When to collect zinnia seeds

When are you WS your columbine?
Even in your zone, I'd expect seedlings in April/May.
Up the mountain here, they are flowering in June/July,

You know, the more I hear from Karen and other "winter sowers" the less I think there is much difference between this approach and that of us "traditionalists" who have broadcast seeds outdoors or used a coldframe in winter and seeded under glass and/or lights in Spring.

It seems that you plan/time your plantings/sowings about the same as we do.

But, I mostly do veg.
Flowers are likely another trip entirely.
But maybe not!

I was going to start after Thanksgiving for a few seeds, some Columbine and Joe Pye Weed
everything else will not get started until Jan or Early Feb. with the tender ones, like Karen mentioned... not until April.

checking my notes from last year... the Columbine was sown on 3/19/2008 and i did not have a germination date ... but it was into the summer. [i was gone most of the summer.... I came home one day, and there were seedlings.] Had to have been end of June, early July.

Jim **looking at the clock** when do you sleep?

I guess I'd feel more comfortable if I could address tou as something other than tcs1366 (very Bradbury, that is!)

Sleep?

At my age one needs to spend more time medicating and removing aesthetically offensive hair than isleeping

To tell the truth, I don't think I OWN a clock!

OH... I usually add it... name's Terese.

well, i'm off to bed. it's about that time. 10.35pm

Sleep well, Terese!

I think the timing is very similar between winter sowing in vented containers and sowing in cold frames or direct sowing in winter... but the containers give you that mini greenhouse environment to protect the seeds/seedlings, and unlike a cold frame the containers are self-watering (mostly, anyway... in spring when it gets warmer, we don't always get enough rain & have to occasionally water the WS containers to keep the seedlings happy).

Jim,

I've done my columbines in winter. I wintersow all perennials and hardy annuals like poppies or bachelor buttons, larkspur then. I've had them germinate very early, like the first of march, and subsequent frost doesn't bother them a bit. It's only the real tender things, like zinnias, that I hold back until spring.

Here's some WSown zinnias just starting to bloom in June.

Karen

In early summer I rely on the perennials and hardy annuals for some color. This is in June, too.

Karen

In late summer they explode

Here you can see a wintersown tomato plant, about 6 ft. tall, to the left of the hibiscus. It has become my favorite tomato- "Snow White"

Karen

Here are my tomatoes, along the 4 ft. fence. Some are WSown, a few store bought. The ones in front which are very small are those that the deer enjoyed.

Last pic, the tomatoes when planted out, Memorial Day,

Great, Karen!

While I've only done WS for one year, one thing I really like is being able to move the plants quite easily - I try to keep the number of containers I have to as small an amount as possible - under 35 - so that I can move them if needed. Watering is easier too - but if there's some seed that I know will germinate well (requires a bit of study) then I go ahead and sow it insitu, as it were.

I do use the Journal in DG for tracking seeds I start, so I can easily recall what worked when, and what didn't. Otherwise, the only thing I track in a paper journal are things specific to the yard, so I'll have a record of work, etc. My own spreadsheets are ridiculous.....

I don't have a note in the DG Journal that I started Zinnias, yet I know I did, which means they were part of the "last round" which was in very early April. They went out into the yard as soon as they were ready, but still didn't have enough time to set seed. This coming year I plan to just do some broadcast sowing and see what I get :)

When you look at the "tail end" of both types of seeds, you can see on some the base of the petal that didn't quite break off - that's what I use to ID those puppies when I do get some seed to sort.

Robin

This has been so helpful! Thanks so much everyone!
I have giant purple zinnias that looked deep purple on the seed pack but are more lilac/pink. Love them anyway...they also seem to re-seed themselves a bit. I have new seedlings everywhere.

these next two photos show zinnias from the same seed packet.

.

Beautiful!!

I will throw out one more thing regarding the 2 different shapes of seeds. If I understand correctly they are ray seeds and disc seeds. Here's an article that explains it.
http://www.backyardnature.net/fl_comps.htm

Folks this thread has been most informative for me. Booplants, we must have bought the same brand zinnia seeds. Did you get yours from Crosman seeds? I bought the Dream Giant dahlia flowered and that one has yet to bloom. Ferry-Morse seeds had a beautiful dark purple one called Violet queen that has yet to bloom. I just looked at my handwritten record keeping of the flowers I wintersowed and I must have got tired of writing them down as I have no zinnias listed at all, but came across the empty seed packets mentioned above. Can't find the one that you picture but I have same one. Do you find that the birds are picking off the petals? I really am looking forward to seeing the other two colors bloom. The one that you pictured is a real tall one, how about yours? It really needed to be planted in the back of the border but when it came time to plant them, I was so overwhelmed, I didn't pay attention to hgt. or color, I just planted where there was blank space of soil available!
I will wintersow less this year and pay more close attention to the height dtetails. (Famous last words?)

I bought one plant of purlane(yellow)but planted it in the border. It seems to be in the succulent family? I'd never heard of it before, thought it was pretty but they do look better planted in a your containers. Maybe I should transplant mine to a container pot. I have it planted so it kind of creeping close or over the scallopped edging bricks, next to creeping yellow sedum that my daughter gave me. Just made myself a note to dig it up and plant into a container pot today, sort of 6-8 in. size? I don't think it needs a lot of water.

If window screening is too fine for seeds you save, MSCdirect.com sells hundreds of varieties of wire cloth for $4-$8 per 12" square. There is wire cloth with openings from 1" down to 0.0037".

I think the best bet should be "Stainless Steel Bolting Cloth" , but "Galvanized Steel After-Weaving wire cloth" also looks good, especially for coarser mesh sizes. The plain steel wire cloth on page 1808 is cheap but rusts VERY easily and I don't recommend it. Brass is classy but expensive.

You could go here and search for "wire cloth", then filter by opening size, or mesh per inch:
http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/N2DRVSH?SISHNO=14262710&SISRCH=1&SIS0NO=1492404&SIT4NO=92536880&SIOR=2

I prefer to go right to pages 1809 or 1810, and see them all at once:
http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNPDFF?PMPAGE=1806&PMITEM=52431277&PMCTLG=00

On page 1810, for around $5 per square foot, "Stainless Steel Bolting Cloth" looks designed for fine sifting. It lists 16, 18, 20, 24, 30, 40, 50, 60 & 74 mesh. The openings are 0.0037" to 0.053".

"Galvanized Steel After-Weaving wire cloth" on page 1809 has some cheap coarser options at 10, 14, 16 and 24 mesh (openings 0.014" to 0.080"). Mostly $4 but 12 mesh is $7.38 with 0.065" openings.

Page 1808 has Stainless steel "milling grade wire cloth", mostly for $8 / square foot.

I don't really know how to measure something like poppy seed down to the thousandth of an inch, but at this price, it's not too painful to buy a spread of mesh sizes

Katlian's blog has a great article on building a graduated SERIES of sieves from 3" or 4" PVC drain adaptors.
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/t/Katlian/10997/

If I do that this winter, I'll offer to trade some 3" or 4" wire cloth squares, and post what seeds pass through what opening sizes.

RickCorey_WA

Great information! I've been looking in vain for red and white Candy Cane seeds, but all the places I've checked offer a mix, rather than only red and white. If anybody has a suggestion, would be happy to know. Also, if I collect seeds from the two red and white flowers I have, will they come true?

I had Candy Cane once... i was not impressed with the color.
I also have Green Envy, and again, not impressed.

I do think most - if not all the seeds i've collected, do come true to the parent.

MSC must have re-organized their page numbers.

The best page for wire cloth for seives is now 1900:
http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNPDFF?PMPAGE=1806&PMITEM=52431277&PMCTLG=00

That has both "Stainless Steel Bolting Cloth"and
"Galvanized Steel After-Weaving wire cloth".

Page 1899 has "Milling Grade" wire cloth, with more open area and heavier than bolting cloth. But it is a little more expensive: $8 to $11 for a 12" x 12" square.

Last year I kept dead-heading until near the end of the season, then took Zinnia seed heads that had survived, even though the rainy season had started by then. I practically had to wring water out of each head before starting to dry them, and most were squishy-moldy and only good for compost.

Is it practical to stop dead-heading a few plants right now? Leave the blooms on a few good plants right now (while they are still growing vigorously, but rain is infrequent)?

I don't mind if the plants I stop deadheading "go to seed" and I have to pull them out after getting several heads each.

Or does the whole plant have to decide to die at the end of the year, to produce viable seeds?

The Zinnia seeds I saved from last year did well this year, even though last year was a mess of mongrel hybridization from several different inter-mixed packets. It will be interesting to see what the F3 generation looks like!

Corey

I don't think I've ever deadheaded zinnias, and they seem to bloom well enough for me without it. Maybe I'd get even more blooms if I deadheaded, but I'm lazy that way. :-)

I've had the same problem not being able to save seeds if the weather turns wet.

Okay, I know this is an old thread, but some of you posters are still active. So I have a question about zinnia seed saving?

If you plant a plot of zinnias that are OP but a mix of colors, will the saved seeds be a repeat mix of the same colors, or will the colors be "muddied" from cross pollination? I am thinking of Benary Giants mixed, which I believe is OP.

The pick is from last year's garden. I thought it was Benary Giant Pink, but after I looked at the enlargement of the thumbnail I think it's Double Click. Just wanted to "decorate my page."

Thanks,

Denise

Denise... I have to admit... i never think that 'deep' -- for me any bloom zinn is a beautiful zinn ... and I plant willy nilly.
I couldnt do color schemes if i tried.

hopefully someone would know...

but i think it they are cross pollinating - it could be anyone's guess what color they turn out to be. I could be totally wrong though. ;-)

There are OP mixes ("State Fair" and others) that can be grown year after year from seeds harvested the previous year, and although they probably do cross, I don't think "muddy" colors result. I think Bernary Giants are hybrids, aren't they? So I don't know if they come quite "true"... guessing colors wouldn't be muddy anyway, but maybe flowers could be a little different, not quite as double or not quite as big? On the other hand, the Profusion series (which I think are also hybrids) are supposed to come as close to true as makes no difference.. I'll see about them this year, as I have several trade packs of F2 seeds.

Thanks for your responses. I have to confess that my purpose is to save the seeds and sell them on eBay, so they have to be true. I purchase bulk packets of commercial seeds, split them and offer them on eBay. It's just a sideline hobby business; I probably don't even make any profit. (DH is retired and wants me to stay home, too, so I want to do SOMETHING!)

Many of the other eBayers produce their own seed, so I thought I would try that with something easy...like marigolds and zinnias. I'm considering planting a back yard full of ONE color.

It seems that Benary's Giant is an heirloom after all...

http://www.cherrygal.com/flowerannualzinniabenarysgiantheirloomseeds2012-p-5149.html

I just learned (from youTube!) how to pick the little arrowhead seeds out of the zinnia cone (is that the term?) I went out to our garden and picked a few cones from the dead-but-not-cleared zinnia plants. Will plant them just for fun to see if they grow.

After participating for the first time in the Hog swap (thanks Terese) I noticed that most of the contributions were gathered from people's own gardens. So I decided to investigate how to do that with the easiest seeds. This summer I will try to summon the fortitude to ferment tomato seeds. (I know you do that, Jill...I already wintersowed Limbaugh's Potato Top.)

Sorry, I should have looked the Bernarys up before responding! Why not offer them as a mix? Or do individual colors just sell lots better? I really don't think you're going to get a bunch of muddy colors, although of course the most certain course might be to grow them out at least one year to see what happens.

I've split packs a couple of times and sold some extras on Marketplace -- basically, enough to pay for the bigger packet and give me some "free" packs then to share with friends. When Joyanna gets old enough to be more of a help than not, LOL, we may do a little more of that sort of thing.

wanted to add... this isn't zinnias, but the way you mentioned cleaning the seeds reminded me... those newer fancy-colored coneflowers are mostly hybrids (mostly patented, also), and from what I've read their seeds usually grow out as "regular" purple coneflowers.

Jill -- it's funny you mentioned Coneflower... i have several varieties - at least 4 in the back, and they all seem to be the same color.

I've been saving and sowing a variety of Zinnias for a few years. As far as I can tell, even things like giants and Lilliput cross-pollinate.

I get some clear colors and some blurs, with purple/red/lavender being the blurriest. A few orange or yellow plants came out with clear colors.

I also got some variety of forms, but what mainly happened was that unusual forms like big double ginats and tiny bal--shaped Lilliput disapeared. Int he second and third year, I got mostly undistinguished shapes a little like daisies and medium-sized blooms predominated.

I had started selecting plants for TENDING to conserve certain colors, when I realized (or Zen_Man reminded me) that I could get much faster results by selecting one or another seed packet from a catalog, than by spending years and lots of garden space growing slowly towards what I did wnat. I don;t have any spare garden space!

ROFL! Yes, sometimes it's easier just to buy the seeds. A friend of mine has been growing "State Fair Mix" (pretty sure that's what she started with) for years and years, just by crushing and scattering the seedheads each year. So I think there are some OP mixes that are pretty stable.

Thanks for sharing your experience, especially with the big doubles and the Lilliputs!

My guess is that some traits and colors are dominant, and they come through clearly.

I noticed with Petunias from many different sources that white often came back very clear, but blue-red-pink-purple tended to run together.

Maybe I shouldn't say that "white stayed white", since many of the light blues, pinks and lavenders were undoubtedly a mix of white and some dark color. But "white" just looked very distinct from all those pale colors.


I looked it up, and these were some of the zinnia sources that went into my mongrel blend:

Zinnia California Giant Mix Zinnia elegans (these disapeared and were totally diluted in the next generation)
(I guess that extra-large and dramatic forms are only expressed when genetically pure. But, in the next 2 years, some somewhat odd-looking things did pop up.)

Zinnia Cut & Come Again Zinnia elegans pumila dome shape double pumila type
(The "little ball" blooms disapeared and most blooms were flat and, I guess, "single".)

Makes sense when you look at the higher price for some of the big hybrids... some of it's just name-marketing, I think, but those big dahlia-looking ones are worth paying for. I'm going to sow a whole lot of different zinnias (mostly saved seeds from various sources) around our mini-orchard, but I'm also going to sow some "special" (named/hybrids) ones in winter sowing jugs. :-)

I guess ebay buyers might care, but the butterflies like pretty much any size/color/form of zinnia! LOL

>> I guess ebay buyers might care, but the butterflies like pretty much any size/color/form of zinnia! LOL

I agree: names and ancestry matters more when selling or trqading, or if you are a breeder like Zen_Man. I became fond of the "double" form, or "spherical" blooms, maybe just beucase that was one of the earliest cutflowers I succeeded in producing.

What I like best about Zinnias is that they look cheerful, the plant is sturdy, and produces lots of blooms for a long time. And they last long in a vase.

Can anyone tell me where to find the seeds on annual geraniums, celosia and salvia? Thanks in advance