Zinnias

[ddsack]

I've decided that next year I'm going to run baling twine down each side of any zinnia row to keep them from flopping over.

Yeah, I always plan to do this and it never gets done! I have some old metal rod hook together sections that I used to use on delphiniums but I can't remember which hidey hole I tossed them in, they would be perfect. I also read about using large sticks in a Y shape to stick in the ground in front of floppy flowers for support.

[GoDawgs]

I finally DID run the twine along the zinnias but just on the outside of each row! And it works but I always check when I do a garden walk to make sure some of the younger branches haven't started going under the twine. When they're long enough they get tucked behind the twine. Works great!

[DriftlessRoots]

I’m enjoying looking at all these photos. Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers. I skipped planting any this year in favor of growing some huge marigolds. I bought some Queeny Lime Mix for next year. Then at a garage sale this spring a lady was selling cheese spread tubs of zinnia seed for fifty cents. I got a tub of “pink” and figure there are the equivalent of ten commercial seed packets in there at least. I started a few and found a spot to plant them out to see what they look like.

[karstopography]

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I’ve been saving seeds from mine this year. Hope to fill up the bag with the saved seeds. I see some volunteers coming up around the base of the plants. We’ve been cutting them for arrangements.

[MissS]

I learned something about Zinnias yesterday. If you keep saving the seeds of mixed color zinnias over the years they will revert back to being all pink, or so they say.

[DriftlessRoots]

I learned something about Zinnias yesterday. If you keep saving the seeds of mixed color zinnias over the years they will revert back to being all pink, or so they say.

Huh. I wonder if that’s from intercrossing and eventually winding up with the dominant pink genes.

[MissS]

@DriftlessRoots Yes I would assume that the dominant color is pink.

[GoDawgs]

I learned something about Zinnias yesterday. If you keep saving the seeds of mixed color zinnias over the years they will revert back to being all pink, or so they say.

Now that's interesting. I'm going to have to keeps tabs on mine going forward and if they do revert, how many generations it took. Another experiment!

[OmarLittle]

Our small zinnia patch where I just scattered our zinnia seeds last year. Plan on doing this again this year. No planning just spread them out and see which varieties come up. Saved a bunch of seeds that I will sow again this year

[GoDawgs]

I learned something about Zinnias yesterday. If you keep saving the seeds of mixed color zinnias over the years they will revert back to being all pink, or so they say.

I just read this again and made a note next to the zinnias on this year's planting list to use collected seed from last years reds and oranges in this year's garden. They'll also be marked for collection again this year. Inquiring minds want to know, no matter how long it takes!

[MissS]

I learned something about Zinnias yesterday. If you keep saving the seeds of mixed color zinnias over the years they will revert back to being all pink, or so they say.

I just read this again and made a note next to the zinnias on this year's planting list to use collected seed from last years reds and oranges in this year's garden. They'll also be marked for collection again this year. Inquiring minds want to know, no matter how long it takes!

What a great idea. A fun project/experiment. Keep us posted, as inquiring minds want to know.

[ddsack]

I kept track of the saved colors of zinnia seeds one year in hopes of regrowing the same color as harvested from. I only saved flame orange, red, and white blossoms. Of course since they were all growing in the same mixed bed to start with, who knows what the cross pollination was like. As best I can recall, none of the whites came up white. I think the flame orange % were pretty good, and a few reds too. But I ended up with quite a few of the magenta pink shade overall, which was NOT one that I saved from.

[Karla66]

Pretty!

[karstopography]

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Various Zinnias. Something is eating the foliage.

[Tormato]

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Various Zinnias. Something is eating the foliage.

Late at night, the baby butternuts go on the prowl?

[karstopography]

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Various Zinnias. Something is eating the foliage.

Late at night, the baby butternuts go on the prowl?

Honeynuts, are they herbivores?

Hoping for a Bt or Spinosad air strike soon since the caterpillars, mostly fall webworms and armyworms, are pretty much everywhere and eating most everything. Might have to do the work myself. I think the nasty stormy stuff has departed for a time and that might allow the caterpillarcidal material to hang around long enough to do something good.

[Tormato]

IMG_4290.jpeg

Various Zinnias. Something is eating the foliage.

Late at night, the baby butternuts go on the prowl?

Honeynuts, are they herbivores?

Hoping for a Bt or Spinosad air strike soon since the caterpillars, mostly fall webworms and armyworms, are pretty much everywhere and eating most everything. Might have to do the work myself. I think the nasty stormy stuff has departed for a time and that might allow the caterpillarcidal material to hang around long enough to do something good.

Anything on your pole beans?

Many years ago, I used to get something chewing through mine. I'd have 100+ varieties, 600+ plants, and they'd only attack one ore two specific varieties each year. I remember that one of the varieties was grown by a gardener, in town, continually for a few decades. He received seeds from, at that time, and elderly person in town who likely was growing it since just after WWII. I wonder if generations of whatever bug was eating it, somehow acquired a taste for that one bean variety.

On a side note, I figured that this gardener, in his 80s, was maybe starting to get Alzheimer's disease. One October, I asked him for a few of his seeds for the next year, as I gave most of mine away, and what I had left was getting old. A few weeks later, early November, he shows up at my door with a few bean plants that he started.

[karstopography]

My Emerite beans are essentially done. There’s tons of beans on them, but they are zombie beans, curled like a C or a fish hook, darker green than normal and suspended in 1/3 sized of a harvestable size. A few somewhat normal beans can be found sorting through the others. Once the nights stay well in the 70°s for a few strung together, the fuse is lit.

This happens every year during prolonged periods of very warm, high dewpoint nights. This year this happened earlier than in past seasons. I have to adjust my plant out date a little earlier.

I might do some pole beans this fall in addition to the bush beans. Fall is becoming the better time to do beans here than the spring, longer period of production.