, or do you have a convenient method for separating petals from seed? I have been plucking seeds off my favorites outside, drying them on a paper towel, and then dumping them in a jar. I was considering putting some beans in the jar and shake it up to pulverize the petal part; do you think that would damage too many seeds?

Hi Mister.Guy,

"Color in flowers is a hard thing to control. One thing I noticed, and I'm NOT sure yet what is causing this is, is that my zinnias change color when they are moved outside."

You are very observant of your zinnia's color behavior. I can't speak to nutrients, pH, or light color because I try to keep my zinnias well supplied with nutrients, including trace elements, so I don't see differences in color due to nutrients. Unfortunately I don't even have a credible pH meter and I use Daylight balanced fluorescents, so that doesn't change much when I move my zinnias outside. But you are right to bring up those factors, because they very well could influence zinnia flower color.

I can speak to temperature, because every Fall, as the temperatures get progressively cooler, I see dramatic changes in my zinnias colors. The dark zinnias get darker, and all of the colors get more intense and saturated -- really pretty looking. Cool weather definitely improves zinnia colors. I have no idea why or how that occurs -- just that it occurs.

I have to compliment you on being both observant and scientific in looking for the causes to the effects you have observed.

"Do you dry and store the entire flower head, or do you have a convenient method for separating petals from seed? I have been plucking seeds off my favorites outside, drying them on a paper towel, and then dumping them in a jar."

I actually have a shopping bag full of dried "patch run" flower heads that I haven't had time to "shuck" and package. That's not a good thing, it just means that I have more things to do than time to do them. Letting the flower heads die and turn brown is not the best practice, and storing the head whole is also not a good idea.

I do treat my breeder zinnias better than my patch run zinnias, and I save most of their seeds as green seeds (to avoid rain damage and bird damage). Some of my green seeds get immediately planted to start the next generation. The rest get dried as separate petals with attached seeds. And then I package them as separate seeds by manually removing the dried petal from each seed.

Years ago, when I was just beginning this hobby, I tried various schemes of processing dried brown heads by manually shattering the brown heads and attempting to get automatic winnowing by dribbling the mixture of petals, chaffy scales, and seeds down through the draft from a fan, with the idea that the heavier seeds would fall down through the draft while the lighter chaff, dried petals and such would be blown away. That worked to some extent as long as I did it outside to avoid having to clean up the blown chaff. Some potentially good seeds did get blown away with the chaff and some pieces of stems and such got in with the seeds. So I have since abandoned all automatic mechanized ways of separating out the seeds.

Presently I use a sheet of white clean paper on a TV tray or folding table, a bright light, a handy waste basket to toss chaff and other rejects into, and a small bowl into which I toss good seeds. For a brown or dried somewhat green zinnia head, I manually pinch off some of the petals and associated chaffy scales onto the white paper, and spread it out on the white paper with a forefinger, and pick up seeds or petals attached to seeds, remove the seed one at a time, and toss it in my collection bowl. And toss the petals and chaff into the waste basket. And pinch off another cud from the head, separate it out, and continue. When I think I have gotten all the seeds from the sheet of paper, I pick it up with both hands and dump everything into the waste basket and start with a new bunch of stuff from the zinnia head.

Dried green seeds get the same treatment, only I don't have to deal with chaff and stems. I just pick up a petal that appears to have a good seed attached to it, remove and discard the petal into the waste basket, and toss the seed into the bowl. Petals with reject seeds get discarded without separating the seed.

Saving the seeds manually a seed at a time seems like a rather slow tedious process. But it is appropriate, particularly if you are dealing with "high value" breeder zinnia seeds. And it goes faster than you might expect. In an hour you might have up to a hundred hand-selected seeds in your bowl, which is the equivalent of two or more packets of commercial seeds.

" I was considering putting some beans in the jar and shake it up to pulverize the petal part; do you think that would damage too many seeds?"

I don't discourage any kind of experimenting. But I've never done that, or felt the need to do it, because removing petals from seeds a-seed-at-a-time isn't hard to do, and goes pretty fast. I actually enjoy separating out zinnia seeds. You can tell the good "fat" seeds from the empty infertile seeds by gently pinching them between you thumb and forefinger and if there is any doubt, gently try to bend or fold the seed. If it bends or folds it is not fertile.

And the hands-on approach lets you see and appreciate the tremendous variety that zinnia seeds can have. I save some extra large zinnia seeds that would probably be rejected as stems by an automatic machine, or broken and killed. As Alex said in the last message Part, "Separating seeds from chaff is one of those relaxing, mindless activities that I especially excel at. It's an after dinner affair - sitting at my table, DVD plugged into the machine, these days invariably a cat watching whose paw I have to slap away periodically. How could I want a machine to deprive me of so much pleasure?" I don't have a cat, but otherwise, that is me.

ZM

ZM -
"I'm sure your way works better, but I am just trying to think of some way to avoid all that unfolding and folding at each of the many inspections."

"Saving the seeds manually a seed at a time seems like a rather slow tedious process. But it is appropriate, particularly if you are dealing with "high value" breeder zinnia seeds. And it goes faster than you might expect. In an hour you might have up to a hundred hand-selected seeds in your bowl, which is the equivalent of two or more packets of commercial seeds."

"...removing petals from seeds a-seed-at-a-time isn't hard to do, and goes pretty fast. I actually enjoy separating out zinnia seeds."

I rest my case.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

Note to myself. Don't try to drink coffee while reading a message from Alex. I try not to laugh with a mouth full of coffee, but sometimes I fail.

I have to admit that, when you put my statements side-by-side like you just did, that they might appear to be a little inconsistent. But I prefer to think they just show what a complex guy I am. Now, excuse me. I think I need to change my shirt.

ZM

Hey, Mister Guy - I was surprised this summer with dramatic color change in one of my plants. It started out a bright yellow and turned to orange later.

- Alex

Looking like 2nd plant will be a carbon copy of #1 Son. Is this what I should be expecting anyway? Or considering that I can't really say that I know how stable the gene lines were for the original parents that I crossed this summer, would there have been the possibility of these two supposed F1 generation children to come out looking radically different? Am I making my question clear? What has been your experience with this issue?

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"Looking like 2nd plant will be a carbon copy of #1 Son. Is this what I should be expecting anyway?"

I wouldn't expect the 2nd plant to be a "carbon copy", but the differences might not be extreme. Let's wait and see just how closely the two zinnia plants compare.

"Or considering that I can't really say that I know how stable the gene lines were for the original parents that I crossed this summer, would there have been the possibility of these two supposed F1 generation children to come out looking radically different?"

It is very rare for commercial open pollinated zinnia strains to be "pure", because of the random pollinations and cross pollinations by bees.

"Am I making my question clear? What has been your experience with this issue? "

My experience has been that zinnias are full of surprises. I will personally be surprised if your two F1s turn out to be absolutely identical. I will also be surprised if they are radically different. I will still be somewhat surprised if they differ by only a mild amount. You could say that I expect them to be similar, but with perceptible differences.

"Hope this one will be more generous with pollen, since the other is not. Is this low pollen thing more noticeable with indoor grown zinnias? "

Possibly. But I have been skewing my results by favoring low pollen specimens in my breeding, because I don't like a zinnia that "throws pollen". And I pick females with low or no pollen output, because that simplifies emasculation.

Ironically, the conditions in field grown zinnias are exactly the opposite. Statistics favor the zinnias that "throw pollen" and years of unmanaged field grown conditions can cause a strain of zinnias to "run out" because of that.

It will be interesting to see how your two F1s turn out. Even if they seem to be identical, I would still cross them, because they could have different recessive genes that would come into play in the hybrid F2 generation versus the selfed F2 generation.

ZM

...they could have different recessive genes that would come into play in the hybrid F2 generation versus the selfed F2 generation.

Yeah, I'm with you on that part. I have been looking at one of the books I squirreled away at some point in the past: PLANT BREEDING AND GENETICS IN HORTICULTURE by C. North. This one is a bit more along the scientific side and has more info than others I've picked up, though still written for the student. There should be instances in which recessive genes that my two babies share will get the chance to come up together in the F2s - alleles, as they're called.
I'm still not down on what specifically the "allele" is, though it seems to be referring to a specific trait - such as in Mendel's famous peas: short or tall, wrinkled or smooth seed, etc. Though, as it's pointing out to me, that's only a piece of it. There can be tons of alleles per any specific plant, and while some are definitely more "dominant" than others, with those "recessive", it may be a matter of one gene masking the effect of another, or that to get a certain "allele" - I would imagine like the toothy effect in some of your specific breeders - it is necessary to have an interaction of genes producing the particular effect.
Or thus have I heard...

- alex

Hi Alex,

A particular gene can exist in several alternative forms, and those different forms are called alleles. Zinnias are more complicated than the sweet peas that Mendel experimented with, in which many of the genes had only two different alleles. Zinnia genes typically have several different alleles. It may be that some of the mutations that appear are simply the appearance of a new allele for an existing gene.

You mentioned changing colors for some of your zinnias. This picture shows one of my zinnias that had different colored blooms on the same plant at the same time, depending on the development of the bloom.

Actually, that isn't particularly unusual. Burpee's Exquisite strain shows a changing color effect to a very noticeable degree, and it is considered to be a desirable trait. I don't always consider it desirable. I like very dark colored zinnias, but they always change to a less dark form with age. I would prefer they stayed very dark. More later. Oh, I loaded a few of my Snack sized Ziploc pre-germination packages today. It will be interesting to see if that works.

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

Ideally, I think I am looking for a zinnia that either presents no pelargonidin and only cyanidin in an alkaline soil, or if I get very lucky, I'll find some zinnias presenting delphinidin and breed for that.

And 'O frabjous day' ! My second plant is even prettier than the first! It shows that extra bit of frilliness that I find so beautiful. However, it is relatively small. The other is a bit more than 3-1/2" at its full spread now. With 2 more buds already evident. I may be crossing even more blossoms on the 2 plants - I hadn't counted on this. :) Anyway, I will be making the efforts to grow frilly giants this summer. And Mister Guy will be striving for blue. Cool.

- Alex

First bloom with 2nd in background

And here is the 2nd bloom. ZM - you were right! A noticeable difference after all.

Hi Mister.Guy,

"...speaking of genetics and colors, have you done much reading on anthocyanins?"

I haven't done a lot of reading, but some. The following material is quoted from Chapter 12 Zinnias (by Dennis Stimart and Thomas Boyle) in Flower Breeding and Genetics, edited by Neil O. Anderson. copyright 2007 by Springer. Incidentally, the word "ligule" is the botanical name for a zinnia petal, and that word is used a lot in this excerpt.

"Zinnias are well known for their great diversity of flower colors (Fig. 12-1). The pigments responsible for flower color in Z. angustifolia and Z. violacea are located primarily in the upper epidermis of ligules and to a lesser extent in the lower epidermis (Boyle and Stimart, 1989a). For Z. violacea, variation in ligule color is attributable to presence or absence of carotenoids in chromoplasts and flavonoids in vacuoles, and vacuolar pH. For Z. violacea, quantitative differences in the amounts of two anthocyanidins, pelargonidin and cyanidin, and differences in epidermal cell pH account for pink, lavender, rose, maroon, and violet shades when carotenoids are absent, and for orange, scarlet, and red shades when carotenoids are present. Presence of carotenoids but absence of anthocyanidins results in yellow ligules while absence of carotenoids and anthocyanidins results in white ligules...

Ligule color in Z. violacea is controlled by two major genes (Boyle and Stimart, 1988). Presence of the anthocyanidins pelargonidin and cyanidin is controlled by a single dominant gene (An1). Carotenoid expression is conditioned by a recessive gene (ca) governing its presence and other genes controlling the distribution of carotenoids in ligules. Thus, white ligules are devoid of anthocyanidins (an1 an1) and carotenoids (Ca _). Pollard (1939) identified seven additional genes affecting ligule color in Z. violacea; additional research is needed to elucidate the effects of these genes on pigment biosynthesis...

Presence of carotenoids and anthocyanidins is required for scarlet-orange ligule color in Z. violacea (Boyle and Stimart, 1989)."

"A dark purple zinnia should be rich in cyanidin, which should be bluer in extremely alkaline soils."

I am not discouraging experimentation, but zinnias don't like extremely alkaline soils. Zinnias prefer a soil pH between 5.8 and 6.2 and you can expect high pH-induced iron deficiencies. You might try to compensate for that with chelated iron or foliar feeding of iron. I do wish you luck in your quest for a blue zinnia. And please post pictures of the results of your experimentations as they progress.

ZM

Hi Alex,

"O frabjous day!" indeed! Callooh! Callay! Lewis Carroll would have been proud.

"My second plant is even prettier than the first! It shows that extra bit of frilliness that I find so beautiful."

Yes, there is at least one zinnia gene that has a "frilly allele" in its set of possibilities. I have seen the frilly phenotype occasionally even in a planting of commercial Burpee Burpeeana Giants. And there are varying degrees of "frilliness", however that may happen genetically. If both genes in the gene pair get the frilly allele, then you could get a double dose of frilliness. Maybe the "double-dose single-dose" thing is sufficient to explain the varying degrees of frilliness I have seen. It's kind of hard to assign a numerical value for the degree of frilliness you are seeing in a particular zinnia bloom. Maybe it's just 0, 1, or 2. If we see more than three states of frilliness (none, some, and lots), then we will have to revise our genetic hypothesis about frilliness.

"Anyway, I will be making the efforts to grow frilly giants this summer."

Frilly Giants would be a new strain of zinnias. More power to you. This was one of my zinnias (pictured previously) that had noticeable frilliness.

It sort of looked like receiving the pollen was making it shiver. I don't know whether that would be a 1 or a 2 on the frilliness scale. I'll post a picture of another frilly specimen in a later message. Zinnias can "do" frilliness. You were lucky to get a frilliness allele on your first try. They are not that common.

ZM

ZM - that pic above is one of your "frillies" that really inspired me when I first saw it. It takes the "cactus-look" to a step of sublime elegance, in my view. And I guess "frilly" isn't really very accurate - more like wavy. I'm sure they must have a word for that look in "the trade".

I'm crossing my fingers now that the wave doesn't fade as the flower opens more. You can see in the earlier posts and compare how much the petals smoothed out on the first bloom during the space of 5 days. But I don't think I'm imagining that the 2nd bloom has just a touch more wave than the 1st bloom at approximately the same amount of time from its opening. Time will tell. In any case, I am pleased with this first couple of hybrids. An auspicious beginning. Oh, and the 2nd bloom is about 2-1/2" so far. Probably will open wider, but if I want giants, I need more petals per bloom, I'd say. Of course, I'm not absolutely deadset on breeding giants; color and form are more important to me. Thanks for the encouraging words. :)

I meant to add - I'm getting more pollen now on the 1st bloom, but there's this weird thing going with both blooms where on the under petals there are a bunch of stunted-looking stigmas - not the long forked tongue affairs. Are they viable for pollination? And on the 2nd bloom, it seems like many of the stigmas underneath are drying up before they could even have been pollinated. What's up with that?

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"...but there's this weird thing going with both blooms where on the under petals there are a bunch of stunted-looking stigmas - not the long forked tongue affairs. Are they viable for pollination? And on the 2nd bloom, it seems like many of the stigmas underneath are drying up before they could even have been pollinated. What's up with that?"

We need to find out what is up with that. I've been kind of holding my breath because you are doing that dangerous thing of growing zinnias to maturity inside. That is actually a very advanced thing that I am still learning. I have been watching my indoor zinnias nervously for signs of problems that I may or may not be able to deal with. There is a kind of thrill in doing it, living dangerously that is.

Your stigmas should not be anything but big and healthy and waiting for successful pollination. We should at least try to find out what the problem is, because, depending on what the cause is, this could be the beginning of a serious problem. Although, I chuckle when I think of what your brave little zinnia adventurers have already survived.

This could be a nutritional problem. (I really need to do a more accurate version of my boron measurements and calculations.) Your zinnias are entering a new phase in their nutritional needs, the blooming and seed-setting phase. So it would be helpful if you could describe their nutritional situation. What medium they are growing in, what nutrients have been provided, and so on.

This could be a disease or pest problem. It would be appropriate to examine the affected stigmas and surrounding tissue with some optical device capable of rather strong magnification (5 power or stronger). You would be looking for any nearly microscopic insects or mites at work. Or any signs of fungal growth or bacterial infection.

This might not be a serious problem, or it could be the beginning of a battle in which you would be seriously out-numbered. We need to try to do some situation assessment.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Where did we put that vorpal sword?

ZM

the stunted stigmas on #1 plant:

shriveled stigmas on #2 plant

#2 plant as of today:

Later - Alex

Hi Alex,

There is good news. I don't see anything bad in your pictures. Those stunted stigmas on your #1 plant are floret stigmas from florets whose arms have withered away faster than the stigma. It is normal for that to happen. Those stigmas are probably selfed with pollen from the floret, and that's not bad, either. Since your two plants are F1 hybrids, their selfed progeny are still F2 hybrids, and quite capable of interesting new recombinations.

I think you may have a flower spider in your #2 plant. That's kind of unusual for indoor zinnias, but not unheard of.

My Ziploc Snack bags seem to be working fine for pre-germination.

In retrospect, I am kind of surprised that I didn't start a frilly breeder project. But it's not too late to start. That frilly look is attractive. Tomorrow I will be repotting a few of my seedlings from 3.25-inch clear square pots to 5-inch black square pots. Some have buds already, and I don't want them blooming in little pots. More later.

ZM

First - huge congrats on the ziplok bags - looks like a total success to me! And a possible improvement on my technique. I may use it for some things myself, though it's hard to give up completely what's already working for me. I'll continue to monitor your progress on the matter, first. :)

Second - what's a flower spider? Is that what's causing the stigma to shrivel? You can see that shriveled stigma in the pic, can't you? I don't think that's from being pollinated. Plus there were some others like it. Fortunately there are some healthy ones near the center - floret stigmas, right? Meanwhile, I can see that the selfs I made on the #1 plant are now drying up in what seems like a normal fashion after pollination, so I'm relatively certain that those dustings were successful.

Third - YES! I absolutely LOVE that frilly wavy look in the latest pic. That's what I want to strive for, amongst other effects. Gotta go.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"...congrats on the ziplok bags - looks like a total success to me!"

Many of the pre-germs I placed yesterday are up today, so I consider it a success. The jury is still out on using or not using the oven baking parchment paper. l installed it in a couple of Ziplocs as an experiment. That is an ongoing experiment. One disadvantage of the oven parchment is that the seeds slide around easily on it, while they tend to stay stationary on the dimpled Bounty towels. However, the zinnia roots do try to penetrate the Bounty towels, and sometimes they succeed. As soon as I finish this message I will go downstairs and try to free a zinnia root from the towel paper. But for the most part, just placing the seeds on the Bounty towel without using parchment has been successful. One little seedling has somehow freed itself from the seed altogether, so I will have to be extra careful in transferring it.

"...what's a flower spider? Is that what's causing the stigma to shrivel?"

It's just a spider that has taken up residence on a flower, with the intent of catching and eating small insects that visit the flower. Not hurting the flower or the stigmas.

"You can see that shriveled stigma in the pic, can't you? I don't think that's from being pollinated. Plus there were some others like it."

I see some shriveled floret stigmas in the top picture. No problem with them. There may be some shriveled petal stigmas, but I can't tell for sure, or rule out normal atrophy. Your pollination opportunities exist for only the petal stigmas. The middle picture might have a shriveled petal stigma, but I can't see for sure. The bottom picture looks fine. There might be a tiny hint of petal tip burn, but nothing to worry about. If I had the opportunity, I would examine the backside of the petals to rule out any possible micro-insect (thrips) activity there.

Well, I am going to go to free that zinnia rootlet from that paper towel. More later.

ZM

As for the parchment paper - why bother if you can see the roots? - just check them a little more often. You must have some really speedy zinnia seeds, is all I can say! Did you manage to get the little guy free?

Gotta leave again. Later - Alex

Hi Alex,

"...where are you seeing the spider? I don't see any evidence of it."

You are right. No spider. I thought I saw a spider leg between two petals at about the 5 o'clock position on your third picture (the #2 plant). But, on closer inspection, I see it is just an odd pollen floret that has some petal color on it, which made the remaining part of the floret look like a slender yellowish spider leg. I also notice another petal-colored floret on that same flower at about the 11:30 position. Those florets are showing scabious influence.

"You must have some really speedy zinnia seeds, is all I can say!"

Semi speedy. They are germinating in two days on the paper towels. Really speedy would be one-day germination. Maybe if I cranked up the thermostat on my heating pad, I could get faster germination. My heating pad thermostats are currently set for 80 degrees. Two day germs is plenty fast for me. As it is, I am in a multi-tasking mode now, repotting, checking Ziploc germination, washing pots, mixing nutrient solutions, adjusting fluorescent lights. And we had company today, so I took a TV break from my zinnia world and we watched the Kansas City Chiefs squeak by a close victory over the Buffalo Bills. And talked of many things.

"Did you manage to get the little guy free? "

Yes. I used an X-Acto knife with a very sharp point to "tease" the root out of the paper towel layer. That took maybe two minutes. Today I harvested a little over two dozen pre-germed seeds from Ziplocs, with only that one problem. I will still load a parchment layer in a few Ziplocs, just to continue that experimentation, but right now it looks feasible to just bed down the seeds on paper towel, and skip the parchment. More later. Sorry about that spider false alarm.

ZM

Well, I should say so - you had me down in a very uncomfortable position, with my new prescription glasses (finally took the plunge after a couple decades of making do with reading glasses - I think I was in denial) and a magnifying glass looking for phantom spiders and non-existent borg thrips. Meanwhile, you were lounging comfortably in front of the TV with friends watching sports(!) and talking of cabbages and kings or some such. However, apology accepted. So, Kansas City Chiefs...what is that - football? You see how well versed I am on sports. Fortunately for me, my DH (that's dear husband as I found out recently right here on GW - kept wondering who all these DHs and DWs and DDs were) is not too much into sports either. The last time we watched a football game together, Janet Jackson had a "wardrobe malfunction", and we both turned to each other and said "Did we just see what we thought we just saw?" It's getting weird out there...

But I digress. I'm truly impressed that the ziplocs work so well. You didn't say for positive certain if they were the actual ziploc sandwich baggies or an off brand. I haven't bought that size in a long time, but if memory serves, the plastic weight is lighter on those than on the quart and gallon size. Will have to get some.

Yes, the 2nd bloom has specialized colored florets which remind me of some of your toothy hybrids. You say that makes you think of scabious genes. Well, maybe my initial call was correct about the parents and that bi-colored mother was scabious and not whirligig. It's what I said in the beginning, but you told me you thought it was more likely whirligig, and you had me doubting myself. Of course, I still could have labeled them incorrectly, since the only couple of plants that especially looked like scabious were planted in the area which should have been only whirligigs. I still want to kick myself for not labeling things better. Sigh.

Anyway, what mainly concerns me at this point, is that I don't think I'm getting any viable petal stigmas on the 2nd bloom - call him Beta Boy. I don't think there is any way those stigmas can have already been pollinated and are now shriveling as a result. They are simply not growing properly. I still have some good stigmas inside those colored florets, though, so I hopefully will be able to at least harvest those. And there will be seed from #1 Son.
Here's a pic of the colored floret.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

You and your husband are wise not to waste time watching football. I usually watch at least part of a Chiefs game, and I am "rooting" for them, but I am not an avid sports fan. I did watch the Kansas City Royals through their seven games of the World Series, but only because they were the "home team" and it was the World Series. I am not a big baseball fan, either.

"I'm truly impressed that the ziplocs work so well. You didn't say for positive certain if they were the actual ziploc sandwich baggies or an off brand."

They are the actual Ziploc® brand in the Snack size, a registered brand of the SC Johnson Company. Their plastic film is rather thin, almost verging on flimsy. I am sure their larger double-zippered bags are made of heavier stuff. Oxygen doesn't seem to be an issue with them. O₂ probably can diffuse through the Ziploc Snack bags to some degree, but it may not need to. Some air gets naturally trapped in the bag when you add the folded paper towel and if zinnias germinate in only two or three days, as seems to be the case, the small amount of air in the bag may have enough oxygen for that short time.

I'm going to switch to high-risk low-germination old zinnia seeds now that I have convinced myself that the Ziploc bags do a good job of pre-germination. Now I need to start getting a relatively low yield of plants from my pre-germs -- otherwise I will be "covered up" with new indoor zinnia plants.

"Anyway, what mainly concerns me at this point, is that I don't think I'm getting any viable petal stigmas on the 2nd bloom - call him Beta Boy. I don't think there is any way those stigmas can have already been pollinated and are now shriveling as a result. They are simply not growing properly. I still have some good stigmas inside those colored florets, though, so I hopefully will be able to at least harvest those."

That last picture is an amazing ultra-close-up. At that magnification, thrips or spider mites would show up clearly. I don't see anything that looks like a shriveled stigma in that photo. The floret seems to have a live stigma, and there is a big stigma coming in at the bottom of the picture.

Referring back to your pictures on last Saturday, in your #2 plant, we see that same floret and that lone big petal stigma. The other petals don't even seem to have stigmas. If they are there, but withered, they are very withered. Were there stigmas there at one time that you pollinated? Back on Tuesday, November 4th, you said,

"Things are getting interesting - have just cross-pollinated the second bloom. It's not completely open, but the stigmas are out, so I gave it a shot anyway. "

Those stigmas on the second bloom may be withered now simply because you did a good job of pollinating them. A single grain of pollen can achieve fertilization. A stigma will be fairly dead the day after a successful pollination. And quite dead the second day after successful pollination. Or is the bloom you are calling "Beta Boy" a second bloom on the second plant? More later. I am still quite busy repotting from 3.25-inch square pots to 5-inch square pots.

ZM

ZM - this could turn into a lengthy post, but I'll try to be concise.
1. back on the 4th when I mentioned pollinating Beta Boy, I only had the option of pollinating the floret stigmas. There really weren't any petal stigmas that looked healthy. And if I looked very close it appeared that they were shriveled from the blossom outwards, rather than from the fertilized end back towards the blossom. Kind of like what a seedling looks like when you have damping-off disease. You know - the top may still look green, but the little stem is closed down and obviously dead. So, no - I don't think the shriveling can be the result of pollination.

2. Meant to mention in the last two posts and forgot - I bought the lens adaptor for converting my Canon lens to the Nikon digital camera, and it works! I'm having to learn a bit how to use it, though, as it doesn't allow for the internal metering system to work. Normally, I'd be seeing metering info along the bottom edge when I'm looking through the viewfinder, even when shooting completely at Manual settings. None of that info is there with the adaptor in place, so I have to go by memory of similar shooting situations to set shutter speed and F-stop, and then employ trial and error. Fortunately, I still get an image on the screen after shooting the pic, so I can adjust more easily with this instant feedback. I have only used my Canon macro-lens for the few pics you see above so far, so I haven't had much practice. The zoom lens I've taken out a couple of times now, but the weather has been cold, and I couldn't take being out there for long. Can't work well with my gloves on, and my hands can only take so much freezing - yowwwch! Will get some better close-up pics later, as well, when I rig up some sort of extra lighting and some makeshift stand to rest the camera on to offset the inevitable shaking while trying to focus that close.

3. ...is the bloom you are calling "Beta Boy" a second bloom on the second plant? No, that is the primary bloom. Beta is just now starting to form a 2nd bud. Alpha Boy has 2 secondary buds of good size already, and lots of fresh healthy green growth after the near-death experience.

4. Also forgot to answer your question about feeding. I've only used Miracle Gro in the houseplant-level solution, or even slightly more diluted, with occasional supplemental mistings with this extra-dilution. Other than that, it's well water which probably, now that I think of it, is fairly high in calcium and/or magnesium. Don't remember what the test showed some 25 years or so ago; just that it does leave deposits in anything that holds water for long - teapots, cat water bowls, etc. Good tasting water, though. :)

5. Lastly,
Ironically, the conditions in field grown zinnias are exactly the opposite. Statistics favor the zinnias that "throw pollen" and years of unmanaged field grown conditions can cause a strain of zinnias to "run out" because of that.

Am having internet problems, or server problems, or computer problems - whatever. But because of it, I found myself reading some of the old posts waiting for the page to load. You posted this awhile back and I see that it adds weight to the tip I'd received about it possibly not being a good idea to cull some of the slower growing flower seedlings, as they might be more unusual. The slower growers in the field, as with the non-pollen-throwing strains, would not be setting as much seed for a number of reasons, and eventually their strain could run out.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

Ok, I will accept that your Beta Boy has a stigma withering problem. The pollinations that you did earlier on its floret stigmas either succeeded in pollinating them or they were already pollinated by the anther bundle that exists in the neck of most "normal" zinnia florets. Either way, it is possible that Beta Boy's first bloom now has developing floret seeds, and they could be the basis for some interesting F2 specimens next Spring.

Beta Boy's apparent absence of petal stigmas remains an unexplained and unsolved mystery. It's probably too late to get any stigmas in the first bloom, but now we can try to think of ways to coax Beta Boy's secondary blooms to exhibit petal stigmas. Which is a daunting challenge, because we have no clear explanation of what is causing the problem.

Your well water very well may contain enough dissolved calcium and magnesium to supply the needs of your plants. But zinnias need more Boron than most plants, and a Boron deficiency normally shows up as a pinched or dead point at the growing tip of new leaves. Since Beta Boy's stigmas did not show tip death, we can conjecture that stigmas grow from the base outward, such that new cells are forming in the base of the stigma and that is where a Boron deficiency can become lethal on stigmas. That remains just a conjecture, but we will use it for the time being. However it goes, I think this is going to be a learning experience.

To be on the "safe" side, I suggest you supplement your growing water with a little Boron. Following my approximate calculations back in Part 27, prepare a Boron Stock Solution consisting of 1/4 teaspoon of your Boric insecticide dissolved in one gallon of water. Add one tablespoon of that Boron Stock Solution to each gallon of Plant Water that you use, even the water that does not contain any dilute Miracle-Gro. Compared to most plants, zinnias are "Boron Pigs" and use more than the micro-trace amounts of Boron that are usually included in commercial complete nutrients (like Miracle-Gro).

I think I mentioned it before, but Boric Acid is relatively insoluble in cold water, so it helps to heat a cup of water in your microwave, pour that hot water into a disposable container like a used drinking water bottle, dissolve your 1/4 teaspoon of Boric insecticide in that hot water, and add that to your gallon of Stock Solution water. And discard that used drinking water bottle.

This supplemental Boron nutrition may or may not help solve the withering stigma problem, but the Boron will contribute to the overall health of your indoor zinnia plants. I use it routinely on all of my indoor zinnia plants. Just be careful not to overdose it (like use the Stock Solution as plant water) because trace elements are toxic in excessive quantities.

Your Canon/Nikon hybrid camera rig seems to be working quite well. When the opportunity presents itself, try to photographically document some of the stigma withering phenomenon. I am a big fan of situation awareness, and optical magnification can be a valuable tool toward that end. More later. Oh, some of my indoor zinnias are beginning to bloom. I'm excited by that. Still busy re-potting.

ZM

Hi again, Alex,

I'm really glad you turned me onto the idea of pre-germination. It has already paid off for me big time. I wondered if the little rootlets might be encouraged to come out quicker if they were in the dark. So I organized my Ziplocs in this folder book, which, when closed, puts them in relative darkness.

It's not fully open yet, so I'm not sure what it is going to look like exactly. I'm wondering if those tubular petals are going to open up, or if they are going to stay closed like little balloons. More later. Still washing pots and repotting. It's basically Winter here regardless of what the calendar says -- a cold front came through yesterday evening and we even had a little snow on the deck this morning.

ZM

I have taken some more pics using the Canon Macro lens on my Nikon body. I'll post them later after editing. I have been able to sharpen images enough so that you can see better what I'm talking about.

Your seedling notebook is quite cool! I love the idea of opening a 'book' to a bunch of growing seeds.

Oooo - a new bloom! Will be interested to see its progression.
Gotta go - dinner to fix.

- Alex

Here are the pics:

#1. Normal stigma on Alpha Boy before pollination

2. Normal stigmas on Alpha after pollination

3. Secondary bud on Alpha Boy and leaf curl in the background

4. Overall view of Beta's florets including a couple of specialized colored florets

5. Normal floret stigmas on Beta

Hi Alex,

Fantastic photos! So now we see the withering-from-the-bottom stigmas that you described previously. The before-pollination stigma looks very healthy. And pollination is supposed to cause prompt stigma withering. I hadn't observed this intermediate withering stage. That very well may be the normal way it works.

The secondary bud on Alpha Boy looks fine, and the leaflets around it look healthy. A Boron deficiency would have affected them. The leaf curl in the background could be normal. I don't see any dead leaf tissue, so unless the leaf curl becomes a lot more severe, it's probably a non-issue. Your four pictures show healthy looking well-nourished zinnia parts, which makes me optimistic that you will be able to get a significant number of F2 seeds from Alpha Boy and Beta. If you pull that off, it will be a significant indoor zinnia growing accomplishment, especially so for a first try.

Speaking of leaves, I am starting to pay more attention to my zinnia plant forms as well as their flower forms. Some zinnia breeders say that longer narrower zinnia leaves are somehow better and, for no compelling reason, I also prefer rather narrow long leaves to wider shorter leaves. This is an example of a zinnia leaf that I like.

I will use it as a breeder and try to cross it with something rather different if something different offers me some pollen. I want to develop the Razzle Dazzles as a strain, and to do that I want increase both their flower size and their color range.

First thing tomorrow I need to wash a bunch more 5-inch pots. I'll have some more first-bloom zinnia pics tomorrow as well. I'll say it again -- those are some impressive ultra-close zinnia pictures you just posted. And they are an important contribution to situation awareness for your zinnia project. Situation awareness is a good thing. More later.

ZM

Pretty color on that razzle dazzle! And I like the longer leaves as well. If it was in a landscaping situation, the longer leaves add more "weight" to the planting.

And on that note, I'm really looking forward to this next season when I am going to concentrate my gardening energy on flowers more than vegetables.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

Yes, the two stigmas on the left are seriously necrotic. And the one on the right has its tips rolling up in a weird way. Beta's stigmas merit further study, to determine what is at work here. The dead stigmas have some tiny "hairs" on them, which made me suspect a fungus, only healthy stigmas have many hair cells and those could be remnants on the dead stigmas. Your photo shows healthy hair cells on the petal edges, which is evidence of the near microscopic capabilities of your photography.

The cause of the dead stigmas on Beta remains a mystery. Could it be a normal variation of pollination, or some villainous agent at work, like a fungus, bacteria, micro-insect, mite, nematode, or virus? I haven't heard of prions being identified on plants, or if that is even a possibility in the plant kingdom.

I think we can rule out an invisible flower spider, that has somehow come into possession of a cloaking device. But, seriously, this is a situation that begs for some of that "situation awareness" that I am such a big fan of. Perhaps more pictures of future stigma formation on new petals of Beta?

This is a picture of one of my opening zinnia blooms that combines characteristics of toothy petals with tubular petals in a somewhat new way, that produces a variant flower form.

I just wish it would put out some pollen, or that any of my newly opening zinnias would offer some pollen. It looks like I will have to do some "petal surgery" on that one to expose the stigmas. I hope that it has stigmas. Perhaps we should add genetics as one of the possible causes of the stigma problems on your Beta. More later. Those pots aren't going to wash themselves.

ZM

ZM - Snowing as I type this, but only slightly. Apparently the gods have decided that as they allowed us no summer to speak of, they would magnanimously hold off winter for as long as possible. But it is very close now.

I'm also pollenless with my Beta and Alpha. When I see even a tiny grain, I try to pick it up with my brush and transfer it somewhere - anywhere! Alpha continues to have new petals unfolding on top, though the old petals are showing their age. Remembering our earlier conversation with Mister Guy, I note that Alpha is taking on a purple/bluish cast overall. It's rather pretty, and definitely sets its color apart from Beta which has been and continues to be more towards the warm salmon-y shade of pink or magenta or somewhere around there.

And you must be getting psychic; when I checked the 'children' this morning, there was a spider! Not one of those yellow or white flower spiders, but a brown one with rather longer legs than a jumping spider. I had to use the magnifying glass just to make sure it wasn't a brown recluse. I haven't found any in the house, but John and I are convinced that it was a recluse that bit him on the leg some years back on our north porch, and it wasn't pretty. Fortunately neither of us seem to have any allergies to stings and bites, but that was certainly a nasty bite. Oh, and the spider is still on Alpha - I told him he could stay if he behaved himself.

Will take more closeup pics later, especially if I see anything resembling a normal petal stigma on Beta. Right now there are NONE. As for pollen, there's a chance for me when the secondary buds open on Alpha. I will do a mojo pollen dance for both of us. (That's a joke, Zenman. I have to be reminded now and again that humor does not always translate in e-mails.)

- Alex

Hi Alex,

That snow is supposed to get down here tomorrow. The weather guys think maybe 1 to 3 inches for our location. If it's much more than that, I'll have to get out my snow blower.

" I note that Alpha is taking on a purple/bluish cast overall. It's rather pretty, and definitely sets its color apart from Beta which has been and continues to be more towards the warm salmon-y shade of pink or magenta or somewhere around there. "

It's too bad we can't get that purple to "go away" and just leave the bluish. Somehow, that hasn't happened yet with zinnias. But, "hope springs eternal."

So now you have a brown spider "guarding" your zinnias. It will be interesting to see how long he will wait for something to show up before he loses patience and moves on. Incidentally, we did catch a Brown Recluse on one of our sticky traps last year. I hear their bite is supposed to be about as serious as that of a Black Widow spider.

Well, a "Razzle Dazzle" type recombinant bloomed out, and I am hoping it will produce some pollen that I can use.

You can see even more "texture" by clicking on the image for the "full screen" version. There are some visible hair cells. Someday I hope to get a stereo microscope with a third port to attach my camera. I would like to be able to take some microscopic close-ups for better "situation awareness". More later. I did get a lot of pots washed, so now I am re-potting again.

ZM

ZM - It was a light snow - only a dusting. Don't think you'll need your snowblower yet.

Spidey might not leave right away as there are other beasties for him/her to eat as it turns out. There are some flies that have been drawn to the lights as well as Spidey and the ladybugs. It's OK with me if she eats any flies she can catch - even though, to be fair - those flies might be doing a better job of pollinating Alpha and Beta than I can do. :)

Go Razzle Dazzle! More pollen, please. That picotee effect to the petal edges of the RD is great! And your photo is - to echo one of your assessments of my own photos - artistic. The coloring of your background is a lovely complement to the mango color of the bloom, and the clarity of the foreground is perfect.

You can probably purchase a 10X lens (or multiple lens) to add onto your camera. I had added one of the screw-on magnifying lens onto my macro lens that was then added to my Nikon DSLR via the adaptor. There must be some add-on magnifying lens that can be purchased for digital cameras. You have a Nikon, too, right?

Question off the subject - are you having issues with attacks from malware? I am under constant attack all of a sudden, and it's not like I do alot of surfing of the net. GW and FB are the main sites I visit, other than our own website for the shop and Amazon or some other fairly well known sources of mainstream sort of merchandize - shower curtains, the camera adaptor, etc. Just curious if others on GW are experiencing an upsurge in malware attacks. Am using Avast for virus protection, and it apparently is blocking the attacks, but as the messages are popping up several in an hour, it does slow things down. Geez - remember how it was in the old dial-up days, and we weren't used to having instant access? I've been spoiled.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"Question off the subject - are you having issues with attacks from malware? I am under constant attack all of a sudden, and it's not like I do a lot of surfing of the net."

No, I haven't noticed any attacks of what I would call "malware", although this site does have some occasionally aggressive advertisements. I have a popup blocker enabled, which holds some of the ads in check. But some ads manage to subvert the popup blocker. The popup blocker is a minor component of my Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. I also have Norton 360 Premier Edition, which maintains an extensive database of websites that are considered as "threat sites" and that list is updated very frequently. However, Norton's "Safe Surfing" feature works only with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. Currently I use only Internet Explorer (which I am using now) and Firefox. I probably should experiment with Chrome.

Internet Explorer is my primary browser, because I use HughesNet's satellite uplink/downlink as my Internet provider (we are in a rural area that has no available cable or DSL service) and when we have a connectivity problem (a daily occurrence), Internet Explorer does a good job of diagnosing the problem and suggesting a workable fix (usually to reboot my HughesNet modem).

"GW and FB are the main sites I visit, other than our own website for the shop and Amazon or some other fairly well known sources "

This may be another obvious one like OC, but what does FB stand for? Obviously, I know GW stands for Garden Web.

Back in my post to Mister.Guy on Fri, Oct 31, 14 at 2:56, the word "clean" has been converted to a link to an advertisement popup, but that is "just" a revenue-producing feature of this site. I don't consider it malware as such, unless they become very pervasive, as they sometimes are.

"Am using Avast for virus protection, and it apparently is blocking the attacks, but as the messages are popping up several in an hour, it does slow things down."

Norton can work silently in the background, so I don't see anything like that. Norton does keep a security log, which I can review to see what has been going on. Are you using a free version of Avast? It's messages may be a form of self advertising.

"You can probably purchase a 10X lens (or multiple lens) to add onto your camera. I had added one of the screw-on magnifying lens onto my macro lens that was then added to my Nikon DSLR via the adaptor. There must be some add-on magnifying lens that can be purchased for digital cameras. You have a Nikon, too, right? "

I have a now obsolete entry level Nikon D3200 DSLR. (the Nikon D3300 has been out for quite some time.) I just have a Nikon AF-S DX Micro-NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G lens, which is a rather inexpensive entry-level macro lens. Fixed focal length (no zoom) and no image stabilization (VR vibration reduction).

The problem with an extreme magnification add-on is that you wind up with the front surface of your lens practically in contact with your subject. I have to watch it now, or I can cast a shadow on my subject with my lens and camera. I like to stay at least a few inches back from my subject, because I take my zinnia pics hand-held. A tripod or even a monopod is just too cumbersome for me almost all of the time.

Of course, I realize that when I get a stereo microscope, that freedom of picture taking through it won't be possible. But I am considering taking the microscope into the garden, so that has me looking at models that have the microscope on an adjustable arm. That will not be a near-term purchase, because I won't have budget for it any time soon.

I do have a pocket microscope (20x) with a pull-out 8x hand lens that I use for current micro "situation awareness". But, using it is, at best, "cumbersome".

There is an optical instrument called a "macroscope" that I might consider as an intermediate solution, but not for picture taking. It, like my pocket microscope, would be only for direct observation situation awareness.

I might eventually buy a better Nikon Micro-NIKKOR lens for picture taking. And, maybe consider using a tripod or monopod, or one of those "chest pod" things. More later.

ZM

Hello again, Alex,

Well, we have had a light snow. The deck and driveway are white, but the lawn and garden are only partially covered. It seems to be letting up now, so maybe we aren't going to get a heavy coverage.

This late season pollination was an attempt to cross an exotic with a Razzle Dazzle, but this bloom looks very much like the female parent, even though its stigmas had been exposed.

As they say, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. And, while I am waiting for pollen, I still have a lot of re-potting to do. More later.

ZM

Never mind the malware attacks, they appear to be better. Computer stuff - so depressing. Quick change of subject. Oh, except to add that FB is Facebook. Not nearly as entertaining as Garden Web, by my reckoning.

So, how many plants have you got going? Not much I can do at this point until the secondary buds open, I guess. Beta has one visible now, too.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"Yo ZM - how's your pollen hanging, bro? I hope better than mine. "

My pollen is hanging better than it was. I got a decent amount of it today from some of my prime breeders, The exotic specimen nearly hid its pollen down under its petal florets.

I spent nearly two hours this afternoon using the available pollen. So why pollen today, and not in the preceding days? I don't know for sure, and it would be nice to know more about pollen production in indoor zinnias, since it is such a "make or break" thing.

When I am crossing pollen from one indoor zinnia to another, I pick up both pots and put them next to other, just as a matter of convenience. You don't enjoy such pollinating convenience outdoors for in-garden zinnias, so taking advantage of it when the opportunity exists indoors just makes sense to me.

In moving those pots around today, I noticed that the pots of the pollen producing zinnias seemed lighter than the pots of the female zinnias receiving the pollen. That could be just a coincidence, but it seems that the pollen producers were depleting their water supply. They weren't wilting yet, but I made a mental note to water them some tomorrow.

It's certainly not proven yet, but it may be that withholding water from a zinnia will persuade it to produce some pollen. You might want to give that a try. Don't starve them to the point of wilting, but by hefting their pots you can get some idea how much water is in the medium in the pot. More later. Tomorrow I need to make ready another shelf for budding zinnias. I currently have well over 200 zinnia plants in various stages of development.

ZM

I will give it a try. I have so far kept fairly good track of the weight (and therefore - wetness) of the pots, and have not allowed them to dry out much. Let's give it a try. Now that they have made it through the calcium chloride crisis and are looking "mighty fine!", I think they can handle a little more stress. :)

Yeah, it's a real pleasure to have these two plants side by side and in pots that I can turn around as I please. I'll miss that when I'm working out in the garden. But, regardless, I don't believe I will be repeating this indoor breeding in the near future. I think I said it before, I sort of like the fact that the gardening is seasonal. In the past especially, I would work my a&* off out there with the veggie beds. When the season was done, I got to rest, and dream of the future garden.

I seriously am going to be mostly about flowers this next season. Can't help but grow some food for fresh use - so much better tasting and I believe better for you when it's something you've grown yourself with your own energy in it - but this next year will be my supposed year of retirement. Things may be changing...

200 plants - alright! There was a time some 20 years back now, that I would have that or more growing under lights and spilling into the greenhouse, but it was all for planting out when the season permitted - vegetables and flowers. Have always had to have flowers, too. I need the beauty of them.

- Alex

And he scores! 6 points for the Zenman! When I went up to check the 'kids' this morning, I noted first that the soil was drying out a bit. And 'Faith and Begorra' - there was Pollen! Now this may all just be a happy coincidence...or not. But I think you may have discovered a useful technique for bringing on the pollen.

Oh, and I gave them a good long drink afterwards as reward. :)

- Alex

Hi Alex,

Glad you got pollen. Now you have a chance of getting some F2 seeds from your two zinnias. And some hybrid F2 seeds as well.

The following is a parenthetic explanation to you, and to anyone else who might be interested.

For the last couple of years I have been concentrating on tubular petaled zinnias of one form or another. Most tubular petaled zinnias conceal their stigmas inside the petal tubes, which raises issues of whether it is practical to fertilize those stigmas. I am going to illustrate my current practice. This is/was a current "exotic" zinnia, which comes from a cross between the original tubular petaled form and the star-tipped mutant. That cross gives the original trumpet-shaped tubular flare-out a five-petaled look, which adds some complexity to the flower form.

Incidentally, if you look closely you can see that a few of those stigmas appear in a variant form, with three or more "arms". Unusual. That was yesterday, when I then applied RD pollen to those stigmas. Most of them "took" and are nearly withered away today. I re-applied Razzle Dazzle pollen to the few remaining stigmas today.

I did essentially the same petal surgery to my original tubular petaled "mutant" back in 2011, only I was much slower with the procedure back then. Now that I have had a lot of practice, I can expose more than one stigma per minute, and I can produce a significant amount of zinnia seed stock using the technique.

But I concede that at some time the exotic zinnias are going to have to "learn" to produce their own seeds without human help. I am sort of going on a "leap of faith" that they are going to do that, and I am reasonably optimistic that they can.

The Razzle Dazzles have petals that are very similar to the basic shape of the Tubulars and Exotic Tubulars, with tubes and a flare-out with "star points". But apparently the RD petals are modified pollen florets, in that they contain an anther bundle and can self fertilize. That is why I am making so many crosses between Razzle Dazzles and Exotic Tubulars. I want to evolve a much improved larger version of the Exotic Tubulars with at least some in-petal anther bundles, as a kind of "insurance" in case they don't produce conventional pollen bearing florets and selfed floret seeds.

Time will tell whether I succeed at this. My older son says I should just concentrate on breeding larger zinnias. Maybe he is right. But these "weirdo" zinnias that I am working on now seem more interesting to me. I do intend to start a big-flowered zinnia project next Spring, as a parallel effort. And who knows? Maybe the "weirdo zinnias" might contribute somehow to a breakthrough in zinnia flower size. The one thing they are doing successfully is changing.

ZM

ZM - So, if I'm seeing correctly, you've emasculated them as well to keep them from selfing? If you wanted to try to cross something with your razzle dazzles, which you say have both stigma and anthers in the tubes, can you do it before they would have selfed? How could you be sure? Though, as I type that, I seem to have a memory of seeing (out in the garden) that the stigmas come out before the anther bundles open. Do you think this is true of your tubular zinnias? Stigmas ready to accept pollen before the plant's own anthers are producing it?

I suppose in the field in a natural setting, the plants would mostly self-pollinate, except for those that by virtue of color or increased scent, managed to attract moths, butterflies and hummingbirds. Probably too deep for bees to do much, do you think? And on that note, I don't recall my zinnias in the field having had a noticeable scent. Are there fragrant zinnias? That's something I will have to pay attention to this next season. I like things that smell as well as look good.

Another thought comes to me - my Beta may only have selfed seeds when all's said and done, since I am only seeing stigmas that are in the anther bundles, and no useable petal stigmas. It's possible that it will only be with some of Alpha's seeds that I see true crosses between the two. But it's all good - I don't have a set path at this point. Just seeing what comes next.

In response to your son's suggestion - there already are giant zinnias, but what you've come up with is unique. And, as you say, they're still changing. Hard not to be curious what more they may do in the future.

Here's a pic as of yesterday. Not a great pic, rather fuzzy - should have lengthened my depth of field so I could have them both in focus. Harder to do it blind, working with this borrowed Canon lens on the Nikon. I need more practice. Anyway, you can see their differences, and the purplish/bluish cast on Alpha as she ages.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

I thought I answered you yesterday, but I must have somehow forgot to send the message.

"So, if I'm seeing correctly, you've emasculated them as well to keep them from selfing?"

I used its pollen to cross-pollinate other breeders. That is why the pollen is gone. I wouldn't mind if it selfed, but right now I am concentrating on inter-crossing my breeders rather than self them.

"If you wanted to try to cross something with your razzle dazzles, which you say have both stigma and anthers in the tubes, can you do it before they would have selfed?"

I can't think of any way to use a Razzle Dazzle as a female. But I can use them as pollen donors, so I can cross them onto other breeders that aren't Razzle Dazzles.

"Though, as I type that, I seem to have a memory of seeing (out in the garden) that the stigmas come out before the anther bundles open. Do you think this is true of your tubular zinnias? Stigmas ready to accept pollen before the plant's own anthers are producing it? "

I think the stigmas almost always appear before pollen does on a zinnia bloom. Pollen doesn't necessarily appear at all, but stigmas appear as a part of the petal. On a tubular, the stigmas are there, but inside the petal tubes. Stigmas are usually ready to accept pollen before the plant's own pollen florets with their internal anthers appear.

"Are there fragrant zinnias?"

None that I know of. Sometimes by sniffing you can detect a very faint fragrance, but you would never notice it otherwise. It is possible that butterflies are much more sensitive, and can smell zinnias. But we humans don't consider zinnias to be fragrant. If you find a fragrant zinnia, by all means save seeds from it.

"...my Beta may only have selfed seeds when all's said and done, since I am only seeing stigmas that are in the anther bundles, and no useable petal stigmas."

That's very mysterious that your Beta has had no usable petal stigmas. I have never seen a zinnia petal open without a stigma at its base.

"In response to your son's suggestion - there already are giant zinnias, but what you've come up with is unique."

Well, I think he was thinking of giant giant zinnias. Most so-called giant zinnias are hard put to exceed 6 inches in diameter. He and I both would like to see much bigger zinnias. I will be selecting and crossing for larger zinnias next year as an additional project.

"Not a great pic, rather fuzzy - should have lengthened my depth of field so I could have them both in focus. Harder to do it blind, working with this borrowed Canon lens on the Nikon."

It's a perfectly adequate picture. I have trouble with depth of field myself. I must have forgotten that the Canon lens was borrowed, and not one of yours. Maybe some year Santa Clause will bring you a Nikon close-up lens to use. I kinda hope my budget next year will allow me to buy a better Nikon close-up lens. Although my entry level lens is meeting my needs reasonably well. It doesn't have image stabilization, but I compensate for that with a faster shutter speed. And it has a short fixed focal length of 40 mm, so I don't have any zooming capability. But it is fast (f 2.8) and very close focusing, so I think it is a great lens for the money. I just need to increase my skills in using it. More later.

ZM

ZM - oh goody - a quest for the fragrant zinnia! This should be interesting.

That's very mysterious that your Beta has had no usable petal stigmas. I have never seen a zinnia petal open without a stigma at its base.

It's not that Beta didn't have stigmas at the base of the petals, it's just that they are all malformed. Could possibly be genetic?

Well, I think he was thinking of giant giant zinnias. Most so-called giant zinnias are hard put to exceed 6 inches in diameter. He and I both would like to see much bigger zinnias. I will be selecting and crossing for larger zinnias next year as an additional project.

Double goody - a competition! Who can grow the biggest giants? I accept the challenge. :)

It's a perfectly adequate picture. I have trouble with depth of field myself. I must have forgotten that the Canon lens was borrowed, and not one of yours.

I didn't state myself well - I meant that the Canon macro-lens is borrowed from my old Canon TX camera and married to the Nikon D40 via the new lens adaptor I bought. And when I said I was working "blind" I meant that I can't tell where my settings are - the lens adaptor prevents the internal metering from appearing in the viewfinder. There are some things I can set, but then I just have to do trial and error. I'll get better with practice.

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"It's not that Beta didn't have stigmas at the base of the petals, it's just that they are all malformed. Could possibly be genetic?"

I suppose it could be genetic, although I have seen a lot of different zinnia stigmas, and I have never seen any that were actually un-functional. I have seen very small ones and very large ones. This is one of my current breeders that has larger than normal stigmas.

As you can see, that zinnia was a Whirligig. Unusual zinnia characteristics frequently come from Whirligigs. Three-armed stigmas are not extremely unusual. I have seen instances of stigmas with four or more arms. The most I have ever counted was eleven arms. Those stigmas looked like heads of hair, but were apparently fully functional.

But the malformed stigmas on your Beta are troublesome. If they show up in Beta's progeny, I would consider them as a defect, and cull them. I don't see any evidence of thrips on Beta. Thrips frequently damage stigmas, but they do other recognizable damage that I don't see in your photos. Some fungal or viral or bacterial disease might be to blame. Or it could be a nutrient deficiency, although that now seems less likely because you have provided both calcium and boron. Let's wait and see. Maybe the mystery will be resolved.

"Double goody - a competition! Who can grow the biggest giants? I accept the challenge. "

Chuckle. Well, I wasn't challenging you, but I am up for a little friendly competition. I suspect that prehistoric zinnias were much larger than present-day zinnias, and maybe we can coax some of those forgotten zinnia genes back into activity. Just to be clear, I am not going for a fragrant zinnia, just big ones. (But I will sniff my zinnias from time to time.) More later.

ZM

But on a happier note, your pic of the graceful plum colored zinnia with the free-form petal edges is just the sort of shape I would love to see in future progeny. And the larger stigmas do add to the beauty. I thought, after reading your post, that I saw a three-armed stigma on Alpha. But as I leaned closer with the magnifying glass, I lost sight of it, and now I'm not sure. An interesting alternate form; those that you are describing with mop-head stigmas I would think would be attractive. Did they have more pollen as a result?

Grrr - this machine is giving me headaches - may have to get off it very soon. But, on a parting note - I was, of course, just goshing yall about the challenge, but let's just see what we come up with this summer - heh heh heh...

- Alex

Hi Alex,

"An interesting alternate form; those that you are describing with mop-head stigmas I would think would be attractive. Did they have more pollen as a result? "

I don't remember about the pollen -- that was several years ago. Today I would probably save seeds from it, but those "mop heads" at the petal bases didn't seem attractive to me at the time.

In fact, I was concerned that they might be a symptom of Aster Yellows, a strange disease that can affect zinnias if leafhoppers carry the disease to them. A few years ago I had a zinnia that did have Aster Yellows (its flower petals were leaves instead, in fact each flower was sort of like a separate plant) and it was so completely different from the mop-head-stigma zinnia that I now think those odd stigmas were just a new allele on a gene. I disposed of that Aster Yellows zinnia as if it were a biohazard, double bagged in a trip to the landfill. Aster Yellows is a very strange plant disease, and not to be trifled with.

"...your pic of the graceful plum colored zinnia with the free-form petal edges is just the sort of shape I would love to see in future progeny."

It has caught my fancy too. I am treating it as a priority breeder, pollinating it with other breeder pollen, and using its pollen on other breeders. Its wild flower form changes from day to day, and it is a little different from any zinnia I have ever had. It is supposed to be a cross between an exotic star-tipped tubular and a Razzle Dazzle. Its mother was an exotic. If I made that cross according to the label, the RD genes interact unpredictably with other zinnia genes.

Quite a few of my current indoor zinnias are from crosses labeled with a male RD pollen donor. It will be interesting to see if any kind of pattern can be detected. At least three of the crosses so far have acted as if RD were dominant, but most make it appear to be recessive.

Well, here's hoping your laptop is feeling better. I'll post a few pictures in your absence.

ZM

Hello all,

I mentioned to Alex that one of my new indoor zinnias has a flower form that changes from day to day, and it is a little different from any zinnia I have ever had. It is enough different from my previous zinnias that I am going to consider it as a new zinnia flower form. From some directions, it looks rather like a fairly conventional cactus flowered zinnia, like in this view.

I think I am going to refer to this zinnia flower form as "Bed Head" (BH) because of the tousled look of the petals. So, as yet another of my ongoing projects, I will work to develop this Bed Head flower form into a strain of zinnias in a complete color range. More later.

ZM

Bed head zinnia - thumbs up! Its mother was an exotic. I should say so. The name is apt, though I'm picturing something a bit more alluring - a sort of Marlene Dietrich tousled hair look. Trying to think of some modern actress that does that just-out-of-the-bed-look really well, but my mind is a blank at the moment. Hope you get a wide range of colors out of that one; what's its bloom size?

Yes, I grew asters once or twice, but I think they were affected by Asters Yellows. Whatever it was, they didn't grow well and I haven't tried since. Made me nervous. Biohazard indeed.

Later - Alex

Hi Alex,

" ...what's its bloom size?"

Its diameter is 4½ inches. For an indoor zinnia that was recently rootbound in a 3¼ inch square pot and then transplanted to a 5-inch square pot where it is once again becoming rootbound, that is a decent size. I don't know the exact relationship between available root volume and bloom size, but I suspect root volume plays a role in that.

Oddly, that Bed Head's bloom diameter is greater than the bloom diameter of either parent. And they were grown outdoors last Summer with essentially unlimited root volume. Bed Head's exotic mother was about 3¼ inches in diameter and BH's pollen Razzle Dazzle parents ranged from 1½ to 2 inches in diameter. The exotics and RDs range from small to medium in bloom size, and I hope to increase the size of both, or their hybrid progeny, by a considerable amount.

You should be on the lookout for Aster Yellows disease, and remove and dispose of any affected plants, using my aforementioned "biohazard" precautions. Don't be lulled by its name. Aster Yellows can even affect vegetable garden plants like carrots, and a wide range of other plants, including some native plants. It does need an insect vector like leafhoppers to move the strange infective agent from one plant to another. If you see a really strange mutation in a plant, be at least a little suspicious.

I have a nice white zinnia blooming inside that is about the same size as the Bed Head.

It was supposed to be crossed with a Razzle Dazzle, but the bloom closely resembles the Toothy white maternal parent, so I suspect it was inadvertently selfed. But try, try again. I am crossing it with some RD specimens, as well as some other breeders that presumably contain some RD genes. More later.

ZM

ZM -
"Its diameter is 4½ inches."

Wow - that's big! I am so envious.

"I don't know the exact relationship between available root volume and bloom size, but I suspect root volume plays a role in that."

I would imagine it does have some correlation, if I can judge from how being in a smaller volume pot limits the overall growth of my seedlings I start every spring. Some years I am low on the decent propagation mix I use, and as it can be difficult to get it (can't just go down to the corner store, or even to the big feed store in the town nearest me; it won't be on the shelf), I have been known to pot up two seedlings together in a cell on that first transplant, fully intending to transplant them later to a bigger pot. Even without being strictly "rootbound" though, they still show a significant difference in size from any seedling that has been potted alone. They generally catch up later, but if they were allowed to bloom under those circumstances, it seems logical that the size of bloom might be affected. But, as with all else - I could be wrong. :)

"Oddly, that Bed Head's bloom diameter is greater than the bloom diameter of either parent."

Well, now that's exciting! Sounds like a step towards those giant giants!

"You should be on the lookout for Aster Yellows disease, and remove and dispose of any affected plants, using my aforementioned "biohazard" precautions."

It was several years back now that I grew them. Hopefully, it's been long enough for the virus or whatever to have run its course. Haven't noticed anything unusual in that area of the garden. Mostly it's been veggie land there in the past. That particular year I was into the idea of having a cut-flower bed, so there were several rows of annuals for cutting. Not a great success since the china asters were supposed to be the star of the show, and then they got stage-fright. Of course, it's irrelevant now, since I can't have cut flowers in the house with the cats around. Sigh.

"It was supposed to be crossed with a Razzle Dazzle, but the bloom closely resembles the Toothy white maternal parent, so I suspect it was inadvertently selfed."

Wow! Like I'd care - that white bloom is gorgeous! Hey, Alpha's second bud will be opening soon - can hardly wait. Will have to move the lights up again as it is already taller than the primary bloom.

Later - Alex

Hi Alex,

"Wow - that's big! I am so envious."

Chuckle. Green with envy. Well, 4½ inches is somewhat large for indoor zinnias, but just medium sized for outdoor zinnias. The so-called "giant" zinnias usually run about 5½ inches, with a few exceptional ones hitting 6 inches. I hope to breed "giant" zinnias well above 6 inches in diameter. I know that is possible. In past years some seed catalogs have advertised zinnias as large as 8 inches in diameter. Growers have probably seen zinnias that large in their big fields of zinnias, but the chances of an 8-inch zinnia showing up in any one seed packet are nil.

I have mentioned this before, but as amateur breeders of zinnias we have a couple of advantages over the commercial seed companies. First of all, we can make an F1 hybrid between any two zinnias in our garden. The commercial guys are limited to just a few of their inbred strains, and they can't afford to have the pollination done by humans.

Second, and this is a little more subtle, we process our seeds by hand, which means that we can save extra large or extra long seeds that would be broken or rejected as stem pieces by the commercial seed processing machines. I think this is going to be a significant advantage in our amateur quest for larger zinnias.

Some of my indoor zinnias show their "exotic" heritage in rather subtle ways, like this specimen.

It has both tubular and toothy genes, but the tubularity appears only at the base of the petals, and an occasional petal "finger" hints at toothiness or star tipped ancestry. Several of my indoor specimens do a similar job of nearly concealing their unusual genetics. Apparently the unusual stuff tends to be recessive. I am hoping the F2 progeny of many of my current specimens will reveal some more interesting combinations of traits.

"Alpha's second bud will be opening soon... "

I wonder how closely it will resemble the first bloom. Occasionally different blooms on the same zinnia plant will have significant differences. More later.

ZM

Hi Alex,

Some computer virus malware can only be removed during the early part of your computer boot up. Hope you get it sorted. A RootKit virus can be extremely difficult to detect and remove, and usually requires a special purpose program to detect and remove it.

This is one of my newly bloomed out zinnias that I have given breeder status to. It combines toothy petals with a Whirligig-type bicoloration.

Today I put some Bed Head pollen on it. The Bed Head put only four pollen florets today. Its main bloom may be approaching the end of its development. I am hoping it will put out a side bloom before too long. More later.

ZM

I have taken the Plunge and Ordered My 1st Zinnias for Indoor Growing....

Please will You Post Again the Difference between The Athers and Sigmas?

Thanks and Sorry to be a Pain in the Aft End

Just sent my metal child off to the computer hospital (sniff sniff). Am using the DH's machine to write this. Very inconvenient timing (not that computer breakdowns are ever conveniently timed) as I always have extensive computer work to do around the quarters. Fortunately, the majority of it can be done offline, and the publisher programs in my old PC are still compatible with the new programs. So I've been able to piecemeal things together going back and forth from different machines. Hopefully, they will cure her and return her to me soon. It's been very odd and unsettling not having access to the internet. Brings into stark reality the depth of my online addiction, and perforce - that of probably half of the rest of the planet.
Perhaps in the future, I should voluntarily do this enforced withdrawal more often...

Anywho - on a cheerier note - nice to see that the cyberworld has continued without me! :) That's a lovely new breeder, ZM. I look forward to seeing interesting issue from crossings with the Bedheaded Marlene. And I hope you get some side blooms soon. You'll be happy to know, I'm sure, that Alpha has not just one, but two new buds opening. I've already attempted pollinating the second new bloom with some of Beta's pollen. Yay!

And here's a curious note. You may recall that I had decent-looking petal stigmas on Alpha, but none to mention on Beta. Well, perhaps I was wrong about that...again. You see, I pulled some of the lower petals off of Alpha, fully expecting to see some nice plump seeds. Nada. So far have pulled off about 5 - not a one is viable. I'm not too concerned - I'm sure there will be some on there eventually. However, and here's the curious thing - I pulled a couple of bottom petals off Beta, expecting, of course, to see empty embryo cases. To my surprise, those two were plump! Now what's up with that, I wonder? Not that I'm complaining, but it did seem rather strange.

OK, gotta go. May not be back for another week or so, but this might not be a bad thing. I'm getting more done being offline. :)

- Alex

Hi NC,

"Please will You Post Again the Difference between The Anthers and Sigmas? "

The anthers produce the pollen and the stigmas (that originate at the base of petals) accept the pollen. Stigmas (petal stigmas) and a pollen floret are visible in this picture.

In that picture you can see actual pollen in the center of the floret, as a little pile of yellow dust. That pollen could be picked up on the tip of an artist's brush and brushed on a stigma, or the entire pollen floret could be picked up with tweezers (or forceps or twissors) and used as a preloaded brush to brush pollen on petal stigmas.

The anthers are not visible, because they are enclosed in the neck of the floret (the neck is also not visible). In the picture, an internal stigma originating in the base of the floret is extending from below the anther bundle up through the center of the anther bundle and, as it extends, it pushes a lot of pollen off of the anthers up into the outside world in the middle of the fuzzy yellow floret arms.

In an hour or so the two arms of the floret stigma will appear in the center of the floret arms. The floret stigma almost always gets self-pollinated as it pushes the pollen from the center of the anther bundle out into the middle of the floret arms.

The floret seeds look different from the petal seeds, but both can produce new plants. The cross-pollinated seeds are almost always petal seeds.

I hope you enjoy a challenge, because growing zinnias inside is a challenge. A challenge that I have come to enjoy. But there have been plenty of "bumps in the road" along the way. I will be glad to answer any further questions.

ZM

Hi Alex,

Let's hope they get your computer fixed before too long. It's true that we are all addicted to either the Internet or to some other technology, like smart phones and social media.

That is odd, the counterintuitive production of seeds by Beta and not by Alpha. I have checked the petals of some of my breeders, hoping to find some plump green seeds that I could use to start a second indoor generation, but so far nothing ready to use. I do plan to use pre-germination as an important part of my indoor zinnia culture. I have you to thank for that.

I have done some culling of my indoor zinnias, and that feels odd. But it just makes sense, not to waste resources growing zinnias that are substandard. I have also re-used the growing medium in the pots of zinnias that were culled by inserting younger seedlings into the vacated pots, and I am also nervous about doing that. Last year I got into a lot of trouble re-using the media from previous years and hopefully this policy of switching out younger seedlings for culled plants won't lead to similar problems. Time will tell. All of my pots this time at least start out with fresh media. I use Premier ProMix BX as my indoor growing media.

I am getting some interesting breeder specimens. This one closely resembles its outdoor seed parent.

It and its outdoors parent reminded me of a fireworks sky-burst. I hate to remove its petals to expose its stigmas, because that completely disfigures the bloom. But I want to see those hybrid progeny, so goodbye bloom prettiness. I have some interesting things to cross-pollinate it with. I'll probably use some of my Razzle Dazzle pollen and some of the Bed Head pollen. Who knows what those crosses will look like?

"May not be back for another week or so, but this might not be a bad thing. I'm getting more done being offline."

Well, we will see you when we see you. You are always welcome here. Myself, I have to ration my television watching. I hope they get your computer fixed just fine.

ZM

I ONLY Have Windowsills So Maybe This Won't Work at all.....
***SIGH***

I'll Still Give it a Go Though....

Hi NC,

"I'll Still Give it a Go Though...."

We will be very curious to see how your zinnias on a windowsill fare. As they say, "nothing dared, nothing gained." Even if the experiment isn't wholly successful, it will be worthwhile knowing just how the zinnias responded to that environment.

This is one of my current indoor breeder zinnias.

It has some of the wavy petal characteristics that Alex likes. I like it, too. Since it isn't producing pollen at the moment, it will serve as a female breeder, to receive pollen from other pollen-producing breeder zinnias. I am currently putting emphasis on the Bed Head and various Razzle Dazzle specimens as pollen donors. In my opinion, my Razzle Dazzles are most in need of improvement, so I am crossing them with nearly everything. More later.

ZM

OK, I'm back. Borrowed John's old machine again.
ZM - you know what those crinkly, wavy petals make me think of? Porcelain china. Is that the true color? It's almost indigo.

Still no petals seeds on Alpha, but I'm not pulling anymore in case they need a longer time to mature under lights than outside. It's been since Oct 23 that the bloom was open; seemed long enough for those first lower petals, but what do I know?

Gotta go.
Oh, and ninecrow - definitely you need to try growing those zinnias on the windowsill. I talked myself into growing 2 plants in the middle of frigid winter; join the party. :)

- Alex

Hi woodnative,

"I have to find myself some scabiosa type zinnia seeds this coming season and "play" with some crosses."

I recommend you include some Whirligig zinnias in those crosses. Whirligigs have been my "secret sauce" in many of my crosses. There are several scabiosa type zinnias that you might experiment with, including a couple of new ones for 2015. The new ones are the Zinderella Lilac and Zinderella Peach. Both Zinderella Lilac and Zinderella Peach received Fleuroselect awards.

Another interesting scabiosa flowered strain is the Cupcakes strain, which was new this year. It looks like I have some catching up to do with scabiosa flowered zinnias, myself.

"I love that toothy purplish bicolor a couple posts up from this!"

I like it, too. This is another of my current indoor breeders.

It has obvious Whirligig ancestry, and I don't know what all else. I'll probably cross it with Razzle Dazzle pollen. I am really trying to pump up my Razzle Dazzle strain with all kinds of new genes. More later.

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

Hi Alex,

"...you know what those crinkly, wavy petals make me think of? Porcelain china. Is that the true color? It's almost indigo."

That is a true color. The color of the zinnia on my computer monitor is a "dead ringer" for the color of the actual zinnia in the utility room. Ever since I started saving my pictures from my Nikon camera as raw NEF files and converting them with DxO Labs' DxO Optics Pro software, my colors have just been "falling into place".

To me, that color looks like lavender mixed with a lot of white. And there is a tantalizing undertone of sky blue. But whatever it is, it is a really nice zinnia color, and I have seen it from time to time nearly every year I have grown zinnias. I think the first time I saw it was when the W. Atlee Burpee company introduced their Luther Burbank strain of cactus flowered zinnias. It had an amazing range of different pastel colors, including some really nice whites. I suspect that the famous plant breeder, Luther Burbank, created that seed stock by crossing many different colors of cactus flowered zinnias with white cactus flowered zinnias. I can't believe Burpee discontinued that strain of zinnias. More later.

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

ZM - I had some pretty whites this past summer, and I tried to cross them with the colors, hoping for some nice pastels. The whites had a tendency, at least in my little patch, to look not so good in a relatively short period of time, and then absolutely horrid later. As opposed to some of the colors, that retained their beauty for weeks. That's a bit discouraging, and would be a deterrent normally to my using them in any sort of display for appearance alone, but this is for the sake of scientific experimentation, don'cha know? I positively shiver when I imagine a cross down the line between my #1 giant watermelon cactus - C1 - one of the white scabious and my W1 - the first blooming whirligig, a white and maroon/red bi-color.

Nice photos, BTW (ref. above post Oct 29 for abbr. key). Your DXO Optics software does a superb job. When I first started saving things RAW in NEF files just a year ago now, I found I couldn't open them with my old photoshop program, so I downloaded a free temporary version of DXO Optics - at least, I think that's the one I tried. However, I decided it wasn't as comfortable for me as PhotoShop, so I upgraded to PS12 instead. Definitely a "Cadillac" version as compared to the old "Volkswagon Beetle" PS3 that came with the PC when I bought it. I still don't know half the stuff it does.

My metal baby comes home today, and I have hours of enjoyment to look forward to as I re-install ALL of my programs - not. As it turns out, there were at least a couple of trojans plus something else to do with Google gumming up the works - don't remember what all as John took it in for me and talked to the guy, he being much more versed in the PC ins and outs. I still am at a loss as to where I may have picked up the bugs. It's not like a spend alot of time cruising the back streets of the internet. And I forgot my vorpal sword, apparently.
Later, Alex

Hi Alex,

"The whites had a tendency, at least in my little patch, to look not so good in a relatively short period of time, and then absolutely horrid later."

I'm not sure what caused your problem with the whites. White zinnias can look good just as long as the other colors. What strain of zinnias were you growing that had the defective whites?

My original indoor white bloom that I pictured a couple of weeks ago has started doing something that is not typical of whites. It is starting to develop a blush of color on the older petals. You can see that on this current picture.

It's really too soon for those petals to have plump green seeds yet, although I should be checking some of my older blooms for usable green seeds. If I find any, they will go into my pre-germination Ziplocs.

"However, I decided it wasn't as comfortable for me as PhotoShop, so I upgraded to PS12 instead. Definitely a "Cadillac" version as compared to the old "Volkswagon Beetle" PS3 that came with the PC when I bought it."

By PS12 you must mean Photoshop Elements 12. Actually, it is not the current version. Photoshop Elements 13 does differ from PSE12 in one important aspect. PSE13 supports 64-bit computer architecture. If your "metal baby" has 64-bit architecture, purchasing Photoshop Elements 13 might be worthwhile.

"I still am at a loss as to where I may have picked up the bugs. It's not like a spend alot of time cruising the back streets of the internet. And I forgot my vorpal sword, apparently. "

Norton's 360 Internet Security and Antivirus for Windows software would serve as a vorpal sword. Its "Safe Surfing" feature checks each website in your search, and warns you if it will expose you to malware. It would be interesting to know what Norton thinks of your bookstore's website. If you wish, email me its URL and I will see if it appears "Safe" to Norton. I am suggesting email, because GardenWeb might object to you posting the URL here. And you might want to keep it private, as well.

Incidentally, this GardenWeb page is "Safe". It would be ironic if you picked up your malware from your website or if you infected it from your computer.

Well, I've got lots of cross pollination to do. More later.

ZM

Hello Queen-Gardener,

Glad to have you back. Park's Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon look suspiciously like Mazurkia and Macarenia at SwallowTail Seeds. Harris Seeds also offer Zinnia Mazurkia and Zinnia Macarenia. Those two zinnias won Fleuroselect Awards. My suspicion is that Park Seed simply renamed those varieties to list in their 2015 catalog. I admire the Park Seeds descriptions of their products in their online website, but it bothers me that they see fit to rename the products that they offer. For example, Benary's Giants zinnias are produced by Benary's in Germany, but when Parks offers them they are described as "Parks Picks". Really? I don't hesitate to order seeds from Park's, but I don't approve of them re-naming things. Benary's deserves credit for their many years of plant breeding to produce Benary's Giants zinnias, and Park's denies them that recognition.

Regardless of what you call them, those new zinnia varieties were probably selected and stabilized by inbreeding from Whirligig stock, so they should cross with Whirligigs readily, and with many other zinnias as well. But scarlet-and-yellow and red-and-white are just two of the very many color combinations that Whirligigs are capable of. Those same two color combinations are also available in the lower growing F1 Hybrid Swizzle zinnias, which have been in the marketplace for several years.

I look forward to following your zinnia activities next year.

Incidentally, State Fair zinnias are tetraploids, and not suitable for crossing with our diploid zinnias, unless you are deliberately going for triploid zinnias. If you got triploids, they wouldn't set seeds, which temporarily might be an advantage, but they wouldn't have any progeny unless you propagated them asexually by cuttings or tissue culture. I personally don't want to mess with tetraploid or triploid zinnias.

You might be interested in the new Zinderella zinnias that I spoke to WoodNative about above. And possibly the Cupcakes as well.

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

ZM - I didn't know that about State Fair being triploid. Not that I know squat about diploids and triploids. But I wouldn't want to use any of my precious gardening space for something that won't cross.

Anyway, to get the unpleasant details out of the way, the metalchild is back from hospital and acting like HAL after his famous mind-wipe in 2001 - A Space Odyssey. I now have the unenviable task of putting everything back in again - carefully.

As part of the deal (which includes a 2 yr warranty), I now have Kaspersky for my security system. He promises to keep me safe - eh, comrade? We did have Norton some years back, but there was some problem - can't remember the details. Some pain-in-the-a** encounters that decided us to go elsewhere. I've actually heard good things about Kaspersky from some friends, so I'm agreeable to give it a go. In fact, I have no choice in the matter at this point, having already made the deal.

And the good news... I have gathered some nice plump seeds from Alpha - yay! So, all is going well. I need some fresh pollen now to pollinate the two (!!) new buds on Alpha, but that will come with time.

Oh, one unfortunate snag in my breeding program. Though I thought I had backed up everything before I took my machine in, I inadvertently forgot some of my photography folders. :( That I could forget this is so mind-boggling, that I can hardly put my mind around it.) In one of them was the folder with the photos of every one of my zinnias that I made crosses with this past summer. Bummer. I do still have the RAW files, I think, saved elsewhere, but they are not labeled as to what's what. If I can find the right files, I may be able to recreate the folder, though, as I more than once went out and made the rounds, taking pics of each plant in the proper order. Some I will recognize immediately as to which they are, as we are intimately acquainted. Other pics I can pick up from here and Photobucket. But it's going to take time. Sigh...

- Alex

Any others I should know about?! :-)

Hi NC,

"My Seeds are Here!!!! ***YAY***"

I wish you best of luck in your experimental windowsill culture of zinnias on your side of the "pond". Keep us informed, regardless of how it turns out.

ZM

Hi Avis,

"...are you selling or SASE seeds of the orange runner zinnia?"

For a number of reasons, I am not selling or trading or sharing any zinnia seeds for the foreseeable future.

"Is the orange runner Hummer or butterfly friendly?"

Not nearly as much as many zinnias. Butterflies and hummingbirds both go for the nectar at the base of the pollen florets, and that "orange runner" didn't have a lot of pollen florets and I immediately used the pollen florets that it presented to cross-pollinate other zinnias, which didn't leave anything for the butterflies and hummers.

Butterflies and hummingbirds would be best satisfied by zinnias that produce an abundance of pollen florets. One such zinnia is the Zowie Yellow Flame F1 hybrid because it has a tall central cone that provides fresh pollen florets daily. Zowie is expensive per seed because it is an award winning F1 hybrid, but you could grow a few and save seeds from them for a bigger less expensive growout the following year. Your saved seeds would produce a variety of F2 variants, some of which resembled the parent and some of which would be different. You might even pull up a few of them as "weeds". But the butterflies would find many of them to their liking, and you would be on your way toward breeding your own butterfly-friendly strain of zinnias.

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

Hi Alex,

"I didn't know that about State Fair being triploid."

State Fair is tetraploid. If you cross a tetraploid with a diploid, you get a triploid. Triploids are sterile. A good example of triploids is bananas. All of the bananas in the store are triploids and in effect seedless. Those tiny brown dots would have been seed embryos if one parent had not been a tetraploid while the other was diploid. Banana breeders breed a lot of different diploid bananas and a lot of different tetraploid bananas, and their bananas have fertile seeds. So they grow bananas from seeds in order to get new varieties of bananas. They produce many amazing forms of bananas that never get grown commercially for one reason or another. Many years ago a banana company (I think it was Dole) ran a full page magazine add showing an assortment of their experimental bananas. One of them was round like a grapefruit. But I digress.

"I now have Kaspersky for my security system. He promises to keep me safe - eh, comrade?"

Let us know how Kapersky works. I have never tried that one.

"And the good news... I have gathered some nice plump seeds from Alpha - yay! So, all is going well."

Are you going to dry them for planting next Spring? I have a few green seeds that are nearly ready to pull, but I will be putting mine in a pre-germ Ziploc. I hope to have a second generation growing by Christmas.

"... Bummer. I do still have the RAW files, I think, saved elsewhere, ..."

I know you are not a fan of the user interface, but DxO Optics Pro 10 is now available for a free 30-day fully functional trial, and it could convert those raw files to a form that your Photoshop Elements 12 could process. Incidentally, DxO Optic's user interface has "improved" (changed) a little, and you might hate it less. It does allow you to create your own Presets, which makes it easy to repeat a previous choice of settings. DxO Optic's Prime option for Denoising is computation intensive, but very possibly the best available. Topaz's DeNoise plug-in is nearly as capable. I have both, but primarily use DxO's Prime Denoising, because it is spooky good. (Topaz's DeNoise is also spooky good.)

"Other pics I can pick up from here and Photobucket. But it's going to take time."

But the pics here and in Photobucket don't have nearly as much detail as your original Raw files. Incidentally, do you have a Nikon program called ViewNX 2? It can show you thumbnail pictures of NEF (RAW) files and you can double-click those thumbnails to get a full screen view of your RAW file.

More later. More indoor gardening to do.

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

Hi Queen-Gardener,

I will answer your messages in more detail later today, but I did want to address a couple of little things right now.

First of all, you mentioned that you had or were getting Whirligig zinnias. There are, in effect, two different strains of Whirligig zinnias in the market place. One strain has a lot of singles and semi-doubles, but essentially no doubles. Single multi-color zinnias can actually look quite nice in the landscape, and they don't hide their interesting petal colorations behind other petals. I personally am not a fan of single zinnias, so I don't grow that strain. The Whirligigs from Park Seed and SwallowTail are the single-ish strain.

The double strain of Whirligigs has a high percentage of doubles with some semi-doubles and very few singles. It is the one I prefer, in order to get fully double zinnias. It is available from Stokes and one or two others that don't come to mind right now. Burpee used to have them, but discontinued Whirligigs a few years ago.

" I will certainly try to follow this thread closer and post my progress, though I won't have anything to show off "of my own" for two years."

In all likelihood you will have some amazing selections in your Whirligigs next Spring, and you can post pictures of them. And zinnias are full of surprises in general. If you are growing a zinnia, it is "your own", and we would like to see its picture.

I will respond in more detail later.

ZM

Hi everyone,

Since this message thread has become so long, we are continuing this over in It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 29 for a fresh start.

Hope to see you all over there.

ZM