Zinnias were once popularly called "youth and old age" because old blooms stay fresh as new blooms open throughout the entire summer. We're ready to guarantee that zinnias will not fail you. But if you live where late summer nights are cool and humid and the soil is often wet, brace yourself for a potential encounter with powdery mildew. Prevention is your best defense against this troublesome fungus, says Larry Hodgson, author of Annuals for Every Purpose.
He recommends protecting zinnia plants from the grayish-white growth by maintaining good air circulation around them, watering at the roots, and choosing mildew-resistant varieties. Sometimes Japanese beetles will flock to lime and white zinnias. If you live where these beetles are a pest, simply hand-pluck the marauders off the foliage and drop them into a bucket of soapy water.
You might think that seed saving is a complex challenge best left to advanced gardening pros, but that is not true when you're talking about zinnia seeds. Do this and in a couple of generations of seeds you will have developed your own strain of zinnias selected to perform well in your conditions.
Simply clip off a dried flower head from each color that you want to save. Pull the flower apart and remove the seeds inside or simply put the whole blossom full of seeds into an envelope. Seal and identify the flower color. Keep the seeds in a cool, dry place until it is time to plant next year. Product Reviews. Home Ideas. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. The Rise of the Cleanfluencer. Simply let the flowers dry fully on the stem, then collect the seedheads and lightly crush them in your hand to release next year's seed crop.
Store in a cool, dry place as you do other seeds. And set some aside in a labeled envelope for our Seed Swap next February! One last reason to plant zinnias year after year: they're butterfly magnets. The bigger-flowered varieties act like landing pads for nectar-seeking butterflies. Same goes for hummingbirds. Try tall zinnias with red or hot pink flowers to get the biggest draw. Karen Zaworski is a garden writer and photographer who lives and gardens in Oak Park, Illinois.
Skip to main content. Zinnias work fast. Zinnias work wherever you need color. Aside from fresh color, many new zinnia series offer height and width options, too. While the tall versions of Zinnia elegans remain the classic choice for the back of the border, shorter series now challenge the low ground once ceded to marigolds and petunias. The Magellan Series stay close to knee high at 14 inches, while the Thumbelina Series of dwarf zinnias peak at 6 to 8 inches.
Creeping or spreading Zinnia angustifolia , such as the Crystal Series, are a revelation for the front of the border, raised beds, containers, and even ground covers. This Mexican native is the go-to species for hot spots like sidewalk beds or that no-man's-land beside the garage, since it's even more drought tolerant than common zinnias. Zinnias work as cut flowers. Do you mean weeks after they are healthy i hope seedlings?
I'm growing Sunbow with a maturity date of 90 days and Oklahoma which says it flowers for 12 weeks. I don't start from seeds in the garden as I am in a condo and don't have enough access to tend to them properly. Reinventing my backyard after Hurricaine Sandy flooded it. Here is my before and after of my newly finished patio. But from your original post I read that you started your seedlings indoors or method 2, correct?
If so then your zinnias will bloom approx. If you use method 1 zinnias will bloom weeks after the seeds are planted. But if you use method 2 they will bloom weeks AFTER they are transplanted outside depending on the weather and their growing conditions. The growing conditions are very different and moving the plant - changing its growing conditions - from one to another causes it to switch gears if you will , what is called "setting the plant back".
How much the delay is increased depends on the variety. The smaller, dwarf varieties recover faster than the big ones do. Would they still suffer the "setting the plant back" syndrome? These are heat-lovers, so I direct sow them around June 1st when the soil warms up. By mid to late July, they are starting to bloom, so about weeks? Maybe sooner if they were in full sun, I have a lot of trees so mine grow in hours sun, not quite full sun. Btw, there are many other methods of growing from seed besides the 2 listed above.
What if I started them indoors and transplanted them as soon as they come up or maybe after the first set of true leaves. How would that work out? As others have said, zinnias grow fast and bloom in 6 to 8 weeks. They tend to outgrow any of those little starting pots in about three weeks.
So starting them three weeks early and then setting them out would be a better plan than starting them weeks early. Dale - any time you change the environment, the growing conditions, of a growing thing it is "set back", it must adjust. If you are trying to force the blooms for some reason, if by 'better results' you mean faster blooming then the shortest time frame between seed and a bloom is with direct seeding the plant right where it will spend its life.
Any other approach interrupts the growth process. The 2 methods of growing from seed are direct seeding or growing under cover, what I mistakenly called "indoors". All the other methods you mention are under cover methods and all, even winter sowing, involve a change in the growing conditions. Frost seeding is done outdoors during the late fall or winter.
It works great for prairies and meadows, also for turf grass. I sow grass seed during the winter, the best time being right before a snow storm. I do a little growing under lights, but do almost all the annuals and veggies in cups or small pots, lined up in trays or plastic boxes, along the south side of the foundation of the house. They don't have covers, except perhaps the overhang on the roof, which isn't very big.
This spot has the advantage of being one of the warmest microclimates in the yard, protected from frost by the concrete foundation, and gets pretty good sun, at least until the canopy trees fill in with leaves in May, then it's only partial sun. I dug up the exact dates from last year - this pic was taken August 3rd, and the Zinnias were direct-sown on June 5th, so this is what they looked like after approx.
Thank you! Terrence- the zinnia seeds that I planted directly in the ground are starting to look just like yours in your picture! I noticed that you have a plant that doesn't look the the zinnias that has much narrower glossy smooth leaves on the lower edge of your picture. I have one of those mixed in with my zinnias-do you know what it is? One of my fave to fill in space. I may be wrong though. I planted my zinnias on 12 sept indoor, now they are 5 cm tall, but I notice that their stems are still very fragile.
Should I move them outdoor or still indoor until they develop leaves? Zinnia I'm in Portland Oregon and its still in the 80's as of August 12th is it too late to plant from seed? I notice there are pots for sale at the nursery now, also how do collect seeds for next year?
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