Hi GardenHo

They are either Benary's Giants or Giant Dahlia Flowered. Those green texts are links that you can click on. Their flower form is essentially the same between those two. They will come reasonably true from seed. Give the green seed technique a try, by plucking the flowers apart and saving any plump green seeds at the ends of the petals. Also, give the SunRoom a try. I raise zinnias from seed during the Winter months, but under fluorescent lights instead of a sun room. Click on the photos to see larger versions.

I breed zinnias as a hobby, and make a lot of cross pollinations to create hybrids of hybrids. I do get some results that I like.

Since we had a frost last night, I will be re-starting my indoor zinnia breeding project in the next few days.

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

ZM thank you very much. Your pink zinnia is beautiful..So unique! You do nice work.

After viewing your links “Uproar rose‘ looks like it might be it? These came from a supposed ‘mix’ but all ended up the same. So maybe it’s not even that one?

I have already collected quite a bit of seed. One flower alone has so many! I have six plants loaded with blooms so I will have seed coming out my ears lol.

Would you say the best time to collect is when they are just starting to brown?

I will definitely try them in the sunroom. No telling what kind of winter we will have this crazy 2020. I have heard it is going to be a brutal one, but only time will tell.

Hi GardenHo,

" Would you say the best time to collect is when they are just starting to brown? "

That would be close. It is not time critical, as long as seed eating birds or torrential rains aren't involved. The embryo in the seed is rather well developed three weeks after fertilization. So you can harvest green seeds whose petals are still in pretty good shape (not brown).

" After viewing your links “Uproar rose‘ looks like it might be it? "

The zinnia in your picture seems to be a true red. Uproar Rose zinnia is more of a "rose" pink. Johnny's describes it as " vibrant pink ". Also, Uproar Rose is an F1 hybrid zinnia strain, so saving seeds from it might have more than a few "surprises". I don't think the zinnia in your photo is Uproar Rose, unless there was quite a bit of color distortion, and the other colors in your photo look pretty good, so I doubt that your zinnia is Uproar Rose. I could be wrong. I was once. (grin)

Botanically, any part of a plant that can produce a seed is a "flower" and, since each zinnia petal has a potential seed at its base, each zinnia petal is botanically a flower. We tend to think of the individual seeds in a zinnia bloom as "identical" (provided they were fertilized with pollen from that zinnia head), but actually reality is a bit "less simple" than that. The seed embryos were produced from the mother plant by an independent meiosis for each embryo, so they were more like brothers and sisters. And, even if they were pollinated by pollen from the mother plant, those pollen grains were each also produced by a meiosis, which involves genetic rearrangement for the pollen grains. So the genetics of the individual seeds in a selfed zinnia bloom can vary more from each other than might seem intuitive. The individual seeds are more like "brothers and sisters". That is partially why "zinnias can be full of surprises."

This breeder was one of those "surprises". As always, click on the photo for a larger view.

ZM

ZM I love surprises! Thank you for sharing such great info. I find it very interesting and I’m even more excited now to start from seed. With all the seed I’ll have, I may get lots of surprises from those brothers and sisters!

Funny the color I see is an intense deep fuschia, not red at all. Maybe you use it to describes such color?

Your orange surprise is beautiful!

Yes, they may be "Uproar Rose". Here's a pic from my other house:

Thanks for posting those mxk3....that helps narrow it down as I know now that they are not uproar rose. Those are much too pink.

Here is another picture...

Yea, sometimes it's hard to tell on the monitor. Your pics don't look like "Benary's Giant Purple" or "Purple Prince", so you can at least rule those two out.

OK good to know, thank you.

It’s looking like I may just have a surprise batch of sextuplets? ; ) Close to giant wine too.

That is interesting about the Uproar Rose, ZenMan. I grew it for a few years, always with fresh seed, and it always looked like that. Perhaps more vibrant IRL, but was that color. Definitely not purple.