Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 5, 4 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Brenda,

"I cannot imagine a 1/4 pound of zinnia seed. Yes, quite the bargain."

I actually purchased a quarter pound package of Whirligigs from Stokes a few years ago. I will be planting the last of those this Spring. One advantage to having a huge excess of seeds is that you can pour some of them out on a sheet of white paper and go through them, picking out your "favorite" individual seeds.

I have noticed that there is some correlation between petal seed shape and the shape of the petal. Long thin seeds tend to produce zinnias with long thin petals. Broad seeds produce broad petals. If you are going for bigger flowers, pick out the biggest seeds. You probably don't need the 1/4-pound package right now, or maybe for years, but there are advantages to getting the big package anyway. Namely, you can get "pick of the litter" by selecting out the individual seeds that appeal to you. There is a lot of difference between the individual seeds, and a big package of seeds lets you take advantage of those differences.

"Your # 3 (center) must be what you refer to as your scabocia zinnia? "

It was produced by crossing a scabiosa flowered zinnia with a "regular" larger zinnia. And perhaps crossing two of those scabiosa hybrids together. There was a lot of scabiosa crossing involved. The big attraction of scabiosa flowered zinnias to me is that the scabious flower form doesn't have those "fuzzy yellow starfish" pollen florets. Instead, their florets have the petal color and can build up an attractive petal-colored center. If Whirligig ancestry is involved, the scabious florets can have a contrasting color to the petal color, but still not be "fuzzy yellow". One current source of scabious zinnias is the Scabious Flowered Mixed strain from Thompson & Morgan:

http://www.tmseeds.com/product/Zinnia-Scabious-Flowered-Mixe...

Parks Seeds offers the newer Candy Mixed strain:

http://parkseed.com/candy-mix-zinnia-seeds/p/51989-PK-P1/

The Scabiosa flowered and Candy Mix strains are probably available from other seed companies as well. Swallowtail Gardens is one source:

http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/assets/zinnia_scabiosa...

I should add one qualifier about the scabious zinnia strains currently in the marketplace. Namely, they don't produce a high percentage of the scabious flower forms, and there will be a lot of non-scabious specimens that you will probably want to cull and discard. As a zinnia breeder, I am happy if I get one good zinnia in 20, but a lot of gardeners would be appalled to find so many off-type specimens. Just be mentally prepared that your commercial scabious zinnias will contain a lot of culls. But, to me, the few "good ones" make up for it. Not all people would be as forgiving as me.

I am attaching a few pictures of my zinnias that were derived from scabious crosses. There were many more than are shown in this 5-picture gallery.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)

This message was edited Nov 21, 2013 12:36 PM