Thursday, October 11, 2018

Saving Zinnia Seeds


This summer and now in autumn we've been enjoying the colorful, abundant Zinnia blossoms in our gardens.  Shades of pink, yellow, orange and white blossoms were admired day after day.  Now that October is here it is only a matter of time when a frost will end the Zinnia season!  It has not happened yet, but that is in the near future.

For that reason I've been snipping off the colorful blossoms to save.  Then, they are dried.  Cut down tissue boxes make great storage boxes for the blossoms to dry out.


Looking at the first box of my collected colorful blossoms, I noticed that there were no white ones.  Another trip to the garden and a few more blossoms were snipped- this time only white ones.

The flowers are now dried, so next week the seeds will be harvested from the dried blossoms.   To do this:  Pull the dried petals off the flower and "tear drop" shaped seeds will be found.  These are the seeds to plant for next year.  I will store them in a labelled sealed envelope.  Next spring they will be planted in our gardens. 


This has become a tradition with me- saving the Zinnia seeds.  After saving and then planting the saved seeds for about 5 years, the flower blossoms will become smaller.  That is my clue to purchase new seed packets to plant the next year.  Then, the saving and replanting starts again.

Enjoy!
Happy Gardening!
           

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