A walk through the zinnias
August 01, 2024
If you love zinnias as much as I do, then this is your post! It's packed with pictures of the new varieties I planted this year and I'll share my honest opinions. This was an exciting year for zinnia lovers because this old fashioned flower has been getting a lot of attention. Roses have always been the darlings of breeders, and in recent decades both peonies and dahlias have received a lot of attention, but recently breeders have settled onto the humble zinnia. I have been following along like a fangirl and as a long time zinnia lover I found all this terribly exciting. This year I grew some of the newest varieties and I invite you to read on to find out what I loved and didn't love.
Zinnias are easy to grow, reliable, sturdy, long lasting, and make excellent cut flowers so it's very good that they are getting more attention. Zinnias came in gorgeous lollipop colors but the new wave of breeders were looking for something different. We already had colors that popped and sizzled, so how about some subtle shades that glowed and shimmered? They had my attention.
About five plus years ago Queen Lime Zinnias were introduced to the commercial florist market and the home gardener. Zinnia lovers went crazy for them. Instead of the crayon box colors we were familiar with, Queen Lime's blooms were dusty shades of red, blush, orange and coral tinged with lime and most are fully double. They looked like they belonged in a dreamy tinted photograph from a century ago. Romantic is the word! Home gardeners were smitten, including me, and since then I've always planted a few flats of the Queens in my zinnia border.
Perhaps encouraged from this great success, a few other breeders recently put their hats into the zinnia ring, including the popular Floret and Dawn Creek breeders. Dawn Creek is quite small and markets their zinnias under Floret, which is also pretty small, but besides breeding, Floret also has seed collection, packaging, and shipping capabilities. Developing a new variety takes many years and as these seeds were just out of trial, they were quite expensive. Because of the cost I just ordered three seed varieties to try, Unicorn Zinnia, Dawn Creek Pastels Zinnia and CanCan Girls Dahlias. Of the three, I will order the Dawn Creek Pastels again, a mixed variety of pastels that include singles, doubles, cactus and tufted and include some champagnes and buffs, new to the zinnia world.
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| Floret's Dawn Creek Pastels, a champagne colored zinnia and very unusual. |
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| More Dawn Creek Pastels. Love the tufted zinnia on the upper right. The yellow at the bottom is Unicorn Mix. |
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| Profusion Cherry is a popular ever-blooming small and tidy border zinnia. Most seed companies offer this variety and I will never be without it. |
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| Eden's Exquisite. This is a nice mix of beautiful pinks. Will buy again. |
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| I always plant at least one flat of cosmos. I'm fairly certain this is Cupcake. |
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| Another interesting color from Dawn Creek Pastels, more like a shade of buff changing to pink as it ages. |
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| I like the bright pinks the best! |
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I was hoping for more tufted pincushion type (aka cupcake) zinnias like the pink one in the center, because I love them! Unfortunately they are more temperamental and cannot be relied upon, so if you order tufted varieties, you can only count on 25% at most being tufted. The rest will be singles. All the varieties you see above are from the Dawn Creek Pastels from Floret, except for the little Cherry Profusion border. I was happy to see the champagne colored cactus variety zinnia and the frilly pale orange zinnias pop up. |
Above and below, Dawn Creek Pastels in the house.
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| A little break from zinnias because there are more tomatoes and more sauce! This time I had to fire up both ovens! |
I also ordered dahlia seeds from Floret, above and below. We think of dahlias as being tubers, and they are, but you can purchase seeds too. In the first year they will turn into tubers for replanting and reblooming for years to come. The variety is Cancan Girls which promised anemone and tufted varieties. I am less than impressed and will only save four of the tubers come fall. But I really shouldn't be so harsh. Four beautiful dahlias is actually not a bad return.
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Above and below, three anemone type dahlias with egg yolk centers are three of the dahlias I will save.
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| This is my favorite dahlia of the bunch; fully tufted and a gorgeous fuchsia color and it has many buds and blooms. |
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| This is a dahlia from a tuber I've saved for many years. It's a dinnerplate variety, named for its large size. |
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| I planted borage around the veg garden for their edible flowers. They taste faintly of cucumber and retain their color in salads. So pretty! |
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| Every morning I wake up to a few casualties. One or two bites, then thrown aside. Absolutely maddening. |
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| More of the Queen Lime series. I will always have these in my zinnia garden. They positively glow at sunset and look happy and vibrant in the bright sun. |
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| Eden Brothers Exquisite. Will plant again. |
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| Cosmos Cupcake. Gorgeous! |
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| More of the Exquisite variety. Here you can see some of the single varieties with a pronounced seed head, not sure what it's called, maybe a stigma? On top of it are the yellow anthers that contain the pollen. You can see why zinnias are magnets to butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. Every year I do my best to keep my zinnias through October to help out the pollinators, but at some point they completely dry out and shrivel up. |
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| Buff colored zinnias from Floret called Dawn Creek Pastels. Some are tufted, some have cactus petals, some have both! |
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| More Dawn Creek Pastels, this one a pale coral. I love the color tipped edges on the top left. |
If you have stayed to the end you must love zinnias as much as I do! The last thing I'll say is yes, I will order the Dawn Creek Pastels again. The blooms are fairly large on strong plants, have good staying power, are disease free in my Northern California garden and the germination was good, not great, but good. This mix will only improve over time as the breeders continue to work on these new varieties. Next year I will also try another pastel variety from Floret, maybe Alpenglow. I will also order some pink mix varieties from Eden Brothers and ZinniaSeeds.com. I'll always have Profusion and Queen Limes. The Exquisite variety from Eden is very reliable. If you have the time, take the links and drool over the beautiful varieties. I should note that I don't save seed. My flowers are cross pollinated by our many bees and butterflies who have been exceptionally active this year, and will not stay true.
All in all it was a fun year for me to try some new varieties. Thank you for allowing me to share. What flowers do you grow? I hope your summer is beautiful!
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12 Comments
Your flowers are stunning. I love the colors of the Dawn Creek zinnias. The colors remind me of Antique colored pansies. This post was like a walk in a Cotswalds garden..
ReplyDeleteThank you. I remember when those pansies came out. We all went crazy over them. They looked like they should have been on grannie's bonnet on Sunday!
DeleteThose zinnias are gorgeous. A Martha Stewart article decades ago showed just how much variety they are capable of, and now you are reporting a major new breeding in pastels. (I have to say, though, I really prefer the bright ones!). Chloe
ReplyDeleteGood old Martha, I remember that she always love zinnias, hollyhocks, bachelor buttons, all the old cottage varieties. I miss her magazine!
DeleteAlso my grandmother planted zinnias and anything she grew is my fave. Chloe
ReplyDeleteSweet old fashioned flowers beloved by all us grannies!
DeleteA wonderful post. I just put in some ratther ordinary zinnia plants from the nursery but they're still delighting me. Next year: seeds!
ReplyDeleteAnd Jack can start them! Have you checked out the links I gave? So many gorgeous flowers.
ReplyDeleteI am thoroughly dizzy from the lovely zinnias. Here I try to concentrate in not allowing the perennials to turn into invasive weeds. However, between the humidity and the mosquitoes, our garden has to take care of itself.
ReplyDeleteAww, thank you so much. It sounds like your garden can take care of itself if perennials grow so well. Where do you live?
DeleteYour zinnias are stunning! I downsized when I moved to Ohio but now I want a garden! 😁
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! We are right behind you in downsizing--perhaps another five years.
DeleteYou make my day when you make a comment!