mxk3, it's still early enough to try to direct sow. I don't always grow zinnia but the few times I have tried direct sowing, I found it fast and easy and very good results. You might give it a try and see if you can save yourself all the trouble of starting them early. Once you get them going, they'll bloom their heads off right up to the frost, right? And plant out your seedlings and see which does best. Maybe next year you could direct sow earlier too.

I haven't grown zinnias since I was a child--over 70 years ago-- and I always sowed them right in the ground. Didn't know any other way then.

Our seasons are short here, though -- how long from sowing until bloom? If it's something like 2 months, there's no point.

I could just try it as a test in an out-of-the-way place and see what results I get. Couldn't hurt.

I am right with Prairie here - plenty of time to do a direct sow...and more importantly, those plants will certainly be sturdier and more resilient than the transplants.

I am in exactly the same place. mxk. I bought a 2 colour combination (purple and salmon/peach)...and got a measly 25 seeds.And this was on my second attempt - the first packet had 11, but 3 were so damaged as to be non-viable(? - unviable? So I decided to sow them in the greenhouse and pot up as required until transplanting (about now). As a rule though, I fully agree with Lacey -have always sown zinnias straight into the soil, usually around the middle of May.

The transplants do not look inspiring. I am going to allocate part of one of the vegetable beds and sow last years seed - a mish-mash, but I will treat them as a crop, to be harvested for the house. I expect (hope) to be able to pick flowers by mid August, while using the peach and purple in the hurly-burly of the late summer annuals (tithonia, malope, salvia, orange cosmos, red flax).

Don't just settle for this lot - it will just annoy you. If you have more seed, get them in the ground.

mxk3, If I grew them every season, I might be more specific about their bloom time, but all I can add, is that I do remember being impressed by how fast they developed and how long they bloomed. I think any season you can get the seed sown by mid May you should be all set, this year, would be a good opportunity for an experiment. To me, nothing beats your own experience. As you said, '...a test....couldn't hurt.'

And I wonder why you had trouble with the seedlings, could it be that zinnias develop so fast, that starting in a pot slows them down and gives the results you got?

So, I decided to look it up, about bloom time. The few references I read, report it takes 60 days from seed to bloom. And the seedlings are sensitive to cold too. So, it may be that you'll be disappointed trying to sow them directly where you are.

As an alternative, maybe you could either sow them indoors at the usual time you do, but transfer them to larger pots once or twice to keep them growing faster? Or, maybe go the opposite way and start them later so you can plant them out while they are actively growing and won't slow down.

That's about all I can think of. Is this the first year you've tried starting them indoors?

Hi mxk3,

" truly cannot figure out for the life of me what the secret is to lush zinnia transplants. Mine look terrible again this year, spindly and sparse."

We need to figure out what needs to be improved in your zinnia culture. Zinnias are supposed to be 'easy' to grow, but they do require some good nutrition and disease prevention. Foliar feeding with run-off nutrition for the roots can be helpful. You haven't mentioned disease symptoms, so maybe good nutrition is all that is needed. The 60-days-to-bloom estimate is realistic. Your northern location is somewhat of a disadvantage, which your early start should have solved. In addition to the basic Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium nutrition, zinnias require a bunch of secondary and trace elements.

You can click on the Houzz photos here to open an enlarged view, which you can close by clicking on the X in the upper right hand corner.

ZM

Well blow me down, the nursery actually DID have some Benary's Giant Purple. Weren't the nicest transplants I've ever seen, but way better than mine.

"...so maybe good nutrition is all that is needed."

I fertilized under the lights with DynaGrow, started using that last year. Prior to that was using Miracle Grow (the blue stuff). Upon transplanting, they get a generous dose of Osmocote.

I've gotten great results growing Zinnia from direct sowing and using miracle gro. They grew so lush that they wiped out my Rhodanthe. It was whimsical with Gomphrena balls flying everywhere. I'm having issues with nasturtiums. I think I lost my nasturtium mojo? They used to rival the ones in front of Bilbo Baggin's house, but the past 2 years they are weak, sickly little things barely clinging on to life??? And I do so love to toss their leaves into salads and slaws. Yum!

Bilbo Baggin's house? LOL

I'm having a terrible year with zinnias. It's so rainy and they look inundated. Brown spots and wilty-ish. I keep thinking, if it'll just get blazing hot, and no rain, they'll do what they normally do. I always transplant mine just as you did mxk. And they'll do fine. Could be you did it all right, but it's just not a good year for them?

_____________________________________________________

I'm with Jay. I love Bilbo's garden so much I will watch the opening scene to Unexpected Journey, over and over just to see the delight. Though, below is a picture of it in the Lord of the Rings. I also love when they show Sam with his family at his house (I think it's his). Those nasturtiums are gigantic! Now those, are having a great year in my yard.

filched from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bag_End#/media/File:Baggins_residence_'Bag_End'_with_party_sign.jpg

rob - thanks for posting the photo of Bilbo's house! Those steps on his slope are just what I want to do here. Must show pic to my landscape guy!

Rob, that's the same scene that I was thinking of. I have about 8 nasturtium plants that are little, and I hope they get huge. I personally believe that starting Zinnia early under lights doesn't help much to be ahead of the game, because when they are direct sowed, they can put on more growth in a week than they would under lights in a month.

Here it is June 9th, and as an experiment I went ahead and sowed some Purple Prince and Benary's Scarlet out in the garden. I am interested to see how well direct sowing works in my zone. If ~60 days to flower, I should start seeing buds early August; more important than that, I want to evaluate plant growth, to see if I observe what Jay does in terms of fast growth with direct sowing. We shall see...

I'm glad you decided to try it mxk3. I think Jay is right....and it would be nice if you did get some bloom in August at least. Hope you will post photos.

I am pretty convinced that zinnias, like tomatoes, need to be grown fast, with no checks to growth at all. Sitting in little pots for weeks (like mine) are doomed to never really getting off the ground. Had especially wanted just 2 colours (purple and apricot) and not a full-on mish-mash...but on balance, am going for a direct sowing of last years multi-coloured seeds (cos I only had a minuscule amount of seeds in this years colours and they are looking grim in modules). Will sow them out of the way and keep them just for cutting and will have to forgo zinnias for the flower beds (because I was really trying to have some sort of 'design' thing going and not the usual incoherent mess).

Yeah I took the advice too. I have put some seeds out, to help my zinnia possibilities.

Ok, here it is 13 days after sowing the zinnia seeds outdoors, and I got nothin'. Huge fail. And yes, this was fresh seed purchased this year.

mxk3 - I don't get it. So sorry they are not working out for you this year. I was at the nursery a few days ago looking for a 6 pack of cuphea for the hummingbirds, and I passed a 6 pack of Zinnia Big White, which is a variety I had not seen before. Definitely looked like a larger bloom than typical and the white was nice. I almost bought them, but I just couldn't think of where to put them. I guess I wonder if you might try the nurseries that might have some 6 packs left. Also the 4th of July weekend a lot of nurseries start reducing their prices for their spring stock of 6 packs.

^^ I did see some nice-looking 6-packs of Benary's Giant at the nursery yesterday, but of course no purple -- Lime, Orange, Lilac, Mix but no purple. The 6-pack I bought a couple weeks ago is enough to give me teh shots of color where I really want them, so that will have to do.

I'm really going to have to figure out what the problem is with the transplants, I've never had so much trouble as the past few years. I did have the electrician take a look at my light cart recently because I had a question about the bulbs and he made a comment that the lights are dim. Dummy me thought they were LED bulbs but they're not, they're T12 fluoro tubes. Luckily the previous owner of this house left a box of them up in the rafters, which the electrician brought down when he was working on some wiring and cleaning up up there, so when I have time I'll switch out a few bulbs to compare light level -- if the bulbs that are in there are indeed comparatively dim, I'll scour the internet for more T12's (mix of warm and cool is best, the ones in the box are cool). That still doesn't explain why they don't generate much heat, though -- the fluoro tube set-up I had a long time ago put out a nice amount of heat and I always had nice transplants.

mxk3 -The lighting seems like the most likely issue.

Maybe you had a bad batch of seed? As far as lights go.... When I grew seed I used whatever lighting I had. That included aquarium lights, shop lights and whatever fluorescents I could find. I had almost 100% germination.

No, the seed wasn't bad -- almost 100% germination under the lights with the fresh seed this year.

Curious if you sowed in more than one area? When I sowed mine I spread them around to many different areas, including pots. The pots did the best (due to the best care im sure) and had about 50% germ in the gardens.

"Curious if you sowed in more than one area?"

Yes, I sowed in three different areas. All in teh ground - none in pots.

I started zinnia seeds indoors pretty early even though we have a pretty long growing season in NC. They did fine indoors ...I potted them up into little six packs and then some of them to larger containers. Then planted in the ground. Once in the ground some of them were eaten by something. I wanted to give up on those but kept watering them and whatever ate them lost interest. Now they are ok little plants. Some in another area that were not eaten are a good size now. I tried Profusion apricot and Zahara Double Salmon, and some taller ones. The short ones are doing best. I like them, especially the double salmon. They are very branchy and profuse. The salmons are pretty large blooms on a short mound of a plant. Anyway being in the ground helped them. I have heard that zinnias don't like transplanting...I think they might resent having any check in growth as mentioned above. Sometimes I've had good luck direct sowing various things and sometimes no luck.

Hi mxk3,

"Ok, here it is 13 days after sowing the zinnia seeds outdoors, and I got nothin'. Huge fail. And yes, this was fresh seed purchased this year."

That is an odd situation because zinnias are supposed to be "easy." Your County Agent might be able to shed some light on this situation. Perhaps a soil test is warranted.

ZM

I had little hope for the 'Queeny' mix zinnias for which I sowed seed indoors. They became etiolated under lights and went through a couple of bad wilts before I could move them outside. They've recovered remarkable well and began flowering early this month.

Hi, rusty,

" They became etiolated under lights "

Can I deduce that those lights were not strong enough?

" and began flowering early this month. "

Success!! Congratulations. Now I hope we can help mxk3 find a way to success with his zinnias.

Just ignore those little grass seedlings. They are easy to pull out.

ZM

Elongated under lights, can also be the seedlings were not close enough to the light.

I had little hope for innias this year after the 'Queeny' Mix varieties I sowed indoors became etiolated and went through a couple of bad wilts before I could get them outside. They have recovered remarkably well and started flowering early this month.

"Now I hope we can help mxk3 find a way to success with his zinnias."

mxk3 is a she. :0)

Hi mxk3,

" mxk3 is a she. :0) "

Now I hope we can help mxk3 find a way to success with her zinnias.

ZM

I had really bad luck growing the Floret zinnias. These were not cheap. The bunnies ate most of them and the ones that survived are spindly and chewed on by something. I've had great luck just tossing varieties onto an open test area in our back yard and adding some dahlias and one butterfly bush for an extra pop of color. Enjoy the blooms!

Update on 'Queeny' mix zinnias:

^^ Rub it in, why don't you... just kidding LOL -- those look great!

Still early days for mine - so far looking strong but only single blooms - am debating whether to be brutal and deflower them right now as there are still 2 months of blooming at least. They are growing in a bit of an unthinned out clump with salvia and tithonias. I am not a huge fan of zinnias but for a cheap annual blast of colour, they are pretty much unsurpassed (although I am loving the malope trifidas, but only planted half a dozen). Will be saving seed and sowing a lot more next year, Also, totally besotted with clary sage 'Blue Monday'.

I'm not happy with the results of tossing seeds (two months ago). While she is pretty, it took far too long to get here. So many butterflies could have enjoyed it, if it bloomed sooner.

I may try and do it again, next April.