Charlie,
My wife deadheads the flowers when they dry up and saves seeds that way. A few dried flowers should give you plenty of seeds unless you're planning on planting an acre.

Keith

Charlie,

I've linked Wildseed Farms below. It sells some zinnia seeds and you can buy the seeds by the packet, ounce, quarter-pound or pound. Just click on 'options' to the right of each description to see the package amounts and pricing.

If you want some of the newest, fancier hybrid types like the relatively new Zahara line, HPS sells them in quantities of various amounts ranging from a packet to, I think, 5000 seeds. You can see HPS's zinnias at hpsseed.com.

I saved zinnia seeds the first few years we lived here, and then discovered if I just didn't deadhead at the end of the growing season, they'd reseed on their own any way. I haven't saved zinnia seed in years, but the zinnias come back every year. I have really dry winters though. Those of you with pretty wet winters might not have successful reseeding since the seeds might rot in cold, wet soil.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Zinnias at Wildseed Farm

There is always Swallowtail for bulk buying.

Here is a link that might be useful: Zinnias

I second Wildseed Farms - their Zinnias are tall, with big blooms, produce really well, and stay pretty for a long long time.

Thanks everyone, I will give Wildseed a try, I have tried deadheading and self reseeding with not much luck here.

Charlie

I was curious this morning when out in the yard and garden so I cut a brown dried 3" zinnia flower and pulled the dried seeds from it. I estimate 200 or more seeds from one dead flower.

It's amazing how Mother Nature provides for the survival of each species,(almost to overkill!)

Keith

Keith,

Well, I wish we could get Mother Nature to stop giving weeds so many millions of seeds!

She, of course, provides so many because a lot of them will be eaten by birds, insects or other creastures, blown away, washed away or will rot in wet soil.

It also is interesting to me that many weed and wildflower seeds have very, very tough seed coats and can survive for many years in soil. Bluebonnet seeds are that way....in order to get the seeds to sprout really well, seed companies usually scarify them in acid. I have bluebonnets here and they do not reseed terribly well, but I can get more reseeded ones in any given year by rototilling the soil in November, exposing 'buried' seeds to light.

Dawn