Hine Herbary

One of our favorite summer flowers is the Zinnia. It’s one of the easiest and most rewarding flowers to grow from seed, and they require little care and attention to thrive.

This year we planted zinnias to sell at the market in early April. You’ll see seedlings in 4 to 7 days and they can grow as much as an inch or more per week. By the time we took plants to market in late May, they were already a foot tall.

When planting in the garden, you’ll want to space them at least 6 inches apart, as plants can grow up to 3 feet tall (sometimes taller) and will branch out. They are a great flower if you want to fill a bed quickly, and they are good at keeping weeds to a minimum once they fill in. Or plant a row of zinnias in your vegetable garden for a pop of color and to attract pollinators.

They thrive in full sun but do not like overly moist soil, so water them regularly for the first few weeks until you start to see lots of blooms. Fertilizer will help promote more blooms, and you should cut off any dead blooms (dead heading) to promote more growth. Save those dead flower heads! They are packed with seeds. Once they’ve dried out you can save them in a paper or plastic bag and plant them next year.

Zinnia blooms also last for weeks, so they are a very popular cut flower for bouquets and flower arrangements. They are also available in a huge variety of colors and sizes. And since they thrive in heat, they offer color in the garden all through the hot summer months. They will also continue to bloom until the first frost in October or November.

Because they last so long, we decided to plant more Zinnias in early July to offer some fall colors for people who might still be shopping for flowers in the late summer. We planted 30 pots of Zinnias on July 2nd – orange, yellow, red, and purple. Seedlings appeared in just two days and the plants were already a foot tall by July 27th – just 4 weeks from seed to a 12″ plant!

We were going to wait and take them to market in September but decided to take them now, and people were happy to see them! Next year we plan to do succession planting all through April, May, June, and July so that we can offer Zinnias all through the summer months.