Great; but I really like the red one.
It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3
Hi all,
We have had some unseasonably cold weather recently here in Wellsville, Kansas and this general area, with temperatures running 25 degrees below Average. Oddly, the cooler weather has caused some of my zinnias to have more intense colors, as this specimen exhibits. Its petals come in with intense scarlet on the tips and yellow at the base, but age to a medium orange.
I guess if you were mixing paints and mixed yellow with scarlet you might get orange. I don't usually think of paint mixing when I am crossing zinnias of different colors. It's more like dominant and recessive genes, with the probability that several different genes determine the zinnia colors and color patterns. But in this case, possibly there is a segregation of pigments that blends as the petals age.
ZM
I bet that ME was colder than KS. We are getting Halloween weather for Columbus Day. I think even the sedum is blasted.
Lucy,
"I bet that ME was colder than KS."
I wouldn't make that bet for our recent cold spell. We lived in Manchester, Maine, and I think that for the last few days it has actually been warmer there than here in Wellsville, Kansas. For example, as I type this, the temperature here is Wellsville is 47 degrees while the temperature in Manchester is 51 degrees. You can compare the temperatures at the two places hour-by-hour at these two links:
Wellsville, KS http://www.accuweather.com/us/ks/wellsville/66092/city-weather-forecast.asp?partner=netweather&u=1&traveler=1
Manchester, ME http://www.accuweather.com/us/me/manchester/04351/city-weather-forecast.asp?partner=netweather&u=1&traveler=1
They predicted an overnight low here for Saturday morning of 31 degrees, but it turned out to be 33 degrees. They predicted the same 31 degrees for Sunday morning and Wellsville reported 31 degrees. Last night was a bit warmer at 35 degrees. Amazingly, my zinnias have survived these frigid nights -- so far. But, I expect that they will decline rapidly in such cold weather and that a killing freeze could come at almost any time.
For that reason, I have been saving seeds and taking cuttings of some choicer specimens for indoor growing. My indoor plant stands are my "Arc" for threatened breeder zinnias. This "spiderish" zinnia is one that I took cuttings from.
ZM
How did your outside zinnia do in KS?
ZM - That last zinnia you posted is awesome!
Lucy,
"How did your outside zinnia do in KS?"
Not at all well. The place we are renting has a lot of trees and the garden area was in deep shade and the soil was tight dark clay. This area is also flat, so this Spring water was standing in the garden area. It would have been suitable for growing rice. I pruned the trees as much as was practical, and got a little dappled sunshine into the garden area. To cope with the clay bog soil, I transplanted my zinnias into holes with some play sand, but still about half of my zinnias that had been thriving inside died "the death of a rag doll" in the garden. Hopefully things can be a bit better next year. Zinnias like full sun and well-drained soil.
I provided "zinnia cages" to help protect my zinnias from the wind, storms, and wandering animals. This is a picture of an outside zinnia in a cage, with dappled sun. I chipped and shredded some of the pruned limbs and used the wood chips to keep from tracking the sticky mud in the garden into the house.
ZM
echinaceamaniac,
"That last zinnia you posted is awesome!"
I liked it too, and was distressed that it was in serious jeopardy of being destroyed by a freakishly early frost. It is highly doubtful that any pollination I do now will result in viable seed, because it is so cold. So I took cuttings from it and several other "choice" zinnias. This is a picture of some of my recent zinnia cuttings, still under their humidity domes. Incidentally, I noticed that you have been taking cuttings from your echinaceas. I doubt that many gardeners even know that you can do that.
ZM
ZM,
That is neat how you have your cuttings. I wish that would work for Echinaceas. The only way I've seen them root from cuttings is in aeroponic cloning devices (EZ Clone or bubbler) of some sort. They do root from basal cuttings, but it's not a sure thing when you do it that way. I have rooted 3 cuttings in-a-row so I think I've got this all worked out. I'm growing some indoors all winter to experiment with the cuttings under grow lights.
If you root cuttings of that particular zinnia, will the blooms look the same or will they be different? I think you had some bloom different after you rooted the cuttings.
EM,
"I wish that would work for Echinaceas."
That technique might work with Echinaceas. I sterilize the cutting in "standard strength" Physan 20 (1½ teaspoons per gallon), and treat the cutting with a rooting hormone (Dip 'n Grow is my favorite because it contains both IBA and NAA and it lets you control its strength by how much you dilute it). The treated cutting is then inserted in a pot containing medium that has been pre-moistened with a dilute solution of nutrients and "half strength" Physan 20 (¾ to ½ teaspoon per gallon). The potted cuttings are placed under a humidity dome to keep the humidity at 100% until the cuttings have time to root (about two weeks). If the dome has vents, make sure they are closed.
The advantage of this method is that the roots grow naturally into the medium in which they will grow, so that you remove rooted plants from under the humidity dome, and they are are already established conveniently in their pots. When those pots become slightly rootbound, I repot them to larger pots. I currently root the cuttings in 3-inch square pots and repot them to 5-inch square pots, which involves minimal disturbance to the roots. I have some 10-inch pots for when the 5-inch pots start to become rootbound.
The 10-inch pots are really too big a step, and I plan to get some pots intermediate in size between the 5-inch pots and the 10-inch pots. The 10-inch pots have been capable of growing some pretty full-sized zinnia plants indoors. I do use plant growth regulators to try to keep the indoor plants from growing too tall.
"The only way I've seen them root from cuttings is in aeroponic cloning devices (EZ Clone or bubbler) of some sort."
Those devices would probably also work with zinnias. But once the roots are formed, there would be the problem of getting them inserted into and arranged within growing medium without injuring the roots.
"If you root cuttings of that particular zinnia, will the blooms look the same or will they be different? I think you had some bloom different after you rooted the cuttings."
Wow! You have been paying attention. Yes, I did have some odd different blooms on some cuttings a couple of years ago. Zinnias sometimes do some crazy things. I have also had zinnia plants that had significantly different flowers on different branches of the same plant. But, yes, it seems that the stress of becoming reborn as a new plant from a cutting has on occasion produced some odd results. However, in general, the clones are pretty much identical. For example, all of the zinnias in the attached picture were cuttings from the same purple scabiosa flowered zinnia, and they seemed to be pretty much identical.
ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)
You could probably root cuttings of some of the unusual zinnia plants and sell them online. People like unusual plants. I know zinnias are annuals, but I can't tell you how many women I've seen in Lowes or Home Depot with their shopping cart full of potted zinnias. I always think to myself that they could have bought seeds, especially since the ones they are buying are just plain seed strains.
I have found with my plants that when I try to root stem cuttings it's best to make a slit in the end of the stem before dipping in the rooting gel or solution. This really seems to help. You should try it on some of your zinnia cuttings.
I'm trying Dip 'n Grow now, but usually I order the full strength solutions and mix my own and add to my EZ Clone Machine's water.
EM,
"You could probably root cuttings of some of the unusual zinnia plants and sell them online. People like unusual plants."
I may change my mind at some time in the future, but for the time being this is just a hobby for me, strictly for fun and not for profit. And, at the moment, I have no idea how I would ship zinnia plants with reasonable assurance that they would arrive in good shape.
"I know zinnias are annuals, but I can't tell you how many women I've seen in Lowes or Home Depot with their shopping cart full of potted zinnias. I always think to myself that they could have bought seeds, especially since the ones they are buying are just plain seed strains."
I've seen that, too. There are probably several reasons for that, some having to do with simple convenience. Some people may have tried growing from seed, and had a discouraging failure. When I was a kid, our teachers drilled into us, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Maybe some people have had a discouraging failure with seeds, and rely on the commercial plants to avoid a possible repeat failure.
Even though zinnias are annuals, I have had some success taking cuttings from cutting plants. I had those second generation cutting plants growing nicely in the Winter of 2007/2008, with good prospects for taking a third generation of cuttings, when my entire indoor zinnia operation was wiped out by a thrips epidemic. I barely knew what a thrips was, much less that they could hurt my zinnias. My zinnias were all essentially dead before I discovered what the problem was, using a low powered microscope. Compared to a thrips, an aphid is huge. Now I know how to deal with indoor thrips and aphid problems, as well as mildew problems. I still wonder how far repeating the cuttings process could extend the life of a particular zinnia.
"I have found with my plants that when I try to root stem cuttings it's best to make a slit in the end of the stem before dipping in the rooting gel or solution. This really seems to help. You should try it on some of your zinnia cuttings."
That sounds like a good idea. I will try it on my next cuttings. If the solutions you have been using already contain both IBA and NAA, the Dip 'n Grow may offer only a minor convenience. The mist propagators may tend to wash the rooting hormone off of the cutting. The root-in-place method that I use keeps the hormones in place on or near the surface of the cutting, with only slow diffusion contributing to any migration of the hormones. I already do some "preprocessing" on a cutting, as this picture shows.
ZM
Interesting. I slit the end with a knife about 1/4 inch. This makes two prongs on the end. This gives more contact with the cloning gel. I had tried rooting my plants over and over. It was only when I started slitting the end that I started having quick results. I'll try a zinnia in the EZ Clone machine next spring. I bet it will root them quickly.
Hi all,
The outdoor season is winding down for my zinnias, but they have "dodged the bullet" for three different nights in which a 31 degree low was predicted. Only once was that temperature actually reached. They're not frozen yet, but with all this cold weather, their life processes are very slowed. This is a picture of a young bloom that appeared a few weeks ago. Young blooms frequently show bicolor effects that fill in as the bloom matures.
ZM
I'm sure that they are begging to come inside. Some people still have mums out, but they are the ones which don't last through the winter. Bicolors can be very unique, bicolor beards are all the rage on bearded irises.
Hi again,
This recent specimen had an unusual flower form in which the petals curled downward and the individual petals had a slightly different look. I used it as a breeder, and cross pollinated with it.
ZM
Sorry I like the first one better--this form reminds me too much of coneflowers
Lucy,
"Sorry I like the first one better--this form reminds me too much of coneflowers"
Me too. But I like to have a diversity of flower forms. Echinaceamaniac likes coneflowers, and some of my zinnias are "Echinacea flowered". I saved seeds from this specimen because the flower was a little different from anything I had seen before in zinnias. Zinnias have a lot of variation, and some of its progeny might look better.
"I'm sure that they are begging to come inside."
I have been bringing them inside, in the form of cuttings. Four years ago, in my Maine garden, I dug up a few choice breeders and brought them inside in big pots, to save them from impending frosts. I brought a lot of problems inside when I did that. Aphids, which were a minor problem outside, had a population explosion inside. The plants also came in with a bunch of Lady Bugs and their larva, and they ate a lot of aphids, but the aphids were multiplying so rapidly that the Lady Bugs couldn't "make a dent" in their population.
I tried to help control the aphids by sucking them up in one of those little vacuum cleaners for computer keyboards. But aphids hid between the petals of flowers, and in the center parts of of the blooms as well, and soon I could see that neither I nor the Lady Bugs could control them. It was a losing game that was over in a little over a month. I did harvest some good seeds from those plants though, which were my first good scabiosa hybrids. They really amazed me, and sold me on the idea of including scabiosa flowered zinnias in my project. So, in a sense, the battle was worth it.
But I don't intend to dig up any more zinnia plants and bring them inside. It's like bringing a Trojan Horse inside. Instead, I am using cuttings, which can be sterilized in Physan 20, to avoid bringing in any unwanted passengers. As an experiment, I purchased some 3-inch "clear" orchid pots that I could try out for my cuttings, so that I could look through the sides of the pot to see if enough roots had formed to repot the cutting. You can't see them very well in this picture, but I could see several roots to verify that this zinnia cutting was ready to re-pot.
ZM
This is that same zinnia cutting, re-potted in a 5-inch square pot.
ZM
This is another near-spider-flowered specimen that I saved seeds from. When pollinating a spider flowered zinnia, I give a preference to pollen from other spider flowered zinnias with different colors, in order to concentrate on getting a variety of colors in the flower form.
ZM
ZM - I love the orange bloom with droopy petals! I like the nice, yellow center too.
Where did you get the clear orchid pots? I can't find them anywhere around here. I think they would be good for my Echinacea cuttings. I like them because you can tell when to water easier.
EM,
"Where did you get the clear orchid pots?"
I'm glad you liked the orange droopy. It definitely caught my eye. I got my clear orchid pots from rePotMe. They have a 10% off sale through October 31st.
http://www.repotme.com/orchid-pots/Orchid-Pots-Clear.html
Actually, I bought my pots from them through Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dgarden&field-keywords=repotme+orchid+pot&x=14&y=11
The rePotMe people seem to be nice people to deal with. I'll order from them again. There are, however, other vendors of clear orchid pots.
ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)
Hi all,
Apparently our water supply is deficient in boron, and a boron deficiency caused the initial growing tips of many of my young fourth generation zinnias to die. That happened to the zinnia in the attached picture. That had the somewhat fortuitous effect of chemically pinching the plants. I have since supplemented the boron in my nutrients with diluted boric acid to help offset the boron deficiency. I don't want my zinnias to suffer nutrient deficiencies, even if there was a desirable side effect.
I am also making more extensive use of plant growth regulators (PGR) to prevent my zinnia plants from growing too tall. This Summer, if an indoor zinnia grew too tall, I simply moved it outside. That option won't be open this Winter. The Topflor that I use suppresses natural gibberellin production.
None of these compact fourth generation zinnias has a compact parent, even though they look like they must have. I'm still learning by trial and error about using Topflor and other PGRs. One thing I didn't take into account was that the re-used growth medium that I use apparently contains some residual PGR that affects the seedlings that I repot into it. Most of my fourth generation zinnias are pretty well behaved as far as height is concerned. Between the boron problem and my use of PGRs, a lot of my fourth generation zinnias are compact and well-branched, like this specimen in a 5-inch pot.
ZM
wow! can really see the buds coming!! Do local gardeners know about the definciancy? Could affect other plants.
Lucy,
I don't know if the local gardeners know about the deficiency of Boron in our municipal water. The subject hasn't come up. It probably wouldn't affect anyone who used a lot of compost in their garden, since there are trace amounts of Boron (and other trace elements) in many of the components that go into compost. However, my indoor operation makes use of "sterile" soil-less growing mediums, which contain very little in the way of nutrients, trace or otherwise. I have to supply pretty much all of the required nutrients dissolved in the water that I use on my zinnias.
It's actually better if there isn't much Boron in your water. You can always add Boron, but if there is too much Boron in your water, it can be phytotoxic to your plants. There are some areas where Boron in the irrigation water is a problem. I'm attaching a closeup of the bloom on that little plant above. Actually, it has developed some since this picture was taken a few days ago.
ZM
Seems to have spread its petals a bit.
Lucy,
Its guard petal colors have faded quite a lot as its scabious center has filled in.
ZM
OK--different. Do all of that type fill in?
Lucy,
"Do all of that type fill in?"
Most of them do. The scabiosa flowered florets hold their color and last for several weeks, while the non-scabiosa flowered florets (the usual fuzzy yellow stars) wither and die after a day or two. I prefer the scabiosa florets for their longevity and they can be any color rather than just fuzzy yellow.
Occasionally the recombination of genes in various ways will create some unusual results in hybrids of hybrids. The flower in the attached picture is a case in point. It has a unique recombination of traits from Whirligig bi-colors and a mix of different scabiosa-like bi-colored petaloids to produce one of the most fantasy-like flower forms I have seen in a zinnia. I was actually startled when this thing bloomed out.
ZM
Flowers have all sorts of little tricks, don't they.
Have you seen these? I'm really impressed with them! It's called Zinnia 'Frazzy Jazzy.'
http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/photos/grahamrice/images/47648/original.aspx
EM,
Those look like a selection of some really good Persian Carpet zinnias. I have a few Persian carpet seedling going now, to see if I get one or two worthy of some persistent attempts to cross them with my "regular" zinnias. Persian Carpets (and presumably "Frazzy Jazzy") are members of the species Z. haageana, so a cross with them could produce an inter-species hybrid. It is thought that the present day Whirligigs, Zig Zags, and Carrousels arose from such crosses a very long time ago.
ZM
This message was edited Dec 15, 2009 12:20 PM
To those of you who are growing zinnias as cut flowers, and interested in developing new breeds for market, I wanted to ask the group if people had sources of seed, or names of seed that I might experiment with in Vermont, in greenhouses, this spring and summer. I am just now getting around to putting in orders and wondered if anyone in the group had thoughts and suggestions on varities ?
All the best,
John
John,
Hazzard's Wholesale Seeds http://www.hazzardsgreenhouse.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=Hazwho sell seeds in quantity, and have a better selection than many retail sources. They have no minimum order, so they may be of interest to home growers. They have a lot of zinnia varieties, some of which are suitable for cut flower sales to florists and some of which are intended to be sold as plants to home gardeners.
The Benary's Giant or Blue Point zinnias are popular with commercial growers of cut flowers. Johnny's Selected Seeds http://www.johnnyseeds.com/default.aspx cater to both home growers and market growers. Harris Seeds have separate listings for home growers and professional growers. http://www.harrisseeds.com/ Stokes Seeds http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront also sells to both home growers and commercial growers. Several seed sellers sell only to commercial growers, which excludes me. I am just a zinnia hobbyist.
ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned)
Greeting to the group and thanks for your help and suggestions as I begin a flower farm in Vermont growing zinnias and cut flowers.
I am grateful to the group for their experience which has helped me to begin to plant a 2 acre zinnia field, starting seedlings in a 14 x 96 heated greenhouse, under fluorescent and halide lights. I would be happy to hear suggestions on which plants might be crossed, or planted close by each other, to experiment with breeding.
Regards to the list,
John
John,
Good luck on your bold zinnia venture. That is vastly beyond anything I have ever done. The more zinnias you have, the better your chances are of seeing some unusual new forms, even if you haven't cross pollinated any yourself.
This attached picture is of one of my hybrids-of-hybrids that is blooming indoors under my fluorescent lights right now. It recombines some floral features of scabiosa flowered zinnias with cactus flowered zinnias. I like the way the florets are becoming petaloids, and the guard petals are taking on a wild form from the cactus flowered influence.
ZM
Brave person. John.
Thanks, Zen Man and all for continued support and suggestions. I have my drip tape set up in the greenhouse, and the last few days the temp has been in the high 90s-100, but fans help...zinnias growing well and strongly, have not hoked up mazza injector yet, or added fertilizer....have a question on that...but will leave it for another post...assuming a 3-9-6 orchid bloom and calcium nitrate might be my first try at pushing the plants...rather I wanted to share with the group an interesting fungus or mold, white and with little antennae coming up, in one of my beds...I am not sure if it hurting the plants....but have bought at Agway, since I couldn't find GreenCure, there, a product called Sulfur, Plant Fungicide, from Bonide...tho it is supposed to be "organic", it is also used to kill fleas on dogs ! There is also no mention of the other 10% ingredients...which I find sad. I have tried a light dose of Baking soda....and it worked a but, but I wondered if the group might be interested to see the pics of the greenhouse and to weigh in on the mold. As you will see, I have started some seedlings in flats, some in plastic bags, some in beds....I have been lucky enough to receive seeds from a member of the group and have had much support to get this far. I hope to be able to take pics of some of the 100s of thousands of flowers I am attempting to grow and sell, with the hope it might benefit those interested in zinnia breeding here. Enough said...here are the pics
Pardon the spelling in last post, wow ! Writing quickly, as it is late, just finished watering and the goats might be having kids...wanted to share another pic....hope it is clear...
