- Zinnias are one of the absolute best flowers to grow.
I've become obsessed with them (Butta vocalizing)
here in the edible garden.
As you can see, it's mixed in with my peppers here.
So in this video,
I'm gonna show you everything you need to know
about growing zinnias. (soft, upbeat music)
Zinnia are a beautiful, beautiful flower
that has so many different varieties.
In fact, there are 20 species of zinnia,
over a hundred cultivars or varieties,
which we're gonna throw some of our favorites up right here.
But it's native to Mexico, the southwestern US,
and South America.
So you can kind of get a sense of how it's cared for
just by that.
But it comes in all different shapes, colors, sizes.
There's these tall ones.
Zinnia elegans, that's the tall species.
Kind of comes up like this.
Then there's zinnia angustifolia,
which is a little bit more bushy and spreading.
Interestingly enough, zinnia is in floriography,
or the language of flowers
and how they connect to emotions or or feelings,
is associated with friendships,
specifically, thoughts of an absent friend.
(person sings)
- Thank you, potato daddy.
- Anyways, why don't we hop in,
take a look at a flower up close, and study how they grow.
When you take a look at a zinnia flower up close,
you're actually seeing many different flowers.
In fact, the central ring right here
is where the fertile flowers are,
and then around the outside are these petal shaped flowers
that are infertile.
So what you think is a single flower
is actually made up of many different flowers.
Let's take a look at some of these different colors
and shapes here.
It's kind of interesting.
So there are three main head types on zinnia.
You have the single head, which is just one row of petals,
and a very, very visible center.
So this is a zinnia, and it's very beautiful.
But then also you have this guy here.
this is sort of a green head zinnia,
which is much more full.
This is a double-headed zinnia.
You can barely see the interior center,
but it is more full.
It's more lush.
In my opinion, it's a little bit more beautiful.
The only thing to consider is that
this one is really easy for a pollinator to get on.
Your butterflies and such,
they can just land, access the flowers.
Here, it's been bred in such a way
where the nectar is not really available to the pollinators,
so while it looks beautiful,
I would encourage you to plant either some single heads
or these guys here, which are semi double heads.
You can still see the interior flower,
but there's a little more fullness.
These guys, beautiful,
but I wouldn't make 'em your full zinnia planting
unless you don't really want any pollinators.
To care for zinnia
so you get beautiful blooms all season long,
you just need to match it to where it evolved.
So southwestern US, Mexico
means a good amount of sun, rich, well draining soil.
It can handle drought,
but I don't think you should really give it drought
just because it can handle it.
It's gonna want a little more moisture.
It'll especially produce more flowers
if you do give it that.
You just have to make sure not to water too much
'cause then you'll get some mildews
and some fungal diseases and such but,
care-wise, that's really it.
We do need to talk about pruning.
It is a plant that heavily benefits from pruning.
Of course, you can just harvest the flowers,
and I'll talk about that right now.
How do you know when it's appropriate
to harvest a zinnia flower?
Well, you can use the shake test.
You can kind of come in like this.
Grab the stem and give it a wiggle.
And if it's too floppy,
this one actually feels a little too floppy here.
Or if it breaks over, of course,
you're not gonna get the cut time that you want.
So what I mean by that is when you cut this,
it's gonna get spent really quickly in vase,
whereas, over here, I have sort of prepared
a little selection for you.
If I shake this one here,
it's much more sturdy, much more rigid.
And so if I come in and give that a cut,
it's gonna last a lot longer in a vase
or any sort of preparation.
And if you want to keep producing more zinnias,
what you can do is prune it or harvest it
at a specific juncture.
So for example, you can see this zinnia right here, right?
Now, this flower, let's just say I wanna harvest this.
I could come and cut it anywhere I want,
but if I'm smart,
I'm gonna come in and cut it right about there.
Just like that,
because what's happening?
It's much like pruning a basil
or some of these other herbs
that have this similar growing pattern.
You come in, you cut off the stem right there.
You'll get an offshoot here and an offshoot here,
and you can actually even see
a little flower bud developing right there.
You can even see, let me cut this one off right here,
how this happened earlier in the plant's life as well.
So this is where it came out of the ground.
I just harvested this flower,
but you can see it's branching here and here,
and it just keeps that branching going.
So whether you're deadheading it on a spent flower
or you're harvesting for the cut flower,
you wanna make sure you're pruning in the appropriate space
to maximize your production.
So how do you make sure that you have some more zinnia seeds
to save for next year?
Well, this is kind of a fun thing to do.
It's actually really easy.
So what you want to do is
you have a flower much like this one.
This one is looking,
it's seen better days.
Let's just say that.
But what you wanna do if you're saving a zinnia seed
is let the flower dry completely on the plant.
So it's gonna look not so great.
It's gonna look a lot more like this.
If it's dried completely on the plant,
then you can snip it off.
And then what you'll do is you'll come around,
so you can see this is the bottom here.
You'll come around and just pluck those petals out,
and at the very base of that pedal,
you'll see a sort of serpent's tail
or arrowhead type of look.
That's the seed.
So what you wanna do is just peel
that little bit of petal off,
and you're left with these individual seeds.
You can leave these out to dry
for two or three days, even longer.
And then you can store those in a cool, dry,
and dark place,
and grow them next year.
Now, the thing I'll say is,
a lot of our favorite zinnias are hybrid zinnias,
meaning that they've been crossed from two parents,
and they're not a stable cross.
What that means is if you save that seed,
you're actually not guaranteed to get
this same beautiful zinnia,
or if this is a hybrid,
this same beautiful zinnia next year.
You'll get something.
It just won't look the exact same.
If you wanna guarantee
that the zinnia seed you save comes out the same way,
you're gonna have to save it from an heirloom
or an open pollinated seed.
So work zinnia into your garden.
I swear, it's one of the easiest flowers to grow
that has such incredible variety.
And until next time, good luck in the garden
and keep on growing.
(soft, upbeat music)