Family, Fifty Words, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

Zinnias

28 Comments

Every year Husband insists on planting Zinnias from seed. He had some standard varieties he likes (Oklahoma is one) and gets ones of differing heights for the back and front of the flower bed.  Every spring I think he is silly about this, and every August I admit that they are the highlights of the late summer garden.  They are the only annuals we plant. He is already searching last year’s seed catalogue s for other varieties  for next year.

  • What are your favorite annual flowers? How do you plan your gardens?

 

28 thoughts on “Zinnias”

  1. The only annuals I do are the hanging baskets. And I have to admit that I don’t have anything exotic l. I’m very fond of the begonias and also the New Guinea impatiens because they still look great at the end of the summer; they don’t get to branchy and leggy. I also like bleeding hearts but YA doesn’t care for them so we didn’t get them this year.

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  2. I have some nasturtiums in the herb garden, but they didn’t do very well this year – love them in salads. Husband got a set of celosia (flame flower) and moss roses but we will put them in a better spot next year, where they get more attention. Sometimes I like to do a variety of coleus.

    My usual plan (no plan) isn’t working, and short stuff is behind tall stuff, two perennials have become embedded with each other, etc. I am going to make a map any day now of what’s where, before they become unrecognizable, and move some of the perennials in the fall (well, further into the fall). This spring I couldn’t find the map I’d made last year… That’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ to it.

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        1. Mom always had some and I’d take a bunch to the fair in the Amateur class. Just a few in a vase plus whatever else happen to be blooming at the time. It was was to get a blue ribbon with flowers and a couple bucks to go with it. Easy money!

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        3. Boy, how many times can I correct myself today. You should hear my phone conversations; they’re a lot like this. “OK, Bye.” “oh wait! – I forgot to tell you — ” click. Story of my life. I don’t think fast enough I guess.

          I mean I got a couple bucks FROM the fair for the blue ribbon. Not that if I put a couple bucks WITH the flowers I’d get a blue ribbon. Make sense now?

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  3. I don’t have a plan, but I get a smattering of wax begonias, geraniums, sweet potato vine, and coleus for containers. Drop in a few marigolds here and there on the boulevard. I used to plant zinnias and cosmos from seed, but it’s been awhile since I was organized enough to start annuals from seed. Bright lights cosmos are very pretty and easy.

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  4. Rise and Bloom Your Heart Out, Baboons,

    This is the question for me, to be sure. I love annuals. I heartily agree with Chris, Renee, that Zinnias are a wonderful late summer bloom. I use them extravagantly in bouquets which I take to the office weekly. Here is a list of those in my garden and pots now:

    Zinnias in profusion
    Snapdragons
    Moss roses
    Petunias (pots only)
    Geranium (one is dubbed an antique geranium, that those flower lovers in our family have kept going since WWII when Grandma gave her mother a red geranium for Mother’s Day)
    Cleome
    Blue Salvia
    Sunlfower
    Mexican Sunflower
    Ageratum
    Annual Daisy
    Black-eyed Susan Vine
    Vinca

    Which, of course, begs a discussion of biennials — hollyhocks and dianthus.

    When it comes to flowers, I am an unrepentant show off.☺️

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    1. People sometimes say that they plant perennials to avoid the work of annuals. I think perennials are just as much work as annuals, perhaps more. Your garden sounds lovely. Excuse me while I go dead head all the perennials that are done blooming and divide and replant/move the ones that have become too big!

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      1. I think gardening is just a lot of work. Period. Annuals. Perennials. Weeds. Mulch. It is like any discipline, and there is no easy way out. Unless we are talking about sourdough, at which point I am not interested in any amount of discipline.

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  5. I wonder if my field crops count as Annuals? Never really heard anyone refer to them that way.
    Kelly buys hanging baskets and some starters and has several pots at the front step. I couldn’t tell you what they are. I’ve just never connected with that.

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    1. I suppose they do. Sweet corn and green beans, cousins of the field crops, are sold as annuals. Field crops just sound more farmer-career related than hobby-like annuals.

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  6. I admit that we plan our next year’s garden while we plant the current year’s garden. Zinnias are the only annual we plant. Our flower beds are full of perennials, and any extra space we reserve for the zinnias and stray vegetables. Our main flower bed usually has a border of pepper plants or eggplants. This year it was shallots. I love lisianthus, aka Prairie Gentian, but I think I need to put them in pots next year.

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    1. So you have stray veggies running around your garden? Do they have tags? Are they lost?

      Like the other Baboons who have experienced many losses this year, I join the ranks as I march off to another memorial service for my former neighbor, Dutch Bryan, who died earlier this month. We will join the other neighbors and her lovely family in mourning her death and celebrating her life. She lived a long time and was important to many of us.

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  7. I have a semi-shady front yard, so impatiens are my go-to. Lots of them in pots that I mound together. Most of the front gardens are perennials, but there is one spot that doesn’t like to grow things well, so that usually gets a sprinkling of marigolds and whatever else looks interesting in the spring. But impatiens, bless their little un-fussy hearts, I loves them, I does. They fill in and bloom into September. Not big and bright, not pretentious – just a steady splash of color against the green.

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