Saturday, August 20, 2011

From little seeds mighty zinnias grow


This ‘Purity’ zinnia was the first zinnia I’ve ever grown from seed, in fact, the only  zinnia, so believe me when I say that I had no idea of what these seeds are capable.IMG_9710 (631x640)

Here she is in all her glory, filling a whole corner of the garden. However, you can save yourself some embarrassment if you don’t assume that there are several zinnia plants in this photo. That would be the wrong assumption. This is one plant, and she’s flopped over on her side. If she were vertical (verticality is an illusive thing in my garden), she’d be eight feet tall.
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‘Purity’ finally needed to go when she made it impossible to see ’Souv de la Malmaison’ the younger in the front garden. This by the way may have been a blessing in disguise since the grasshoppers couldn’t find her either. She was fully leafed out when I pulled the reclining zinnia off of her.
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Eight feet of zinnia? Shouldn’t that be the subject of a scientific investigation? Perhaps I'm easily awestruck. Perhaps newbies like me are more easily impressed than seasoned gardeners. Perhaps stems of .75 inch and all this plant life from one seed is not as impressive as I think it is.
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All I can say is that next time I’ll stake this baby and an acorn has nothing on a zinnia seed.
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8 comments:

  1. Wow, never heard of a zinnia variety that can get that tall! Or did you do secretly some genetic modifications to it ;-)? Did the seed package have any information on it about the final size of the plant?
    Christina

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  2. No, Christina, no secret genetic modifications – just composted horse manure. The package says 3 to 4 feet. Yeah, right. YMMV!

    She really was, Sunray. I really liked that she flopped over because of the larger impact she made that way. Perhaps that’s why she got so tall – not having to fight gravity. By the way the package accurately said her blooms would be be 5 inches. Huge!

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  3. I've never grown these, but see them on the sides of commercial buildings, where they get about 5' tall. I think that's why I've never grown them! I can imagine them getting 8' tall in your good soil. She was pretty, though. Perhaps you can put her in a better spot next year.

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  4. Well Sherry, I have to say her bloom is very pretty, but in her horizontal position she looks as tho' she was trying to escape.:)

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  5. Your zinnias look like a large rose bush. Such a simple plant that brings so much pleasure.

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  6. That's a record, the ones I get at Home Depot don't grow more than a few inches before they become dinner for snails.

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  7. Wow, that was some zinnia! Very pretty too. I have had some giants in the past that were terrific to have for butterfly attracting. None of mine ever got over 3-4 feet though. This year for some reason very few of my zinnia seeds germinated. I think your zinnia grew so large because of your great soil.

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