Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3, 0 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
t,

I am not growing Zowie, because I don't want to introduce its naked central cones topped with pollen florets into my zinnia gene pool. They remind me a bit of a plucked chicken with a few small feathers left on the tail. I have been able to get plenty of bicolor and tricolor zinnias without growing Zowie by growing Whirligigs and Zig Zags and crossing with them.

Pollen florets are attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds for their nectar, but as flower components they are not so good, because they fade and wither within a day and accumulate as brown mummified remains on the flower. That is why I am interested in crossing with the scabiosa flowered zinnias, because their florets are modified petals that retain their color just like the regular petals.

I took this picture today of one of my echinacea flowered zinnia hybrids that bloomed out a couple of days ago. Notice that, instead of fuzzy yellow pollen florets, it has petal-colored florets. I also like its modified guard petals, which are somewhat different from the seed packet scabiosa flowered zinnias. It's also considerably larger than the seed packet scabiosa flowered zinnias. All of my echinacea flowered zinnia hybrids were created by crossing selected scabiosa flowered zinnias with selected larger flowered zinnias. I'll be crossing this zinnia with various other zinnias to increase its flower size and to further improve its flower form.

ZM