Zaney Zinnias
I keep delaying writing about Zinnias because I’m never sure I can come up with anything interesting to say about them - but they’re champion flowers. They originally came from Mexico, although what they looked like is probably a far cry from the hybridised beauties we see today. There are a few Zinnia species, but a large majority of what we buy today are Zinnia elegans. They come in short, tall, singles, doubles, lemon, pink, and even green! Why anyone wants a green flower is beyond me. Personally that’s what leaves are for. But each to their own I guess. And I guess it was a challenge worth taking up!
Zinnia “QM Blush” - a locally bred hybrid.
Zinnias will grow happily in most places as long as they have full sun. They can suffer from powdery mildew if they don’t get enough airflow (their hairy stems and leaves probably don’t help here!) and they can also get bacterial leaf spot which I’m sad to say mine all have - but it doesn’t affect their flowers so I just let them be. If you nip out the initial flower bud, the plants will bush out, and regular dead heading also helps provide more blooms. I’m slack though and don’t. Leaving the dead flower heads means they quite happily self seed and will come up in droves once the rain starts. Nothing says a summer garden more than bright and cheery Zinnias.
Zinnias have popped up all through my front garden. I don’t do as I say though - there’d be more blooms if I pinched out the top of each of these!
They’re also so bright and cheery they were chosen to be sent into space as part of a veggie growing experiment. Technically Zinnias are edible (I didn’t say tasty), but they were taken to help understand how plants flower in space as a precursor to the tomatoes to follow!
A cabbage white butterfly making do with my Zinnia. No brassicas here!