Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 4, 0 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Corey,

"Seed catalogs are going to show blooms with optimum development, and the Benary Giants I grew weren't even "double", let alone piled higher and deeper into a sphere."

Not all seed catalog pictures of Benary's Giants show "perfect" full rounded blooms. Here are a couple of examples that show more realistic pictures.

http://www.selectseeds.com/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/041176.1.58801...

http://www.territorialseed.com/category/156/a

"But, this year, no Zinnia that survived came out as I had hoped. Oh, well, that's what next year is for."

Let's hope you get a least a few full nearly rounded zinnia blooms this year. If you cull out the rejects and save seeds from your favorite rounded blooms, you should have a better results in the next generation.

I don't know how it is in your growing season, but here in the MidWest it is possible to grow two generations of zinnias outdoors in the same year, by starting the first generation early under fluorescent lights and setting them out in a fairly advanced stage after the danger of frost has passed. Then, by saving green seeds from the first blooms, you can plant them and get a second generation that can set viable green seeds before a killing frost.

I think I have discussed the green-seed zinnia technique before. By using green zinnia seeds, you save the several weeks that it takes for a zinnia bloom to die and become a dry brown seedhead. A full zinnia head that is still alive with colored petals can have viable green seeds with living embryos in them. When you save green seeds in the Fall, spread them out on something like an old newspaper to dry out before you package them for storage.

But if you are plucking green seeds out of your zinnia heads to start a second generation, just split the seed jacket some way to let the embryo inside get immediate contact with water. Otherwise, you have to wait for the green seed jacket to die before it becomes water permeable, and that can take two weeks or so. The seed coat of a green seed is itself still living, and impermeable to water. There are several other advantages to the green seed technique, as an alternative to the conventional practice of letting the zinnia blooms die and become brown before saving the seeds.

Some scabious zinnia specimens can have rounded flower forms, as in the attached picture.

ZM