Zinnias
The first year we planted a garden in this house, I didn’t want to plant flowers in it. Well truthfully I was okay adding the usual sunflowers and marigolds for attracting pollinators and beneficial insects. Other than that, I wanted to utilize as much of our modest growing space as possible for our vegetables and fruits. I laugh at this thought now. I was like so many gardeners who don’t realize the benefits of sharing garden space with flowers. The next year we planted our garden and increased the overall size. I decided to include some additional flowers, including a packet of zinnia seeds from a company called Floret.
If you’re familiar with Floret, you probably already know what happened next. Our flowers started to grow and fill out our garden bed with the most beautiful pinks and corals. We delighted in the ruffled blooms and how each plant grew flowers that were unique and special. We fell in love with zinnias. We made so many beautiful bouquets to share, and reveled in each new bloom’s differentt traits. Zinnias tend to be very unique in that they are cross pollinated by insects like bees. This means even though your collected zinnia seeds maybe from a red flower, a bee could have been gathering and sharing pollen from several different flowers in your garden. Your new zinnias could be dark pink or rust or an entirely new shade along with some red blooms. You never know what awaits you in the spring each season.
They are to this day one the most amazing cut flowers for the home gardener. They have strong stems, last forever in a vase on a table, and are considered ‘cut and come again’ flowers meaning that they will continue to grow all season until the frost kills them. Zinnias come in almost every color, shape and have several unique traits including size, rows of petals, cone shape, and more. They are a remarkable flower and we highly recommend them to any new or experienced grower. They truly helped us grow as gardeners and as farmers. We realized how wonderful it was to be able to grow and share local flowers, and thus zinnias have found a place on our farm every year since. This year we will be growing over a dozen different varieties and mixes of zinnias on the farm, with over fifty different color combinations. We can’t wait to delight in their beauty once again, and to feature them in our seasonal floral bouquets and arrangements this season!