Hi, I also planted Queen Red Lime Zinnia this year and have some left over seeds (1 and 1/2 packs from Park seed) that I would love to send you. I planted some this year and was not happy with the color. Maybe its my soil or something else but they didn't look like what I expected them to. Email your address to me at Bearla17@msn.com I will send them to you right away.

Linda

Ruth,

"I have Queen Red Lime zinnia and want to know if the seeds from it will produce Queen Red Lime next year?"

Yes, I think they will. But expect considerable variation, because the Queen Red Lime strain exhibits quite a bit of variation right out of the seed packet.

"I would also like to get seeds for Queen Lime green and Uproar Rose, but don't know if I will have to get new seeds each year since these are hybrids."

Uproar Rose is an F1 hybrid, and you will get considerable variation from seeds that you save from it. I am not sure that Queen Lime Green is an F1 hybrid. I kind of doubt it. All of those zinnia seeds that you mention are rather expensive to buy. For people who need uniform appearance, Uproar Rose is probably worth the extra cost of the seed. It is a very uniform strain. But if your landscaping or gardening needs are not hurt by some variation, then saving your own seeds is a practical thing to do. You can always pull out or snip out any variant zinnias that you don't like.

And, who knows, you might find a variant zinnia specimen that you like better than the original seed packet version. As a hobby, I like to cross and re-cross my zinnias to get new zinnia forms that you can't get out of a seed packet, like this one.

{{gwi:17244}}
The price for getting good new zinnias by breeding your own is that you can get a lot of cull zinnias that you need to discard. But breeding your own zinnias can be an interesting hobby, and it can be as simple as just saving seeds only from your favorite specimens. Just doing that repeatedly can make a big difference in your zinnia garden.

ZM