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

brendak654 wrote:
ZM,

Well my sized pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. The one I especially wanted to take the picture of is just about spent as you can see in photo # 1. I had another zinnia similar to this red one, that I had posted August 5th. The two were obviously from the same hybridizing, but I had them planted in different locations. I basically plant zinnia in 4 different gardens. As the ground dries, I plant another row or so which helps extend the zinnias spring, summer and into fall. Two of the gardens are on high ground and they are pretty spent (now), as they were planted April/May. One garden is on a hillside, then the best garden right now is in low lying area that (as I said much earlier) has been under water at least 4 times this year. So the zinnia there (the ones below), are lucky they survived all the wet. The nice thing is that they are going strong and I should not part with them until frost takes them away. Speaking of weeds, I have more weeds there than norm, so I will need to take measures next year to eliminate the weeds as much as possible ahead of planting the zinnia. The record rainfall here in June & July aided the weed growing and the weed seeding.

Your cactus specimen are awesome and the one you had measured sure had a good size.

Yes, I too like the uprolls.

I've been saving and marking lots of seeds. I almost let the scabiosa zinnia pass their prime before gathering seed. Too, I have decided I need to keep my Thumbelina zinnia to themselves as the blooms are quite small. Adorable, but very small. Guess that is the good part about having zinnia in different locations. The rabbits hide in the Thumbelina zinnia and then my dog goes to the chase - not a good thing.

Keep working with and enjoying those zinnia.