Zinnia - Another Annual

The zinnia has been a mainstay in the cutting garden or as an accent plant for generations. And it's easy to understand why. The more you cut for arrangements, the more blooms you have. You all are probably very familiar with the zinnia so I'm not gonna say much about its growing habit, diseases, insects . . .but I did want to share a couple of special ones with you.

Last spring I purchased about eight red tall zinnias to put in the middle of a bed and got about 12 dwarf yellow ones with which to border the bed. Just a few weeks into the drought, the red ones looked soooooo bad, I just pulled them out! But the yellow dwarf ones looked superb - so I left them.

They all have withstood the drought with no problem at all! I purchased them at a local nursery and have absolutely NO idea as to the name of them! Usually, I hang on to tags until I decided if I like the plant or not, but for some reason, I did not in this case!

It is a daisy-like single flower and it's growth habit is mounded. The blooms keep their brilliant yellow color for weeks and it requires very little deadheading! It hasn't been bothered by any insects and it doesn't get the brown/black looking junk on them like the regular zinnia .. and it never gets leggy as some of the older zinnias.

In early spring of 2012, I'll be back at that particular nursery with hopes that they'll have more. If they do, I'll buy a couple of trays (and hang on to the labels) for fillers in different beds . .if they don't, I'll keep searching until I find some; and when I do, I'll post the name of them. However, if anyone knows the name of the zinnia, please leave a comment so that we'll ALL know!

This past spring, Patsy sent me a ton of zinnia seed that she had harvested from her 2010 gardens and I broadcast them over a particular area. I got really good germination but for some reason I forgot to pinch them to make them bush; therefore the plants are tall (about 4.5') and leggy. But I still managed to get some really good blooms off them.

They were mostly reds and purples and here are some of the blooms they produced.

Thank you, Patsy, you made me smile during the drought! And I'll be more diligent with my pinching on next year's plants.