You'll never know what they will do unless you try. If it were me, I would plant some of the seeds and put some in an airtight container in the frig for next year.

if you plant seeds now, it will germinate but will not mature enough to bloom before the frost hits. Look up the number of days it requires to bloom and you will know. Instead, do some winter sowing so in spring, it will germinate.

I have found from my 40+ years of gardening that most people who are what I call a true gardener love to try different things and that would include planting some seed this late just to see what they will do. I am not familiar with your climate and weather, but where I live I will have zinnias still blooming at the end of October. And as you said, you only paid a quarter and if all you see is greenery then it was certainly worth that. Plant zinnias again in the spring and I think you will be pleased with how easy they are to grow and how much color they will give you throughout the growing season.

I'm so looking forward to spring.

well good luck.. it takes 60 - 70 days for zinnias to bloom from seed. So hopefully there will be blooms before november hits.

I have zinnias blooming now and have new ones coming up.When the blooms dry i take and sprinkle the seed hither and yon,got nothing to lose.More often than not i get lucky and get more flowers/plants,then again i'm in S.Cali along the coast..

Kathi that is exactly what my mom always did.

She's in Detroit with a climate very similar to Toronto where I'm from and which is the reason why I said I hope there's enough time for it to bloom. I don't know if Detroit experiences the types of weather Buffalo does as its near the lake and can suffer lake effect weather earlier.

Update: It's been a little over two weeks and most of the seedlings have two sets of leaves. I put down two boxes of seeds and not much germination. The weather is getting chilly and I'm not going to get my hopes up. I wish I wouldn't have known about sowing pansies, ornamental kales and taking cutting from the mums I have to be ready in time for fall. I guess I'm off to the nursery to buy plants. I really don't like investing in fall plants because you have to spend so much money to make it look good.

I plan to sow zinnia over the winter indoors.

I was at home depot today and picked up 5 stock plants,all in bloom.I have some dahlias that are on their last leg and that the worms took over,so i'm going to cut them all the way back,maybe even dig them out and put the stocks in there.

Vurseana, I sowed zinnias about the same time you did and mine are about the same size yours are. I will not have cold weather as soon as you will so I am hoping I will actually see flowers.

I was in Chicago over the weekend and passed through Detroit. the temperatures have dipped in the evenings. There was already a frost warning in my area (Toronto)

Davis, I Hope that works out for you.

Lucille.. I got blooms!!! about two weeks now. I was so surprised to see it. Not much germination but a good dozen has blooms.

ianna....the weather man has been threatening frost for the past couple of days and we keep missing it. We've had some night temps in the low 40's which I thought for sure they wouldn't bloom, but they did.

So glad for you that you have been able to see flowers. A gardener never knows until they try something and good gardeners are always willing to try. ;)

If you are going to have frost and you still have blooms, you could clip those off and bring in to put in a vase. I do that if we are expected to have a thunderstorm with wind.

maylingsmom...great idea because I sure would like to have them around a little longer.

Vurseana, I'm thrilled for you that you actually got blooms!!! I have none yet but there is quite a bit of time before a possible frost, so I'm hoping...

It took about a little over a month for them to bloom so it's possible. I looked out today and notice new blooms on some of them. The zinnia that bloomed the fastest was on the south side of the house. The west side is budding but no blooms yet.

Yeah!!!!!!!!!! My husband cleaned our veg garden out and found some dried corn. He planted that just to see what it will do. Of course, we know it won't get big enough to make corn but the fun is in seeing what happens ;)

I totally agree with you on that maylingsmom...

I just wanted to add my experience (zone 8 TX) - I sprinkled some seeds from some spent zinnia blooms Sept 19th in empty spots and they all germinated very quickly in the heat. The plants have buds and I'm seeing some color at the center of the flower buds! I suppose the blooms will be a bit of a consolation prize for how warm it still is in mid-November... but I don't plan to sow them quite so late in the future.

I still have zinnias and Mexican sunflowers blooming. However, we have not had a frost yet so that is probably why.

That's great!! Mines just died a few days ago. They grew well and got lots of blooms. I will definitely get ahead start for next year.

Today is very cold for here, with temps in the high 30s. Yesterday, I had bunches of blooming zinnias from a late sow, I'm not sure they will survive today. But I'm planting more come spring, they are bright and cheerful.

Please asked everyone to note where they live. Otherwise their comments have no value.

HU-702859398 The original post was from 2016. Not sure if anyone would actually still be interested. But maybe they will chime in with their zone. Mine is zone 8b.