Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 6, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Hi Robin,

\" I can understand the fascination, what an amazing Genus Zinnia is. \"

I don\'t think we have scratched the surface of what zinnias can do.

\" I\'m sure attaining the plateau of \"novel recombinations of genes are the rule\" is a breeders paradise. \"

It is. That is not overstating it. When I started this hobby I never dreamed that it would get to this state. Every week or two something new \"pops up\". A case in point is the rather ugly Woolly zinnias. That first picture was taken today, and it seems to be another Woolly bloom with an approximately triangular shape. It has those closed-end sausage-shaped petals, which have interesting possibilities in cross pollinations.

The second bloom (picture also taken today) shows some influence from Woolly genes. The Woolly plays the part of \"the ugly duckling\" from the children\'s story and the second bloom is \"the beautiful swan\". Its petals have a vaguely sausage-shaped configuration, but they are open. The white petal backside coloration works well with it, and enhances the look of the inside baby pink coloration.

The overall silhouette of the bloom is approximately like a conventional zinnia, yet the bloom has a novel but subtle understated new look. I will eventually think of a name for it. I would like to turn that zinnia into a new strain of zinnias, with a complete color range and larger bloom sizes. More later. Snow is forecasted here for tomorrow.

ZM