Zinnias are a really drought tolerant flower and they're just so elegant in the garden.
In fact, zinnia elegans have been around for 100s of years and most of the zinnias can
trace their parentage to South America and South Texas and the southern areas.
So they're very drought tolerant.
Most zinnias, the elegans type, do better if they are planted by seed.
You can buy seeds in every color from green to yellow to blue to purple so they're really
wonderful but they do have a few drawbacks.
One is that they're very susceptible to watery mildew and they don't make a very nice bedding
flower, they just don't hold up very well over a long period although you can plant
zinnias from seeds throughout the summer and they do like warm temperatures and have a
continual crop of zinnias, they are some new varieties though that have been developed
which are just really magical in the garden all year long.
These varieties I can plant in April and still have them until the first freeze.
I like when I have a continual source of color that is really easy to grow.
And these new varieties of zinnias have been developed to be much more tolerant of leaf
diseases like powdery mildew so they just don't have the problems, they also don't have
to be deadheaded with your traditional zinnia elegans.
You do have to take off the old spent flowers in order to keep them in flower production
longer but that's not an issue with these.
Now one of the new varieties with these is Magellan.
This is a very robust plant, puts on lots of flowers and it comes in a wide variety
of colors.
The flowers themselves can be up to 6 inches across and they are a dahlia type flower that
looks like the traditional zinnia.
Not as good as a cutting flower of course but certainly a great addition to the garden.
They will be about 12 to 18 inches tall so they're wonderful for containers as bed edging
and all of these zinnias are great for attracting butterflies to your garden.
Butterflies just love the flowers of zinnias.
Now another new introduction is the zahara zinnia. Little bit smaller flowers but really
incredible true colors, I love the really bright lemon yellow of the zahara and I found
these to be extremely drought tolerant last summer I tried those and I was quite pleased
with the color and with their durability.
Another zinnia that is a great bedding plant is the zinnia angustifolia or the narrow leaved
zinnia.
These only come in three colors, there's a gold, orange, and white.
But they're very drought tolerant.
These are only about 12 inches tall but they just give you a solid mass of color, you can
barely see foliage with them because there's so many flowers.
The flowers are only about an inch across but just a terrific bedding plant.
Then the short stuff zinnia is another one that's kind of small, it's only about 12 inches
tall and will give you a lot of color and a lot of impact on the garden on very short
stems.
Another one that is a fairly new introduction are the profusion series, I particularly like
the profusion coral and the fire series which are really vivid colors.
All of these zinnias appreciate well-drained soil so they are not going to do well in a
soggy area, they have to have sun to perform well so don't put them in a semi-shade area
because they just won't be happy.
They do better with drip irrigation rather than spray but these bedding type zinnias
can do well if you have foliage spray, just make sure you're not spraying the zinnias
down early in the morning because that definitely makes them less attractive to butterflies
as a nectar source if they're watered early in the morning.
But, given regular feedings and you should have zinnias all summer long and absolutely
trouble free with these new varieties.
I plant the seeded types back behind these so I have all the zinnias available for cutting
and for enjoying in the flower gardens.