The past few years, I haven't added any seeds to my garden. Zinnias just came up. Whenever I'm trimming off a spent bloom, I crumble them where I'd like to see more Zinnias the next year. It's been going well. But I'm wondering if the harsh weather this past week could change that, ruin the seeds. It was 4 nights in the teens with 2 days that didn't get above freezing.

If you get volunteer Zinnias, let us know. They're so prevalent, I have no idea if it's a north/south thing, or what the cut-off might be. Yes, I could do some searches, but I've always gotten the best info and much more fun, from conversations with y'all.

Tiffany, the killing temperature must be somewhere between your usual winter lows and mine, because zinnia seeds virtually never overwinter here. Very rarely one sprouts in a protected pot.

We frequently experience ongoing nighttime lows in the mid 20s. There is usually a shorter period that dips into the teens. The soil often stays frozen in shady places. As in so many other locales, it's been so wildly varied the last several years that I'm hesitant to say it "usually" does anything, but those are common temps at some point during winter where I live. Whatever else it does, below freezing is normal.

I get essentially no volunteer zinnias here in central eastern Kansas. We just had an extended period of below-zero F temperatures.

ZM

Thank you to each of you for the inputs!

The only time I've ever seen volunteer zinnias is when I chopped some dead plants down and piled them up as mulch. The volunteers came up thick as hair on a dog, but only that fall. None came up the next spring.

That's fascinating considering your location!

The only time I saw volunteer zinnias was in several inches of gravel next to a raised bed and that was one for sure and maybe a few others. But that was just that winter. I can't remember how cold that one was.