Ask-a-Dave's-Gardener: Plant recommendations - 4ft+ tall flowers, 2 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi kai,

You might want to grow your Benary\'s Giants from seeds. Stokes Seeds sells both in the US and in Canada. I have bought a lot of seeds from them in the past, and undoubtedly will buy more from them in the future. I buy from several seed companies, but Stokes Seeds is one of my favorites. Here is their Canadian offering of Benary\'s Giants seeds.

http://www.stokeseeds.com/category.aspx?CategoryID=542

Zinnias come up in only a few days from seeds, and you can plant their seeds outdoors after the danger of frost is past and the soil has warmed up a bit. They tend to \"catch up\" with the zinnias that were bought as plants and set out, partly because transplanting can \"shock\" the plant some. And the seeds can cost less.

I do a lot of cross pollinating of my zinnias, making hybrids between hybrids, and a lot of my zinnias have some Stokes Seeds zinnia \"blood\" in them. I have many zinnias that are wholly different from what is available in commercial seed packets. I am attaching a few pictures to substantiate that claim. All of those represent new zinnia strains that are \"in progress\".

ZM