Zinnia 'Profusion Cherry'

An amazing zinnia with its long-blooming season, continual color, and hardiness. No powdery mildew, very heat and drought tolerant durin...Read Moreg this hot, dry summer of 2023 in Enid, OK. The plant I have is the bi-color cherry, and I submitted one photo of it. This photo was taken 9-7-23 at the end of the summer. The colors were brighter earlier in the summer, but it is still most beautiful! So happy to have seeds and hope it comes back from seeds!

Didn't grow cherry, but a few other colors. Besides disease tolerance, Japanese Beetles left them alone while consuming other variety of zinnia.

Can't say enough about this extraordinary zinnia, noted for its total resistance to powder mildew (which kept me from growing zinnias for...Read More many years). It is profusely generous with vibrant-colored flowers lasting from April through December in my east-facing San Francisco garden. My favorite colors are white, orange, fire (a deep burnt orange), red (fairly new) and hot cherry. Hot cherry is closer to red than pink and holds its color much better than cherry, which tends to fade to subtle variations on pink. My favorite spring-through-fall plant for anywhere/everywhere in the garden; makes exquisite small bouquets.

These bushy dwarf plants (12-15" tall and wide) are great performers. Mildew resistant, drought and heat tolerant.

Profusi...Read Moreon Cherry seeds will come true, because all of the commercially available Profusion seeds are open pollinated varieties.

They were created from selected hybrid crosses between Z. violacea and Z. angustifolia. Those hybrids had 23 chromosomes, and hybrids with an odd-numbered chromosome count are usually sterile. That problem was solved by doubling the number of chromosomes to 46, by using colchicine.

The result is a true-breeding open pollinated new species of zinnia, named Z. marylandica in honor of the University of Maryland, where much of the preliminary breeding work was done. The term "hybrid" is applied to the Profusions, Zaharas, and Pinwheels (all Zinnia marylandicas) because hybrids were used in their creation, but they themselves are not hybrids. Referring to them as hybrids has caused some unfortunate confusion.