Susan,

You have some impressively close close-ups of zinnia blooms.

"Now I'm getting impatient. Temps here are still in the 30's at night."

I understand your impatience. Nighttime temps are in the 40's here, and I have some zinnias in pots out on our deck on the shady north side of the house, "hardening off". I started them early under fluorescent lights. Tomorrow is supposed to be bright sun, so I will probably wait until evening to transplant some of them into the garden. It's pretty easy to sunburn an indoor zinnia. We have probably had our last killing frost here, and I planted a couple of rows of Whirligig zinnia seeds in-ground a couple of days ago. Nothing up yet, although it has been cool and the seeds were old (2007 vintage). This is sort of a germination test for them, to give me some idea of how closely spaced I should plant the rest of them.

"The Benary seeds, BTW, are the smallest I've ever planted. Does that sound right?"

No, that does not sound right. Benary's Giants are large zinnias with reasonably large zinnia seeds. Some seed suppliers also offer them in a pelleted coated form, which makes them larger still. There is some doubt in my mind that your Benary's seeds are the right ones. Perhaps a mis-labellng occurred. Zinnia seeds do come in two basic forms: petal seeds, which are attached to the base of the petals, and floret seeds, which are attached to the base of florets. Floret seeds generally run smaller than petal seeds, but they can produce good zinnia plants. Field run zinnia seeds usually contain a mix of petal seeds and floret seeds.

"...how the angle of the branches help determine how well they will do in a windstorm."

An acute angle (less than 90 degrees) makes a stronger joint to the main stem. A 90-degree attachment is inherently weaker. When I am saving zinnia seeds I make a note of whether the branch joints are acute, as a desirable trait. I don't know where that message is right now, either. I have probably mentioned it in more than one place. It's typically windy here, too, with gusts greater than 40mph expected tomorrow. I protect my choicer "breeder" zinnias with re-purposed tomato cages, to give them some mechanical support. But the majority of my zinnias have to "fend for themselves."

I look forward to some more zinnia pictures from you this year. If you save seeds from some of your favorite specimens, you won't be dependent on local commercial sources. And you will have become your own personal zinnia breeder.

ZM

WOW, that is soooo gorgeous alisande! I love the Exquisite! Can I have few seeds of it? :)

Thanks for sharing the pics!!!

v1rtu0s1ty,

I, too, was impressed by Susan's picture of Exquisite. Exquisite is a standard zinnia variety, and its seeds are available from a number of sources. Some seed racks might have it, and Exquisite zinnia is listed by Burpee, and probably by some other online or hardcopy seed catalogs as well.

Zinnias exhibit considerable natural variation and, if you grew a grouping of them from a seed packet, you would probably see one or more individual specimens that looked particularly good to you. If you marked your favorites in some way (a bit of colored yarn tied onto a stem might do the trick) you could then identify which seeds to save in the Fall. Then your personal seeds would probably perform better for you than seed packet seeds.

Exquisite has fairly wide spoon-like petals, while my personal preference is for narrow petals that produce an open flower that you can sort of "see through", like this one.

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However, I have had some specimens with extra wide petals that give a zinnia bloom an almost rose bloom look, and I like that too.

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When you are saving your own zinnia seeds, you have the opportunity to pick what appeals to you.

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

Thanks, both of you! I have a couple of nice closeup lenses, and I love seeing what's going on beyond our usual range of vision. You can be sure I'll share lots of pics this year. :-)

Exquisite changes color, going lighter, as it ages (it's supposed to). I don't usually bother with color planning in the garden, but when I tried Exquisite last year I put them in a bed with what was supposed to be Isabellina, a gorgeous cactus-flowered creamy buff zinnia. Unfortunately, Isabellina was mislabeled by the seed company, and Exquisite ended up sharing a bed with zinnias I can best describe as School Bus Yellow. Not the best combination.

Zenman, I'm extra fond of the cactus-style petals, too. Your "Pink Shaggy Dog" is a stunner--and your photo of it is beautiful, too.

I bought the "Benary's" on eBay, but from a commercial source, not an individual. I have a few seeds left, so I took this picture to show you what the seed looks like. I guess they do resemble zinnia seeds, just smaller than I'm used to. And obviously they've been treated with something yellow. What do you think--did I really plant Benary's?

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Susan,

Those look like nothing in my Benary's Giant packets. The middle seed is typical of floret zinnia seeds, but smaller than usual and questionably fertile. The lower left seed in your Big Tetra grouping is a floret seed. The righthand and bottom seeds in the Benary's grouping don't even look like zinnia seeds. Actually, they look like embryos that have been removed from zinnia seeds. I suppose it is possible that mechanical processing could have bashed the seeds enough to separate the embryos from their outer coverings. But something is not right with those Benary's seeds. They are very untypical. Let us know if they even come up.

Incidentally, those are good seed pictures. Those closeup lenses in action, I presume. I am looking forward to your zinnia photography this year.

ZM

Thanks, ZM! After reading your post I sent an email to the seller, linking him to the picture. I'll let you know what he says.

I enjoy sharing my flower pictures (and others). I have some of my photos on Flickr. Most of the black & whites are from my dad's negatives, shot in the 1940s and possibly earlier. I'm also attempting to scan his color slides, but I'm having less success with those. If you click on my Flowers album you'll see lots of zinnias.

Susan

Zinnia fever is right!
I love to grow 'uproar rose' and 'giant wine'.

Zenman, did you ever cross 'uproar rose'?

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Gorgeous zinnia, Franeli. The color reminds me of Purple Prince.

Here's how the eBay seller responded to my question about the seeds:

I have seen your picture. Thanks for sending it to me. I have sold these seeds for a few years now, and these are what they have always looked like since I have sold them. I have never had anyone else e-mail in previous years and say they didn't get what they ordered. Hope this helps you out. Thanks

So I'll assume they're Benary's (or the space alien version thereof), and will report back when I have flowers. I should say if I have flowers, since a critter came onto the porch and not only ate the sunflower seedlings but dug up all seeds from their little pots. This is the first time this has happened. I used to start my seeds indoors under lights; it certainly was a safer way to go.

Franeli,

"Zenman, did you ever cross 'uproar rose'?"

That is a pretty picture. No, I didn't use Uproar Rose as a breeder. I planted a couple of rows of them last year. They were quite uniform, but just purple dahlia flowered zinnias, with no unusual traits to distinguish them from open pollinated purple dahlia flowered zinnias. I was hoping that their F1 hybrid nature would give them added vigor, bigger flowers, stronger plants, or something. I didn't see anything that impressed me.

This year I am beginning a project to develop darker large flowered zinnias. This is one my darker breeders from last year.

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One of its grandparents was a two-tone Whirlygig zinnia, which contributed the blood red and plum color gradation in this specimen. This year I will be looking for much darker colored specimens. My goal is to match the deep purple of this little Persian Carpet zinnia.

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I'll probably have to grow a lot of dark zinnias before I find anything that dark.

ZM

Susan,

"Here's how the eBay seller responded to my question about the seeds..."

That was a rather disappointing response. This picture is of some old Benary's Giant seeds I had left over from 2007. I plan to plant them, along with some new seeds, in my "White Zinnias" bed, which I haven't made yet.

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One of the floret seeds above, the light colored one, looks like one of your pictured seeds. However, it is strange that your eBay seller would imply that your picture was of typical Benary's Giant seeds.

"...a critter came onto the porch and not only ate the sunflower seedlings but dug up all seeds from their little pots."

A lot of birds like sunflower seeds, but eating the seedlings and digging sounds like some kind of furry animal.

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

My second planting of zinnias and sunflowers got dug up, too, even though I moved the trays to another location. Very discouraging! My son came to my rescue last night and made a place in barn (near a big, south-facing window) to put them for a third planting.

I was thinking I could just give up and direct-sow, but I'm sure they'd get dug up, too. That has been my experience in the past, especially with the sunflowers.