critterologist said:Amazing -- both the patience (and steady hands) required to pluck all those pollen-laden florets and the resulting blooms! I admire your organized approach, too. For sure, you are taking these flowers where no zinnia has ever gone before!
Hi Jill,
Thanks for your kind words. However, I don't deserve a lot of credit for patience (or steady hands) for doing my hand pollinations. I am always kind of excited and motivated by the possibilities of the new cross I am making, and it isn't very time consuming or difficult.
Zinnia florets and the stigmas at the base of the petals are both fairly large and accessible, and a single loaded pollen floret can hold enough pollen to pollinate several stigmas. It's a repetitive dab, dab, dab process and you are creating new hybrid seeds at nearly a seed a second! From the standpoint of the mechanics, the pollination process is a relatively minor part of that. Mechanics-wise, hoeing weeds takes the lions share of my time. And, when the blooms start to appear, culling takes precedence.
critterologist said:For sure, you are taking these flowers where no zinnia has ever gone before!
I suspect that zinnias have gone many exotic places before. I know for a fact that other zinnias growers have had tubular petaled zinnias, but simply didn't notice or save seeds from them. All of my key mutant zinnias came from commercial packets of zinnia seeds. The humble little wildflowers from which all of our present day zinnias were developed do not represent the totality of past zinnias. I strongly suspect that there were exotic prehistoric zinnias that flourished when climates and conditions were more to their liking. The intricacies of the zinnia DNA spirals may hold many hidden surprises and ancient secrets, just waiting to be discovered. Making hybrids between hybrids is one way to explore what zinnias can do.
I spend the majority of my time in the zinnia patch just relaxing in a movable folding-reclining lawn chair, with a drink on a small side table, and "taking it all in". It's very pleasant to see the clouds of butterflies fluttering from bloom to bloom, to see and hear the many kinds of bees busily gathering nectar, and watch the hummingbirds do their amazing maneuvers over and about the blooms. Daydreaming, reminiscing, thinking over plans, and the occasional dozing off come naturally. That is the Zen dimension of gardening that I so enjoy.
ZM
