today...
A storm with 50 mph winds passed through last night. A whole tree came tumbling down on and beside the giant sunflowers, only a chain link fence and the old metal basketball pole interrupted the tree's descent to horizontal.
When this all gets cleaned up I don't think there'll be any sunflower survivors. Small consolation at this point but next year should bring a re-performance as the area's ground was thick with sunflower shells from all the snacking birds.
That is a shame about the sunflowers...
Elsa, that is a photo of the right plant in the right place.
Salvia coccinea 'Coral Nnymph' (I like 'Forest Fire' red with dark calyces) is easy if you fill a pot with good potting soil, don't smooth it out, drop your seed and then water. Real easy to start in beds with just a handful of potting soil in a small hole using the above technique.
I use the white (Snow Nymph) in beds that I plant for folks.
Gemini: Tell me about the Magellan series! How tall are they? Do the colors stay bright? Mine fade terribly in our hot Texas sun!
JMorth..so sorry about your sunflowers! I know how disappointing that is!
Dale....your beds are always beautifully "made up"!!! Ready for company, huh??!!
Maine Man...I believe you said in another post that the profusion zinnias come true from saved seed. Could your affirm an old mans memory. Also are pink pin wheel zinnias closely related to the profusions???
Where IS our "main man"???? :-)
Connie, the Magellans are short, a foot tall or less, but with big, full sized blooms. All the colors have been perfectly fade resistant for me, and some of them are in the scorching evening sun. I haven't done any dead heading on those in the pics, seems like the blooms stay pretty, even after side shoots and new blooms have covered them up. And another thing that has really impressed me about them, is that nearly every plant has fully doubled blooms, none of those cones with 1 or 2 rows of petals. I haven't seen any evidence of mildew either. I just can't sing their praises enough!
Wow...I wonder if we were offered those? I mainly shop at our 2 big boxes...Home D. and Lowe's. Do you remember where you got them...or did you use seed? I've only grown from seed one time, and did have great success...
Thus far Parks has been the only place I've been able to find the full assortment of colors (offered individually) of the Magellan series (seed). I would think they'd become a popular bedding plant with commercial growers, especially since they bloom so fast and stay so small, but I haven't seen the plants offered anywhere yet. I've kept my eyes open for other vendors selling the seed in hopes of finding a better deal, the last couple of years they've been $3.95 a pack of 25 seeds at Parks. I did get excellent germination from them though. They have another series that touts all the same virtues called Daydream, but the one time I tried them I didn't get blooms that were as big or as fully doubled.
They're very easy from seed, so I'm sure you'd have great success with them :-)
I took another pic of the Magellan Coral in different light, and captured the color better here:
At the wholesale seed company, that I buy from, Magellan is one of the most expensive zinnia seed, @ 8.95 per 100 or 79.00 per 1000, that is 8-9 cents per seed - it is too expensive for most bedding plant growers.
Dale, that's just what I was thinking. That is half the price I've been paying though. Do you know if they'll mail order to the public? They're so uniform, they'd make excellent formal mass plantings. It would be worth doing a mini seed co op at those prices.
You can contact them by email seeds@ivygarth.com and ask them what their minimum is.
I can't imagine them not selling you the seeds, after all they are in the seed selling business.
Here is their website> http://ivygarth.com/
Timeinabottle, Connie,
Connie, I'm still right here in Maine. (grin)
Time,
Yes, all of the Profusions are actually open pollinated, and come true from seed. The Pinwheel zinnias, including the pink ones, are genetically very similar to the Profusions. The Profusions, Pinwheels, and Zaharas are all Z. marylandica, which are derived from interspecies crosses between Z. violacea (elegans) and Z. angustifolia. Violacea has 24 chromosomes and Angustifolia has 22 chromosomes, so the crosses are sterile, because their chromosome number is 23. Plants with an odd number of chromosomes have serious problems in the reproductive process of meiosis.
So, to make those interspecific hybrids fertile, they were treated with colchicine or another chromosome doubling agent, to give them an even chromosome number of 46. That makes them fertile and true breeding (no longer an F1 hybrid). So feel free to save seeds from any of the Z. marylandicas with no surprises.
I personally don't prefer the Z. marylandica group, because, compared to the Zinnia violacea group, they have much less variety and some of their colors tend to be dull or quickly become dull. Also, they don't have any big 6-inch class flowers, and they aren't very interesting to cross with each other. I don't mind spraying my zinnias to prevent mildew, in order to have more variety, bigger flowers, and a more interesting experience experimenting with cross-pollinating them.
The Zahara zinnias are relatively new, but there is a lot of information about them in cyberspace: Just do a Google search using the keywords "zinnia" and "Zahara"
MM
Our main man for zinnia questions: THANKS for the interesting tutorial on seeds/chromosomes...wow...haven't heard that stuff since high school!! I THINK I "get it"...hehe.
Hey guys ....how 'bout a seed coop for next spring like Gemini suggested? I'm sorry that I'm about to start a new school year and won't have time to organize myself...but would love to participate! I would need a lot of advice, however! I don't know how many seeds to plant in a hole / trough, when to thin, water, etc.
I'd be interested in participating too, Neal, or maybe I'll just buy a few from Parks.
Neal, did you check out that seed site and start a co-op?
Dale, I've been perusing their site, lots of nice offerings! Haven't decided yet about doing a co op with them, but when I have more time this winter I'm strongly considering it. Thanks so much for turning me on to this source! Have you used them before?
I have a small nursery. I order my liners thru them (and seeds too).
Ah, good to know they're dependable. Dale, your nursery looks as neat and perfect as your landscapes, very nice!
Neal, if you do end up doing a co-op, put me on your list, please?
Re: the Dreamland zinnias, they definitely don't come true from open pollinated seed. I grew the Dreamland coral last year, they grew as described in the seed catalogue, very pretty. I saved my seeds and sowed some this year which resulted in several kinds of plants. Some are the same coral color but single flowers. Some are the same color and double but over 3 ft. tall. Some are bright, blinding orange. So if you want duplicates of some you have you'd definitely be better to buy fresh commercial seeds than to save your own.
The profusions have always come true to the parent from my own seeds. I'm growing the double cherry this year and I don't think I like them as well as the bright orange and apricot I've grown in the past. The cherry color fades too much and looks washed out as the blossoms fade.
Karen
I almost always buy seed, I have had packs last for 3 yrs, by then I am trying something new. The only seeds I save are the ones that I have to buy from overseas http://www.silverhillseeds.co.za/ByCategory.asp and they are usually species.
Disney in Orlando>
dale: Since you're in the nursery business, I'd guess you'd pretty much have to buy fresh seeds for a lot of things to assure that the offspring are the same as the parent.
For me, I'm just a novice home gardener, and many times I just prefer growing my own seeds to see what will result. I've produced lots of weird stuff, and some beauties, too. I especially enjoy seeing how rudbeckias cross pollinate. I never pollinate by hand, it's all from the birds and bees. Last year I started some rud Prarie Sun from commercial seeds. They looked like this.
I saved those seeds and this year got this one. It's a double, but maintained the green eye.
Karen
Karen,
My nursery is tiny (6,000 sq ft). Some of those trade packs have a thousand seeds in them. Most of the plants I grow from seed I will only grow 200-300 hundred per year.
Many plants can be grown from cuttings, coleus, purslane, impatiens, begonia etc. Some I grow from bulbs - lily, caladiums & others.
I do have to buy some tiny plants (liners) they come in trays that measure 11 x 18 and have 288 to 512 plants. I grow delphiniums in the winter, they germinate at 45-50, it never gets cold enough (here) to start them, the same for pansy.
I have a few hundred plants in large pots, called stock plants, that I take cuttings from.
I don't buy many seeds. I do have a huge collection of stock coleus, they are popular here>
Wow, Dale, that's beautiful. Is that your nursery?
I have developed a new fondness for coleus. Are all of the sun coleus and cascading ones propagated vegetatively? I understand coleus will root well in water. I'm going to try that this year.
Karen
Karen,
The above photo is just a small part of my coleus collection (50+ named varieties).
Coleus root best when it is warm (75-80 at night) and I start all mine in potting soil, you should too. They will root in water, but, when you pot them up you break off many of the roots.
When I cut back unsold plants that have gotten leggy I throw the 'cuttings' on the compost pile, they root.
Purslane is another plant that is perennial here>
Dale, I've often wondered (I go to Naples, Fla almost every year and see THOUSANDS of impatiens plants...gorgeous!!) how you guys keep the plants in the meandering beds tall in the back and short in front!!?? Do you trim them?
Nigella damascena (love in a mist). Really common but my all time favorite - reminiscent of days in my granny's garden, Grandad being told to go out and grow something and me "helping".
That is so pretty Roseimp! I'm always looking for blue flowers for my garden. Do you have a picture of the whole plant?
Sorry, my camera is on extended leave in the UK. I left it there when I was visiting family :-)) The only pic I could find of the whole plant is here http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/2007-10-25Nigella_damascena_10.jpg
Oh, how pretty! Thanks for finding that pic for me. I definitely need to ge one of those now! : )
Lol robcorreia, they are so easy. I threw the seed in the ground in late May and they are just starting to bloom now. We have had a really rotten summer and they usually flower in late July. Although they like to be planted in a sunny position, they also like their roots fairly moist.
Have fun :-)) Rosie
Rose, isn't Nigella also used as a girl's name in England (and Ireland?). I can see why someone WOULD name someone after it...gorgeous!
Hi Connie, Yes, Nigella is the name of a TV cook called Nigella Lawson but the name doesn't seem all that popular these days. I think she was so called because her father was Nigel - famous or infamous for being a Conservative politician.
My other half who is Irish (I'm not) hasn't heard of anyone called that here though. It would be a really lovely name if I didn't associate it with the TV cook who donned the term "domestic goddess" in the UK. It just seems that the rest of us who slog away in the garden and produce the greatest veg for the table can't compete. We come in covered in s**t and she's there in her tight black ensemble and pearls LOL - funny way to cook food if you ask me!
:-)) Rosie
Ha! THAT's why when I googled it looking for the flowers this lady came up! lol!
Heck, that's one cooking show my husband would watch.
Karen
ROFL Rob - KQ - My other half can't stand her - guess he likes his women a bit more rough and ready LOL.
LOL! If my hubbie saw it he would definitely acquire a new interest for cooking, ahah
wow does that convuvulus have to have full sun. I'd love to grow those. this is the only picture I have found (from a friend who gave me seeds) of Anise Hyssop. I believe there is another more appropriate name for it. I also think the picture is color-enhanced, but I do have that kind of profuse bloom. They took about 1/2 shade too.
woodspirit, I grew the Convulvulus in the pic above in full sun and they seemed quite happy. They were easy to germinate and grow.
