Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 5, 0 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Robin,

"Have you seen one like that on the market? I rather like 'sister' pagoda too."

I haven't seen one like it advertised or on the picture of a cactus strain seed packet or catalog entry, but I think that if you grow a lot of cactus flowered zinnias, you will probably find one or more like it, or very similar to it. You might find one even better. Over at GardenWeb, a zinnia breeder, Jackie R, showed a picture of one very much like it and possibly better. They aren't extremely common, but they aren't super rare either. Because bees do so much accidental hybridization, field-grown zinnias can show a lot of variation that doesn't get into the catalog pictures or seed packet pictures.

And you can induce more variation by crossing cactus type zinnias with other types, like Whirligigs. Whirligigs can be a "secret sauce" when you cross them with cactus-type zinnias. The F1 hybrids may not be so remarkable, but further recombinations in F2, F3, and beyond generations can bring out characteristics that were not obvious in either the original cactus zinnias or the original Whirligig zinnias. And the scabiosa flowered zinnias are full of variations and breeding potential. That "pagoda" cactus may actually have some scabiosa "blood" in it, like in the attached picture of a scabiosa hybrid.

ZM