j52 said:My favourites that I grow each year from seed collecting are ... Zinnias (plants were not in seed when frost hit so none this year).
Hi j52,
Welcome to the National Gardening Association's Annuals forum.
I am a zinnia hobbyist and make my own home hybridized zinnias. There is a popular misconception that zinnias need to be dead and brown before you can collect seed from them. Actually, you can collect a zinnia seed as a green seed about three weeks after it is pollinated. That can speed up the zinnia seed collection process by months.
The viable green seeds will be plump and filled in, while the un-pollinated ones will be slim and "empty".
All of the photos here on NGA will respond with a larger version if you click on them. Give it a try. Notice that the attached petals are still alive and have their full coloration. If you plan to store the seeds for use at a later time, spread them out on a paper or some other handy surface and let them dry for a week or so before packaging them. (If you package them wet, they might sprout in the package.)
If you want to plant them immediately, you will need to "breach" the green seed coat before planting. The green seed coat is alive and impervious to water. You can skip the breaching step and just plant them immediately with the green coat on (and optionally even with the petal still attached) and in two or three weeks the green seed coat will die and become pervious to water. But you can speed the green seed germination by several weeks by breaching the seed coat. Several techniques for breaching the green seed coat are shown in this photo.
As a zinnia hobbyist I find it to be very helpful to get more than one generation of zinnias per year. Saving zinnia seeds in the green stage has other advantages. You reduce the danger of pre-germination of the seeds in the seed head during a wet rainy spell, and you reduce the window of danger from seed eating birds, like finches and such.
If you are curious what it would be like to make crosses between different flowers and see what the results will look like, zinnias have several advantages. They have a wide color range and variety of plant habits, they bloom quickly from seed in about six weeks, their seeds are big and easy to handle, and the zinnia flower parts are easy to manipulate to make your own hybrids.
If you have questions about any of this, I would be glad to have a go at answering them. Plant breeding can be a fascinating hobby and zinnias can be an easy way to get into it.
ZM
