ritug,

"I would rather let them bloom so I can colour co-ordinate it better."

That should be just fine. After you have color-coordinated them, you can snip off the young blooms, which will be almost as good as pinching them to start with. Or you can leave the blooms on. Magellans tend to branch a lot anyway. I must confess that I usually don't pinch the first bud, because I am much too curious to see what my hand-hybridized zinnias will look like.

But if no circumstances like curiosity or color coordination are involved, you do get better branched plants if you pinch the first bud or buds. You can get some amazingly branched zinnia plants if you keep pinching the flower buds.

ZM

Thanks Zenman. Maybe I will try to grow them without pinching this year as I find it just too hard to do it. Your posts on the breeding are great.

Thanks

I've grown the magellan several years and don't pinch - but deadhead later. They bloomed so much that I had 4 or 5 blooms and only one to deadhead. There usually is always blooming and these never got too leggy for me.
Only problem I did have, and I want to share it with you is watering at night near dark and coolness promotes mildew after a time. A mistake I won't make again.

Thanks virakech. I find that a problem with the taller varieties too. Can you also tell me how tall and wide do they grow? I have about 12 plants that I plan to put under two trees. Also do they need a lot of sun? As one of these trees does not seem to get too much sun.

Thanks

Zinnias need full sun. I wouldn't plant any under a tree's shade.

One way of checking the height and width is to check the seed packets. If they are no longer available, you can check the instructions from online seed companies. :-)

For example, T&M says the height of Magellan mix is 12-14 inches, and separate them by about 9-in.

Here is a link that might be useful: Magellan Mix Instructions

My Magellan mix must have gotten exposed to steroids last year because they grew almost 2 feet or better! They weren't the most attractive of plant shapes because I squeezed too many plants into containers that weren't large enough for the root systems.

It was my first year with Zinnia and didn't know how large the root system got if they're in good soil or rich potting mix.

The seeds I slapped into unamended clay just for the heck of it had itty bitty root systems. Duh...by the time I sowed them in late May in midst of planting frency I wasn't thinking clearly...LOL.

I got very large containers to plant them in this year and I'll do my best to restrain myself on numbers when planting seedlings.

Can't have too many Zinnia. :)

That is really tall for Magellans. Maybe because you planted them so close to each other.

Thanks for your comments - I will resist from pinching them and really looking forward to this variety.

for any who wants magellan mixed seed, valueseeds.com has small packets of 10 for 99 cents and i think 1.99 shipping
i love them, planted close to 90 this year, but i do find that later in the summer they sorta bloom themselves out, maybe because i take less care of them then.