Hi Fastlnk,

I grow and breed zinnias as a hobby, so I am dealing with hundreds of individual zinnia plants. Only the best 5 or 10 percent of them get designated as breeders. Each breeder zinnia gets assigned a unique alphanumeric code, starting with a letter designating the year and a two or three digit number. In the first year of using the system the year was "A", so that the codes started as A01, A02, A03.... up to as high as I needed to go. Beyond A99 the code would logically go to A100, A101, etc. The code is attached to the plant with velcro tape on which the code is written with a black Sharpie marker

Each breeder has a separate page in my journal, in which I record all sorts of information about it, including its code, the date it was planted, the code of its maternal parent, information about its male parent if that is known, a physical description of the plant and bloom, and information about what it was crossed with, and so on.

I keep the journal with me in the garden, where I occasionally get caught in a sudden rain or sprinkled by a lawn sprinkler, so my journal needs to be waterproof, including the looseleaf pages in it. So I use a Rite in the Rain Tactical Field Ring Binder filled with waterproof Rite in the Rain paper. There is a waterproof pen available to write on the waterproof paper, but I use an ordinary lead pencil, which turns out to be also waterproof. The Rite in the Rain products are used by military personnel, as well as anyone who works in an "all weather" environment. I got my Rite in the Rain stuff via Amazon.

ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)

zen_man are you taking pictures and documenting those as well? and when you say your only selecting 5-10% of them, does that mean your saving their seed, and then crossing them the next year? I'm taking it that you don't save the individual seeds of the ones that didn't make the cut and those get weeded out the first year.

Hi Fastlnk,

" ...and when you say your only selecting 5-10% of them, does that mean your saving their seed, and then crossing them the next year? "

I do save their seeds, and frequently I make crosses between them as well. I pull up or otherwise remove the 90% or more that "don't make the cut". I routinely make hybrids between my hybrids, which can give some interesting recombinations of genes to produce totally new forms of zinnias.

" I'm taking it that you don't save the individual seeds of the ones that
didn't make the cut and those get weeded out the first year. "

That is correct. The rejects go to the landfill to make more growing room for the good specimens. In the past I would compost them, but that led to zinnia diseases in my compost, so the rejects now go into trash bags.

" ...are you taking pictures and documenting those as well? "

I do take pictures of my more interesting zinnias. I am developing new strains, so many of the forms are now repetitious, so I definitely do not photograph every zinnia that has breeder status. I average well over a hundred breeder zinnias per year. Here are a few pictures of zinnias that you definitely cannot find in the seed catalogs.

That one resembles an onion flower. I refer to zinnias of that type as Razzle Dazzles, because they closely resemble the Gaillardia strain by the same name.That one resembles a "star burst" of fireworks. It is one of my favorite new forms of zinnias. What appears to be an inch worm there is actually just a curved petal.I like zinnias whose petals are forked or "toothy" on the ends.Botanically, any part of a plant that can produce a seed is a flower. So individual zinnia petals are "flowers", as is the case with many composites. One of my goals is to get the zinnia petals to actually look like individual flowers. I have made some progress in that direction.That zinnia hybrid reminded me of a waterlily. I would like to develop a strain like that, in a complete range of zinnia colors (every color but blue). Those are just a few of my ongoing zinnia projects. My Mother would have said that "You have too many irons in the fire." I think she would have been right about that.

Incidentally, you can click on the pictures here to see a larger version. And see a larger version yet by hitting your F11 key to remove your browser's headings. Hit the "X" button in the upper right-hand corner of the big picture to get back into these messages.

ZM

Some cool variations there. I guess with the zinnias you don't really need a picture reference as much for documentation purposes. This is gonna be my first year doing daylillies and wanted to see how others are handling the data entry side of things. You peaked my interest on the zinnias though! Maybe I'll try a few on the side, also thinking about getting into peonies, iris's and possibly marigolds, just as a hobby.