It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 58
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zen_man
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It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 41
Comments (112)Hi guys :) i don't mean to be rude & butt in the middle of your conversations but Im so eager to learn!! I'm in brooksville, Florida. Zinnias do well here (unlike many other flowers) : I just bought some zinnia seeds some from stores but most mail order :) :) I bought queen red lime- Zinderella peach & lilac, my favs!! - banarys giant mix - banarys giant salmon rose & giant wine - Candy mix- scabiosa mix- giant flowered mix- big tetra mix- Andes jewel-giant double mixed colors- giant enchantress, violet queen, double violet queen, bright pink, California white & California mix & cactus mix. This is my first year growing from seeds instead of transplants (accept for easy seeds -zinnias, sunflowers, ect..) my question is how do I make a new zinnia flower ? I didn't read all the posts on this thread. Am I supposed to take the pollen from a favorite zinnia and put it where on another ?? On the anthers? Which are the anthers on zinnia if so ? Also, is there a specific time this has to be done? I would like to try & cross pollinate to breed a few zinnias myself. Please help. I posted all zinnia seeds I bought hoping I could get some ideas on which to cross? And this is off zinnia topic but I figured u guys would know ! :) I have many seeds that need 65, 70-75• to germinate but being in Florida our mid day temps are rising well above 85-90• however, it cools down some at night being it's not summer yet. It can get down to 68-70• @ night. Will this inhibit germination of seeds that need 70• ?? If I plant seeds that need 70• and above and they're subjected to our hot days but get 70• temps at night will this inhibit all germination? Or will they still germinate but at a slower rate or will it decrease how many seeds actually germinate ?? I just figured if a seed doesn't need stratification, it's okay to plant at whatever temp as long as it's warm, it'll grow. But now that I've purchased some really nice seeds I don't want to take the chance of loosing any bc it was too hot for them to germinate or bc I did something wrong! Some seeds I bought only have 10 in a pack. So I have to be careful ! I don't have a good windowsill inside that I can place my seeds on for light if they need light & 70• temps to germinate ( we keep our air @ 69• @ all times) any suggestions ??? I apologize for butting in ! But I figured your the ones to ask for help :) thanks :)...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 46
Comments (103)Well, I have missed a bit, I see. Firstly, let me address Sayuri's statement: I assumed most of you guys to be well off retirees. Chuckle, snicker, SNORT! You can definitely leave me out of that assessment - ha! Well, yes, I'm semi-retired, if one can call it that, but far from being well off. Certainly not living in the manner to which I wish I'd become accustomed. But we manage to keep the cats (and ourselves) fed. And I'm a very accomplished scrounger. :) Now, secondly, I don't have a cat walking across my keyboard as I did earlier, but I can't find the pic I'd been thinking about of the newly made beds. Instead, here's a somewhat later photo which shows the raised beds already planted. As you can see, Sayuri, I don't have sides to my beds - I've just shoveled the loose dirt from the paths (after tilling) onto the bed areas, raising them up somewhat. The looser the dirt, the easier it is to scoop it up and pile on the beds. And this area was soft and clear of grass and weeds because it had been under tarps for about a year and a half. I've done this in other areas, but none have worked as well as this, probably because the other spots had poorer, less loamy soil to begin with. You're in a hurry, though, so I get the idea of the herbicide, even if, personally, I can't bring myself to trust a chemical that supposedly kills some plants, but not others. History has proven me wrong, but I still have a problem with the concept. Oh well - whatever. My point is, you can make raised beds without the bother of being fancy about it. I do it every year, though I've been working on this area in particular, using straw mulch, to make it so I never have to till again, or rebuild the beds. I don't have a shot from 2017 corresponding to this exact location, but here's one from July 2017 in a couple of beds that would be to the left of these pictured: You can't really tell, but the beds are still slightly higher than the paths, even after a couple of years. It's because, once built, they never get walked on. They'll be even higher this year because I intend to dump a load of composted manure on them. That may cost a bit, but it will be worth it. Ninecrow - that is one audacious, bodacious snail!!! Wow - have never seen one like it. Cool. Go Gatchaman! Namaste, Alex...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 49
Comments (102)Hello everyone, Well, we did get that expected rain. It came with some winds, but I don't see any obvious wind damage. It is now comfortably cool outside, but very wet. I will shuck zinnia seeds indoors until things dry off a bit. This is one of those current narrow petaled specimens.The tubes are light colored, but unfortunately not white. This is a closer look at some of the petal ends.There is actually quite a bit of variation in the end-of-petal "flare". That suggests that the flares may be partially developmental rather than genetic. The embryo inside the green seed at the base of each petal would be genetically different if it had been fertilized by a pollen grain, either from this plant or from a different one, because it would have been produced by the cellular process known as meiosis, which recombines the genes. In the more likely probability that the embryos are not fertilized at this stage, the cells in the petal flares are produced by mitosis and are genetically the same as the cells in other parts of the bloom, so the variations in the petal-end flares would be developmental and not genetic. Which raises questions as to which of the many variations we see in zinnias are developmental and not genetic. At some time during the coming Winter I hope to purchase a stereo microscope with a camera mount, so that I can take micro-photographs of some of my indoor zinnias. It will not be capable of seeing chromosomes (that takes a serious high-power laboratory grade microscope), but it will hopefully be capable of seeing details like leaf stomata or leaf hairs, from which you can hopefully deduce whether the plant is diploid or tetraploid. That is because I want to develop the capability of producing some triploid zinnias, and to do that it is almost a requirement that I be able to determine the "ploidy" of a zinnia by observation. And the microscope will let me study and photograph my zinnias in more detail. I continue to see little creatures that I refer to as "micro insects". I am curious about them. More later. Namaste. ZM...See MoreIt can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 52
Comments (109)Hello roxy, " The soil we have is not ideal ("podzolic") so I dug it out and added compost and garden soil to help encourage them along. " I was unfamiliar with "podzolic" soil, so referred to the Wikipedia article on Podzol soil A common misconception in Australia is that your plants don't need phosphorous and apparently your soils are deficient in phosphorous. The fact is that plants do need phosphorous, as well as many other things. Zinnias are easy to grow. They come up in only a few days and develop rapidly to produce first blooms in about 6 weeks. " Unfortunately there's not a lot of in-ground space back there so may end up planting in pots, which I've never done before. Any advice there? " Fill your containers with quality potting mix. Hopefully you have MiracleGro products available "down under". Their potting mix is a known thing and zinnias do well using MiracleGro Tomato food soluble nutrients. Hopefully your water supply is not harmful to plants. I apply a foliar feed using one tablespoon (or less--it is better to use too little than too much) of soluble MiracleGro Tomato Food per gallon of water. I use the Tomato Food formula because it has more Magnesium, which is a component of chlorophyll. I anticipate that we will continue this discussion, because there are quite a few issues with gardening in Australia. It's Fall here, so it is Spring for you. And your water swirls down the drain the wrong way (grin). ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)...See MoreWeston Adams
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