Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 6, 2 by brendak654

brendak654 wrote:
Geesh - I keep loosing my post. Guess that is what I get for going back and looking at your photo's ZM. I like your #1 above with the white to the center. The #3 has a spidery effect. #4 is such a soft soft yellow with the downward curled petals. If you could just get the pollen portion of the zinnia in the tublar petals of your # 5 above - what a hummingbird magnet that would be. I like the #2 - soft lavender, also.

I've been down at my lowest patch (my Wetland Garden I call it) of zinnias that I have been babying. That is the area of my zinnia that were planted just after June 1 they have already been under water 4 times and still hanging in there - just not for how long. We are supposed to get 2-4 more inches of rain in the next two days. Either me or mother nature keeps taking a tole on those zinnia. Because they are kind of pitiful and trying so hard to bloom, I decided to give them a shot of 12-12-12 fertilizer today, then I cultivated them with tractor and cultivators. I probably took out just a few, but the other vegetation was also becoming a problem. I went down there this eve and checked on them. Last night I deadheaded just about all of them because my plan was to cultivate them and I figured that if I cut their blooms off, then at least that was part of the plant that the cultivators would not injure. It was amazing to me how even more of them had burst into bloom today. I have one that is a kind of a brown mustard color which I like and I hybridized it to be just that. I forgot my camera this eve, so the only pictures I can share this eve are from the couple of zinnia that I popped the head off with my fingers. I'm surprised I didn't get stun by a bee, as they sure like to hide themselves down in the zinnias for the night and there I was popping heads now and again.

Picture #1 and #2 were from yesterday. #3 & #4 are the ones I popped off with my fingers today and brought to the house and photoed this eve. I really like the scabiosa (thanks for that info). #3 has more of a stiff texture than most of the cactus I've grown - nice little hybridize.

I have some really large blooms this year which will make for some fun hybridizing.

My #2 above was really different. It was like it was split down the middle and one side was one thing and the other something else. What fun - seeing just what we created from one year to the next. Just keep it up.