Zowie Zinnas

This is my second year growing Zowie Zinnas and they have done well in my yard except this year the birds are eating the petals off some of the flowers. It is kind of funny but strange that they do not touch the other zinnas. Has this happened to anyone else?

I started the seeds indoors under lights last March and fertilized 3 or 4 times with Algoflash and they are huge. Allow for space if you decide to grow them for next year. I had to stake a couple of mine after the last rain shower . They are disease resistant and hybrids so they will not reseed. I purchased one pack this year from Burpee Seeds and had good germination with them. I plan to grow them again next year.

First picture of Zowie Zinna in one garden and that is one plant.

This is the second picture of Zowie Zinna in another bed.

Here is the 3rd picture of Zowie Zinna in another flower bed.

The zowie zinnias are pretty!I grew the zowie zinnias last year and the blooms was very!pretty.

Skimper,

I just love this zinna. Glad yours did well for you too.

Very nice! Thanks for the photos and the information.

Post pictures if you decide to grow Zowie as I would like to see how well they do in PA. Thanks BDale

Betty are there other colors? Those plants are huge. Do they get mildew like zinnias usually get?

This message was edited Jul 14, 2007 2:00 PM

This is "Whirlygig" which looks a little bit like "Zowie" (I think) but the inner ring has a bit more pink.

BDale,

Yes that does look very similar to Zowie and yours is lovely.

oriole,

These are the only color for Zowie Zinnas and they do not get mildew. They are disease resistant. The only problem I am having so far is the birds are finding the petals to be very delicious. This did not occur last year at all.

Get a package from Burpee Seed. I prefer to start them indoors under lights. If I try to plant seed directly in the garden I have to put bird netting down because the rabbits in my yard will just eat up the new seedlings.

Those look very nice Betty. Mine were so so last year and I didn't have them again. I put hardware cloth over my pots when I seed them until they come up to keep visitors away.

bigcityal,

That is a good idea, using hardware cloth over the pots.

Beautiful zinnia border, Betty. I am really enjoying all the discussion about zinnias this summer--so many pretty ones to pic from! You really had good results from your seed sowing!

I purchased one 'Zowie' plant from Lowes and squeezed it into the garden since the butterflies were nectaring on the them at the garden center. I love the color and planted it with red daylilies. Very effective. No problem with mildew (so far) and it is very crowded in the garden. I am going to buy a whole pack of seeds next spring and plant them with Zinnia 'magellans' in front and other 'benary giants' in the butterfly border.

Scroll down half way for an excellent AAS write-up on Zowie

http://www.all-americaselections.org/Winners.asp?year_win=2006

Tabasco,

What a beautiful picture of the Zowie. I have been following the thread discussing the Zowie and how they get seeds--what a process and no wonder they cost so much. I hear you are going to purchase seeds now. I just planted a few seeds for fun in a pot taken from one of my Zowie flowers. They are just so beautiful in the garden. You might like to see the new pictures I just posted under My Garden Today in the Photo Forum of the girls I nanny for. I got a few great shots and took about 75 pictures yesterday of the girls yesterday in my yard. Going to take more today as the Mom wants special pictures of the girls in the outfits her mom bought for them. I love taking pictures also. I would like to see your gardens if I am in Cincinnati again soon.

Tobasco,

Just wanted to let you know I planted seeds from one of my Zowie Zinna flowers on Sunday and today, Wednesday, I have 3 of the seeds that have germinated. It will be interesting to see what they do in the next 3 months. If they flower I will post a picture, knowing it will look nothing like Zowie Zinna. OH well just doing it for fun.

Love the pics of your little girls! I studied the other thread of photos, too. They are like little dolls! (in the photos, anyway!)


I will be interested to see the Zowie flowers from your seed sowing. I think I will purchase my seeds in September-- Illoquin reminded me that the seed sales start around then...

Hi Tabasco,

I too will be purchasing seeds in Sept when the sales start. Thanks for the comments about the girls. They are little dolls in real life too!! Took them to the zoo yesterday and they are loving our new baby elephant, named Scottie. He is only 4 months old and is already doing tricks. He is very very smart and I will post a picture of him soon.

I will post a picture of the flowers that come from the Zowie seed.
Take care. Did you view the videos Dave posted recently? The one on paper pots is something I would like to try.

Hi all,

Here is a picture of the Zowie Seedling I started last July. As you can see, the experiment was a flop. At the least, I had hoped for a pretty zinna. The Zowie zinna is a hybrid and therefore do not save seeds.

Betty,

I see that at least one of your Zowies hasn't bloomed yet. Maybe it will turn out different from the one that doesn't have petals. One of my hybrid zinnias, pictured below, had colors similar to Zowie. I think I'll grow some Zowies next year and experiment with them. Meanwhile, I would like to see how your other Zowie F2 seedlings turn out.

MM

Hi MaineMan,

Well , I was about to toss the others and one has a bud and will bloom in about 10 days, so I will just wait. I have so enjoyed all of your comments and your pics. I especially love the zinna that looks kind of blue. I do love the Zowie and was a little disappointed that the seedling flower did not open to look like a zinna.

Betty

Betty,

Your funny looking Zowie seedling might be a "femina". I will explain that statement. The seeds of commercially produced F1 hybrid zinnias are actually formed on special mutant strains of zinnias called "feminas", which are male-sterile (produce no pollen) and whose female florets have no petals, but do have stigmas and ovaries so they can form seeds.

The selected femina strain is inter-planted with a selected male strain, which produces the needed pollen to form F1 hybrid seeds in the feminas. Different strain combinations produce the different varieties of F1 hybrid zinnias that are commercially available. Since femina plants are not particularly attractive to bees, the yield of seeds is noticeably lower on them, but bees do accidentally pollinate them enough to produce some seed yield, and no human hand pollination is required. But just producing the needed parent strains is costly, so F1 hybrid zinnia seeds cost more than open pollinated varieties.

So your odd Zowie F2 seedling may be a form of femina zinnia. But F2s are highly variable, so some of your other F2 seedlings may be different. Your experience does suggest that the story that Zowies do not produce viable seeds [and hence must be triploid hybrids] is incorrect.

MM

Hi MM,

Thanks for explaining that to me. I also emailed that picture to Burpee Seeds and they replied today saying it is either the all male or all female plant that they use for the breeding process.

I have 4 plants in that photo and on the plant that has bloomed there is another bud and on the second plant there is a bud also. Both should bloom before frost which is well over a month away for Louisville. But whatever, I am going to pot them up and grow them under lights in my basement and they should bloom. I also had 10 seedlings come up in my front yard near one of the Zowies which the birds have been enjoying all summer. I put those 10 seedlings in pots last weekend and will keep them under lights also for the winter and just see what happens. Unless you think that I should just toss those 3 inch seedlings at this point? I am new to all of this and slowly understanding F2 seedlings.

Betty

Betty,

"Unless you think that I should just toss those 3 inch seedlings at this point?"

No, by all means, keep them. As they say, where there's life, there's hope. Maybe they can bloom under your basement lights. Maybe next year you could try crossing Zowies with some other zinnias. That could produce some wild stuff. Here is a pic of another of my F2s with Zowie-like colors.

MM

Thanks MaineMan,

I will give it a try and maybe try crossing the Zowies with other zinnas next year and your pic sure looks like a Zowie. I had no mildew on my Zowies this year and only had mildew on one of my Oklahoma Cherry plants that was crowded in one flower bed.

Your Zowie look-a like is pretty. Did you have problems with mildew?

Betty

Betty,

I haven't had any mildew yet this year. But, based on last year's experience, I can have problems with mildew, particularly in cooler weather such as we are beginning to have now. Last year I had good luck spraying with a product called GreenCure® http://www.greencure.net/what_is_greencure.asp so I bought enough of it so that I can spray frequently with it, if need be. Since GreenCure is based on potassium bicarbonate, it is safe to use, and it has a very good wetting agent, so you get good coverage. Rain does wash it off, though, so you need to re-spray after every rain. Maybe I will spray my zinnias with it today, as a preventive measure.

Zowie is an F1 hybrid example of bicolored/tricolored zinnias, but as you have seen from my pictures, you can get that same color combination from bicolored zinnia strains like Whirligig, Carousel, and Zig Zag. Last year I planted a couple of dozen Whirligigs from Stokes Seeds, and I got several good specimens in several color combinations that I crossed with selected Burpeeana zinnias.

I was a little tentative with that, since I was just renewing the hobby after a multi-decade hiatus. I am retired now, so I can devote more time to it. Last year I didn't do as much cross-pollination as I should have, and I hadn't yet developed the technique of using little "hair nets" to keep the bees off of my breeders, so my seed yield wasn't as good as I might have hoped. But I did get a dozen or so Whirligig x Burpeeana and Burpeeana x Whirligig plants, several of which retained the bicolored characteristic in a more informal flower form. And, although F2s are highly unreliable, I have been getting some good bi-colored specimens, which I am selfing and intercrossing.

Based on the success of Zowie, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it offered in new color combinations, perhaps starting in 2008. Last year I had an interesting tri-colored Whirligig. It had gold at the outer part of the petal, white in the middle, and rose at the base. I haven't seen that tri-color this year, although I used pollen from it, but I have seen several of the Zowie tri-color. The Zowie combination overlaps gold or yellow and rose or red to get an orange intermediate section.

The advantage of crossing bi-colors and tri-colors with each other and with solid colors is that the F2 recombinations can produce an almost endless variety of subtle and bold new color combinations. Some of the subtle bicolors are barely noticeable, such as with this F2 specimen.

MM

Hi MM,

Thanks for the info about Greencure. I will order some for next year and start using it as a preventative spray. But do I use caution and not spray it if the temp. is too high? I know in the past I have used baking soda on my roses, and it caused leaf burn when I sprayed on a hot day.

I will order some of the bicolored zinna strains for next year and try cross-pollination. It should be fun. I have had fun growing the Zowie Seedlings. I have two more buds on the seedlings.

That would be exciting if Zowie were to be offered in new color combinations.
That one that was gold and white and pink---how pretty.
And the picture of the F2 specimen is so very beautiful. It must be very rewarding for you. I wish I could see all of your zinnas in person. Maybe you could post a video for next year. I am ready for spring again so I can start all of it right now.

Betty

Hi Betty,

"But do I use caution and not spray it if the temp. is too high?"

There are no high temperature cautions in the instructions for using GreenCure® http://www.greencure.net/how_to_use_greencure.asp

The label does include separate instructions for California http://www.greencure.net/GreenCureLabel.pdf

It is important to dilute the solution properly with water before spraying it. For preventative use, use one tablespoon per gallon. To fight existing infections, use two tablespoons per gallon, but don't use it stronger than that to avoid harming the plant. Potassium bicarbonate is very soluble in water and I am sure that you could make concentrated supersaturated solutions, with maybe several cups of the dry powder per gallon, that would pretty much kill a plant instantly.

"I know in the past I have used baking soda on my roses, and it caused leaf burn when I sprayed on a hot day."

Hopefully by baking soda you meant sodium bicarbonate and not washing soda (sodium carbonate) or baking powder, which could contain a number of ingredients, including alum. The GreenCure® web page that I cited in my earlier message contained an explanation of why GreenCure® is better than sodium bicarbonate. For one thing, sodium itself can be somewhat toxic to plants, while potassium is actually a beneficial nutrient.

When we lived in Fort Worth many years ago, the sun could be quite intense and they warned us not to water our plants in the heat of the day because individual water droplets on the plants could act as little lenses and focus the sun and create little "cooked" spots on the plants. I observed that to be the case, and watered early in the morning or toward evening. That's not a problem for sprays that contain an effective spreader/sticker, because the wetting agent insures a continuous film of spray on the plant, rather than individual droplets.

The wetting agent in GreenCure® is particularly effective. To quote their webpage, "After researching more than 350 different additives, a formula was found that was significantly more effective than any other combination of ingredients." http://www.greencure.net/why_is_greencure_fungicide_better.asp

"Maybe you could post a video for next year."

I'll look into that. I'll have to do a little learning about making and posting a video, but it seems doable.

"I am ready for spring again so I can start all of it right now."

Me too.

MM

Thanks MM,

The info about GreenCure was very helpful and I will start using it next year, as I plan to grow more zinnas. I feel I am not the only one who would love to see a video of your beautiful zinnas!!!!!! Wish we could see them in person, and we also wish that one day you will have seeds to share.

Thanks again,

Betty

Hi again MM,

Here is a closeup shot I just took of my Zowie seedling.

Betty

Betty,

I believe those yellow tendrils are stigmas, so this looks like a classic femina. You could dust pollen on it and get some F1 hybrid seeds of some sort. It will be interesting to see how your other Zowie seedlings turn out.

MM

Hi MM,

Is it too late to dust pollen on it ? I need to reread your explanation as to how to do this. I am going to try and get special lights to try and grow the seedlings indoors so they will form buds.

Betty

Betty,

"Is it too late to dust pollen on it ?

Since the stigmas are still yellow and apparently alive, it may not be too late to dust pollen on them. Just find some zinnias that have pollen, the little six-armed yellow "stars" in the center of the flower. They are called disk florets. It helps if you can beat the bees to the pollen. I have started putting little hair nets that I make over my breeder zinnias to keep the bees from getting the pollen before I do. That has been working fairly well for me. The pollen gets pushed out in the center of the floret sometime in the mid-morning in sunny weather. It was rainy here today and most of the pollen florets didn't even open today.

A freshly opened floret can serve as its own pollen brush. Or you could use a small artist's brush to transfer the pollen. The pollen is a fine yellow dust. I just pick a floret with some small forceps that I like, but you could use tweezers or, if you have them, Twissors. I used tweezers at first, then Twissors, and then I started using small forceps. I suppose if you had really small fingers you could pick the florets with just your fingers and use them to pollinate with, but I think that would be kind of difficult for most people.

Just gently use the brush or the floret to rub the pollen on the stigmas. The stigmas have tiny microscopic "hooks" to help snag the pollen grains. When a stigma is fertilized it withers and turns brown within a day or two. Otherwise it may stay alive and receptive for a couple of weeks. The disk florets wither within a day**, but fresh ones usually emerge every day. Some zinnias don't produce much, if any, pollen, while others produce a lot of pollen every day. If you have any questions about any of this, please ask. If need be, I can post some illustrations of the process of zinnia cross pollination.

MM

**Normal yellow disk florets wither within a day. The disk florets of scabiosa type zinnias remain intact as a modified kind of petal.

Thanks MM,

I will give it a try tomorrow. And then I put the hairnet over the Zowie seedling--right? I am pretty sure I understand.

Betty

Betty,

Actually the hairnets are mainly to protect the pollen donor zinnias from being robbed by bees. Although you could also use a net on the Zowie femina seedling to keep bees from placing pollen there. But the mere fact that you apparently still have receptive stigmas on the femina seedling means that bees haven't already visited it much, if any. However, if bees have already pollinated your femina seedling for you, they may have done you a favor.

I do use hairnets on both male and female breeders, because last year I had some bad experiences with bees pollinating some of my good females with pollen from some poor zinnias that I had intended to discard.

Next year I plan to be ruthless in promptly discarding any substandard zinnias, so that any bee pollination won't be such a bad thing. We have a lot of bees here for some reason, several species of them, and some honeybees as well. This evening I even noticed a moth doing some nighttime nectar feeding that very well may have been spreading pollen.

I have had a lot of butterfly activity during the sunny days, but I don't think they spread much, if any, pollen. Incidentally, I noticed that butterflies can frequently sip nectar from blooms that are protected by the hairnets. Their long feeding tube easily passes through the net fabric that I use to make the hairnets, so unless the net cover is well above the flower, they can get at the nectar. Which I don't mind. I enjoy the butterflies. I have even had several hummingbirds feeding on zinnia nectar. Some of them are used to me and hover at zinnia heads near the ones I am pollinating. They make quite a whirring noise.

Unfortunately, I have had at least one kind of seed-eating bird that has a taste for zinnia seeds. I have gathered quite a few seeds that weren't fully mature to keep the birds from getting at them. The nets can also protect zinnia seed heads from the birds. I need to make some more nets.

MM

Hi again MM,

Well I am learning more. I could not get the pollen this morning as we just had a brief shower. I will try again this week. So I will try to get the twissors today and hairnet and I put them over the zinnas I want to collect pollen from? I guess I will try to get pollen from the Oklahoma Cherry, as that is the only other kind of zinna I am growing this year except for Zowie. I looked at the marigold closely inside trying to learn where all the parts are.

That is interesting about the hummers staying so close. I love the hummers and they will not stay close to me at all when I am in the garden.

Betty

Betty,

The Oklahoma Cherry should do fine. If you have any neighbors with zinnias, they might let you "borrow" some pollen if you ask them. Also, if there are any zinnias in a public area, a park, a university or school, or commercial area, you might "borrow" some pollen there. As a "cover" you might pretend to be taking pictures, or even smelling the flowers. By taking just the little yellow central florets, you aren't really harming or disfiguring the flower. Incidentally, some zinnias do have a little fragrance, although I don't intend to breed for that.

Sometimes I carry pollen in the little containers that are meant for contact lenses, but any small container could serve, even a small Ziploc® plastic bag. There is a Snack size of Ziploc® bag that I find particularly handy, and I even use them for storing dried seeds. A small 3x5 card fits neatly inside the snack-sized bags, for descriptive information about the seeds.

MM

Goodbye Betty,

I guess this message thread will come to an abrupt end here. BettyFB reportedly "resigned" from the forum, over a dispute with Dave about a Dmail problem. That came as a surprise and disappointment to me. I was enjoying this interchange of information.

MM

Oh, that's unfortunate. I hope they can reconcile the problems.