When to collect zinnia seeds

Hon,
Take it from a guy who does all the cooking and home stuff:
The DR table is AT LEAST for 1 meal a week ( I try to do both Sat & Sun) if for nothing more than to show your partner (or even yourself, if you are single) that she/he(you) is/are special.

Gramma always fed us on the round oak table in the dining room when us kids came to visit. It not only added to her 'mystique', it made us feel special; and I think that at least once a week we who tend the home fires need to let our "others" feel special.

OK -- i have to admit... i'll use it more than for just on holidays.... and they all think i'm weird
Mom, why are we eating in the Dining Room ?

I also have to admit... i dont cook much anymore.... after 23 yrs, no one really appreciates it... well, my youngest does.

DH prefers to eat out, and the kids are either working or with girlfriends.... BUT - i am trying to get the seeds cleaned up, really I am.

Mon ami then where do you put all your drying seeds, and piles of gardening notes and your Book of Lists??? I need all the flat surfaces in the big thing in the middle of the garden for this tres important stuff.

All over the place!

It truly can be tedious Terese if you really want it clean. But I usually whip my tray out whilst watching a favorite TV show and I can usually get a few bags cleaned and packaged in an hour.

(I'm trying to recall the last time I used the dining room table and I'm afraid it's been so long ago that it's escaped my memory banks. I think I'll eat at Jim's this weekend.)

>>I think I'll eat at Jim's this weekend

ROFLMAO !! oh he'd love that... all of us coming for a nice home cooked meal to sit at a DR table.

I have to say... back to the Zinnias...

yesterday, being windy ... i took all my seed heads, about 10 big ones and put it all in one of those 5qt Ice Cream plastic buckets... and went out to sit at the picnic table. Just by 'sifting' thru and with the help of the wind... all the 'other stuff' was blown away, and possibly a few seeds... but oh well.

i have to admit, not much was left. I did see a lot of what looked like the seeds, but they were almost a transparent white .. so i'm guessing they were underdeveloped seeds.

Should they have been left on the plant longer, so the seeds could mature? There is still A LOT out there

My neighbor [bless her heart] came over with 2 paper bags of seed heads. The Orange Profusion Zinnias and a tons of marigolds -- like i need more marigolds... but 90 of 'em were still 'damp' even the colorful petals were still attached.

will these dry like they would out on the plants? again .. they are spread out on paper plates on the DR table.

Should work if you leave the flower head intact (or as much as you have) and keep turning them to make sure they dry evenly. Wait til they're crispy before harvesting the seeds.

gotcha

I've noticed zinnias have little white papery husks between the seeds, so that may be what looked like underdeveloped seeds.

I love to cook, so just give me 24 hours notice!

I also gave a VERY large aquarium, and the top of that, which is heated by the lights, is a most excellent spot for drying seeds. Steam radiators, kept down low are also good. Top of the computer tower. My desk. The summer kitchen counters.

But, can't let anything interfere with cooking and eating!

gemini sage - thank you for the referral to swallowtail gardens and Pinetree Gardens. They are definitely cheaper than the place I buy them from. I will give them a try next spring. Here's where I've been buying my seeds: www.johnnyseeds.com
They are located in Maine so I feel good about supporting them.


The quality is excellent, however the price is a little steep. My seeds have been coming in a packet of 50 for $2.65 give or take a little.

I posted some pics on the cut flowers forum of the last cut of the season. :(

Lynn

zinniagirl, I have leftover seed from this spring of individual colors, and still have more than I'll need for next spring if you'd like some. I'm sure I can spare at least a dozen seed from each color: Cherry Queen, Purity (white), Lavender Queen, Enchantress (pink), Royal Purple, Scarlet King, and Aztec Orange. They were all nice, full doubles, and all tall for cutting.

I would love them! Would you be interested in trading? I have some moon flower seeds I could send you. I haven't been a seed collector but am learning now. I will definitely start collecting seeds next year. I have lots of unusual native plants that I wish I would have collected the seeds from. I also have some bug bane seeds.

Let me know!

Sure, I'd love some Moonflower seeds! I had both the vining Ipomoea and Datura types growing this year, but the drought kept the vines from going to seed, and the Datura was in the way of the backhoe man just as the seeds were ripening. Hmmm...I think I would like to try the bugbane too. It grew wild at my old home in the woods, it would be nice to see it in the garden again.
Neal

Hey Neal - do you find they all come true? I have a few that I love, but unfortunately they are hybrids. The other varieties don' t mention anything about hybrid so I am not sure.

Anita, with most of the hybrid zinnias they won't come true, or some may, but a percentage will usually vary- typically smaller blooms and fewer petals. I really like my big, fully double zinnias, so will probably continue to purchase seed. As an experiment I collected seeds from my Magellan zinnias this summer. I'm pretty sure the offspring won't be nearly as compact as the parents, but I'm curious what they'll do. I think some of the older varieties, like Thumbelina, come true, or at least I know people save seed from them. The little profusion zinnias come true from seed- I'd like to try more colors of those (I have Cherry), very forgiving little plants.

I had similar results. With my profusions the offspring were identical to the parents. Dreamland series (similar to Magellan) produced many different seedlings. The parents were beautiful coral color. Most offspring were the same color but one was the ugliest bright orange! The parents were about a foot tall, but babies ranged from one to four feet. Some were singles, some double.

Other than profusions, if there were a type I really wanted, I'd buy new commercial seeds.

Karen

I figured that. It's a lot easier to know when the labeling of the seed indicates whether it's hybrid or not. thanks.

I buy all seeds from Johnnys seed. The Va Tech Hort gardens buy their seeds from them and I've used them with great results. Go to the commercial side vs. the home gardener side and you can buy in bulk. I got purple giant zinnia in 1/4 pound size and had a huge patch of one color - stunning. Every seed you get from them will promise a great plant.

so -- if i understand this correctly, a Hybrid seed is an open pollinated seed [when folks use the OP]
and the Commercial Seeds, would then come true to color ?? and the OP is just wishful hoping on what you will get?

Hybrids are created deliberately by growers, often hand pollinating one plant with another to carry desirable traits to the new plant. They can also be formed by open pollinated plants within a garden.

Heirlooms, on the other hand, have been found stable through successive generations, bringing their traits along even when open pollinated. If you sow seeds from heirlooms you will most likely get offspring exactly like the parent.

At least, that's my understanding. But my understanding of plant genetics is very limited.

Karen

thanks Karen... Heirloom was the term that escaped me.

makes sense... thanks.

yes - hybrids do not occur naturally. I found this. It is very interesting. http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/vegetables/seed.html

thanks -- I've picked out a few new Zinnias in the Seed Co-op... i figure, since it's one of the last co-ops, i wanted to participate.

zinniagirl, I've got your seeds ready to mail, just need your addy. You've got dmail.

Hey gang - glad to see that I'm not the only one who was in her front yard peering at Zinnias and trying to figure out where in the heck the seeds were. Oh well - I got mine in a little late, so while they did bloom they weren't out long enough to set seeds. The Snaps, on the other hand....

Heya Dryad... been wondering where you have been?

still out in the garden, huh? too dang cold here....

nah, finally out of the garden - now we're doing the "Fall House Cleanup"; garage, windows, basement - the works :-) Once I get done updating my spreadsheets I'll finally be able to dump my Piggie List on the other thread. And it's too dang cold here - but still at least close to 32 and not into single digits.

I was just sortign thru all my zinnia packets, when i stumbled upon one that read "Jumbo Tetra" and when i peeked at the "seeds", i realized they are not the seeds, but i believe the outer 'shell' of the spent flower head...

I am correct, aren't I? [that they are not seeds?]


This message was edited Nov 29, 2008 5:06 PM

Therese, those look like the seeds to me. They look pretty typical of the larger flowered zinnias. The profusion types and species have smaller, flatter seed.

When ever i'm separating seeds from the 'other stuff' ... i was always throwing that stuff away!! no wonder i always thought there were not a lot of seeds.

I just opened the Zinnia packs i got from Summerhill.

"Red spider" and "Giant Cactus"

The Giant Cactus has the ones that i always knew were seeds, plus the ones that look like 'arrow heads'
like the image i posted above.

so -- now i have to assume that BOTH are the seeds??

Basically, yes! They are both the seeds. If you look at them closely enough (like under a good magnifying glass like old guys like me use to to almost everything these days!) you'll see that they are really all the same!

How do you plant to sow them? How many are you expecting to sow? What germination rate do you need to get what you want? Answers to these questions will suggest what you do next (and what you can learn from it for next year).

Those red spider have odd little seeds don't they?

I've noticed the seeds to vary quite a bit from each other sometimes. And with some it seemed like the ray flowers produced bigger seeds than the disc flowers- that may be what you're seeing.

Jim -- last year, Mar 2008, i attempted to sow them indoors. all but 1 died as seedlings.
I did Candy Cane and Green Envy. the ONE candy cane survived.

Around here, they best is just to direct sow. If they sprout tll early, a late frost will kill them.

Maybe i'll do a few as WS and some Direct, as i do have A LOT of seeds now.
but either way... i will not do them in doors ... i dont have much room, only a southern window in my DR [dining room] *wink*

just glad i did not dump that baggie that i thought was junk.

My neighbor is a zinnia nut ... she just scatters seeds in all the beds... so between the two of us... there are hundreds of plants.

Neal -- thanks for the info. I would have thought they would all be similar.

Uggg, i can't believe how many seeds i actually threw away thinking they were junk.

Terese

Terese:

Well, actually, I was thinking that if you were only going to sow a few, you could do some comparative germination testing during the winter.
Sounds to me like you had "damping off", which has nothing to do with the seed but with the growing conditions.

I've had differing results with "open-seeding" of zinnias. Down my old dog's memorial garden, her zinnias reseed freely; but they often do not germinate until so late that, this year, the blooms came at the same time as the frost. In other cases, broadcast seeds don't germinate at all or are eaten by birds.
Other broadcast seeds produce so thickly that they "drown" one another out.

I basically have abandoned the broadcast sowing of zinnias that my grandmother relied upon. For the last couple of years, I've done the "indoors-under-lights" sowing that I have done with my tender veggies. That has worked well, and been far cheaper than buying them as bedding plants!

This year, I will try some WS, some broadcast Spring planting (because I have LOTS of seed this year) and some indoor sowing and see how it all goes and compares.

I always throw my old seed in the compost bin. Amazing how many transplants I get from there!

Drown out like this image


that is what my neighbor does.

aside from the broadcasting of seeds... she did sow seeds in a pot... not necessarily WS, but in the spring, she sprinkled a bunch of seeds in a rectangular pot ... which she then transplanted into the flower beds. All the Zinnias bloomed at the same time.

I do recall my 1[indoor sown] Candy Cane bloomed before all the others.

I will try to keep better tack of the germination of my seeds this year... every year, i try to do better. I had kept good track of some data, but lost it this June when i had some PC troubles.

This message was edited Nov 29, 2008 7:14 PM

Hey, Terese:

Unless you are doing hybridization or have other essential reasons for charting dates/temps, etc., I have become convinced by nearly 6 decades of gardening that such journalization is useless.

I can say that in 199X I transplanted Veg Q on 5 May, when temps were 65 high and 48 low; and, so what?
Is that a guide to transplant Veg Q on 5 May in 200X? Or to transplant when temps are between 65 and 48? Or what?

With zinnias, we are thinking in terms of WIDE ranges of germination, flowering, etc.!

As a gardener, you will have a feel for what worked last year; and you will repeat it this year.

No, I was just thinking like this:
If you are not sure whether to use one "shape" of seed or the other, you could do a simple germination test to see if there were any difference between the shapes and then sow accordingly, Easier if you only plan to sow a few seeds. On the other hand, if you want a big zinnia bed, you might want to broadcast and WS as backup (I think that some WSers overestimate the "disruptive" effects of wind, precipitation, birds and other "predators". I have "winter-sown" onions for years, and any gaps in my "lines" can also easily be credited to normal "failure to germinate".)

In fact, at the moment, I am approaching WS as a backup to "broadcast" and a possible alternative to indoor sowing under lights.

This is one case where I will maintain a journal, just to be sure I have treated all alternatives fairly and that I know why I am doing what I am doing in later years (one of the scariest things about aging is finding yourself repeating last year's failures!)

>>(one of the scariest things about aging is finding yourself repeating last year's failures!)

LOL -- Jim -- thanks for that observation.

that is also something i'm trying to keep from happening.

and i dont chart temps... just dates. I was going to use this info for the WS database here on Daves.
I track dates sown and dates germinated.... like last year, i noticed it took MONTHS for columbine to germinate, where other things were weeks, once it was warming up... so i will know that if i do columbine again...not to expect seedlings until June or July.

I dont have much of a scientific approach to sowing.

I do my zinnias in jugs, just like all the others, I just wait until about April to start them. By then the weather is fairly warm and they usually germinate in a few days. I do them just like WSown, maybe add a few extra vent holes. I just wait until spring to avoid those late frosts. If a frost should occur, I close up the jug, and, if temps are really low, I might throw a sheet over them too. This has worked pretty well for me.

Karen