Types, Varieties And Cultivation Of Zinnia

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Zinnia, a magnificent plant, in the arsenal of which has the widest spectrum of by no means a camouflage color. This plant is able to revive any, even the gloomiest corner of the garden.

Zinnia belongs to the genus of annual or perennial grasses, as well as dwarf shrubs of the Asteraceae family, which are native to Central and South America. These plants have whole, oval-ovate, sessile, whorled leaves located on the stalk and single baskets-inflorescences.

The name of the plant comes from the name of Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Göttingen Johann Gottlieb Zinna, who brought these plants to Europe in 1796. Now, thanks to the efforts of botanists and breeders, we know more than 20 species of zinnia, but only two of them are used in culture - narrow-leaved and graceful. They gave rise to the majority of garden zinnias with a huge variety of cultivars and forms.

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Types and varieties of zinnia

Zinnia graceful is a powerful, vigorous plant that has a spreading or compact shape with erect, strong and pubescent shoots, reaching a height of one meter and bearing large, often more than 15 cm in diameter, inflorescences of various colors. This species has been in culture on the European continent for over 200 years.

Narrow-leaved zinnia - this species forms branched erect bushes, reaching a height of 45 cm and bearing smaller inflorescences, usually having a yellow color. This species has been known in culture for 150 years.

Naturally, zinnia is rich not only in species. She also has many varieties. They are ranked in height, among them there are very small, dwarf zinnias, which are no more than 30 cm in height, medium-sized, reaching a height of 70 cm, and tall, often exceeding a meter in height. Of course, zinnias are a rainbow of colors that can boggle your imagination. Flowers of its rich, bright color, or differing in calm, pastel colors. Reed flowers of various shapes are usually located in 2-3 rows - in non-double flowers, and even more in double such rows. Tubular flowers are usually yellow, very rarely they have the color characteristic of ligulate flowers, as a rule, they form a convex center pleasant to the eye.

Zinnias are also divided into groups according to the structure and shape of inflorescences, they are called scientifically - varieties. So the most common varieties in Russia are dahlia and pompom, a little less often you can see varieties belonging to the group of chrysanthemum and scabioza. So, let's describe them:

Dahlia zinnias are almost completely ordinary ligulate flowers, however, they have an elongated-lobed shape. Their inflorescences are hemispherical, often terry, having a diameter of up to 15 cm, on one plant there can be up to 28 of them! Naturally, they are also ranked in height. For example, among tall dahlia inflorescences, Benary's Giants Series zinnias have won the greatest popularity, reaching a height of 120 cm and having old, pink, salmon, raspberry and red, yellow, orange, lilac and even purple baskets.

No less popular are the medium-sized dahlia zinnias - varieties Rosa with magnificent pink flowers, Orange Kеnig, Tango, Scharlach with beautiful, very bright red-orange flowers, the Crimson Monarch variety, which has magnificent dark red inflorescences, varieties Purple Prinse and Cherry Queen colors the space in magenta and dark cherry colors. The variety Lavandelkonigin is also pleasing to the eye, the baskets of which are lavender with a purple tint, and in the Violett they are purple.

There are a lot of zinnias varieties that have not quite usual color of flowers, for example, white with a greenish tint, like the Polar Bear variety, or completely green, like the Envy variety. Variegated varieties of zinnias - Peppermint Stick, are also becoming fashionable, and reed varieties, the flowers of which are painted in red, cream or yellow-green - Carousel.

No less magnificent are low-growing zinnias with dahlia-shaped inflorescences, among them the series - Magelan, Peter Pan and Short Staff, which have beautiful densely double inflorescences, sometimes reaching ten centimeters in diameter and having a variety of colors - white, cream, yellow, bright red, raspberry and cherry. The excellent Swizzle series includes a pair of twin-colored twin hybrids - Cherry Ivory with cherry blossoms and creamy petal tips and Scarlet Yellow with red baskets and bright yellow tips.

Pompom zinnias are distinguished by abundant, simultaneous flowering, their inflorescences are round and double, reaching 6 cm in diameter. An example is the varieties belonging to this group - medium-sized (40-50 cm) Rotkopchen and Tom-Thumb with bright red baskets, as well as undersized (15-20 cm tall) Zinnita with flowers from white to yellow and red. …

Chrysanthemum zinnias. In these plants, reed flowers are rolled up along their entire length and are slightly curled into tubes that are bent in different directions, and the inflorescences reach a diameter of 15 cm, there are more than twenty such “sunflowers” on the flower. Such very large baskets in medium-sized (70 cm) varieties of the New Burpee's Hybrids and Fantasia series with flowers from white and pink to bright yellow, dark red and purple shades.

More recently, the seeds of a rather spectacular variety of zinnias called "New Attraction" appeared on the shelves of flower shops. It differs in anemic or scabiose inflorescences, crowned with the center of the basket is the so-called cushion, collected from tubular flowers, surrounded by a row consisting of wide and reed flowers in the form of a cuff. These plants reach a height of half a meter and have baskets of various colors.

Among the varieties of zinnia angustifolia there are some truly delightful ones, for example, Glorienschein grows to a height of 20 cm and has red-brown flowers at the ends and dark orange at the base. The variety mixtures are also beautiful - Persian Carpet and Candy Stripe with inflorescences that have yellow, brown and red shades, as well as contrasting spots located at the tips of reed flowers. British firms offer a mixture of Starbright and Classic, which are represented by varieties of yellow, snow-white or orange colors, and these plants themselves have a height of about 30 cm. They have a weak and thin abundant stem, often creeping.

A significant achievement for breeders is the Profusion series. All plants in this series are hybrids from the crossing of graceful zinnia and narrow-leaved zinnia, they are characterized by a fairly high resistance to rain and cold. In addition, the advantages of plants are their compactness, short stature, as well as baskets painted in white, orange or cherry shades and reaching 4 cm in diameter.

Features of agricultural technology

Zinnias of the presented species and varieties are annual plants, they are all drought-resistant and undemanding to the soil, bloom for a long time and very abundantly, they reproduce well by seeds. By the way, about the seeds. They are quite large in zinnia, there are only 100 seeds per gram, they usually ripen within 55 days after the beginning of flowering, and remain viable for more than three years. Usually the seeds are sold in mixed varieties, but now there is also a high-quality pure-variety seed on the market.

Zinnia is sown in open ground, usually in May, then, as plants appear, the seedlings are thinned out, less often these flowers are grown through seedlings. Zinnia, alas, is not devoid of shortcomings, one of the most basic, perhaps, is a strong sensitivity to even slight frosts, therefore, it is possible to grow zinnia in more northern regions, where recurrent cold weather accompanied by frosts is possible, only through seedlings.

Sowing zinnium for seedlings

To get seedlings, seeds are sown in late March or early April. They are sown in loose, nutritious soil of a greenhouse, or in small containers, embedded to a depth of about 0.5-1 cm. The optimum temperature required for seed germination is within 20 … 25 ° C. Usually, the first shoots appear within a week, for their normal development, a temperature of 16 … 18 ° C is quite enough. After about three weeks, they begin to pick the seedlings, plant them in separate pots and leave them there until the end of May.

It is possible to plant seedlings in open ground only after the end of the spring frost, usually 4-5 weeks after germination. Plants need to be transplanted with a lump of earth, and planted at a distance of 12 to 35 cm, depending on the strength of the plant's growth. Usually flowering occurs a couple of months after the emergence of shoots, is observed most often in July and continues until frost, the flowers are very tenacious, everyone can please the eye for up to a month.

As for the growing conditions, zinnias are completely undemanding to them, but they grow better in warm, sunny and wind-protected areas with loose, deeply cultivated, fertile and neutral soils.

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Zinnia care

Caring for plants is also not difficult, it consists in periodic weeding, loosening the soil and in fertilizing with mineral fertilizers during the period of plant growth and budding. Another plus is that zinnia plants are very drought-resistant, which allows them to be grown in places where there are frequent interruptions in water. Of course, plants may not survive a prolonged drought, but they are quite capable of short-term dryness of the soil.

You can slightly extend the decorative effect of zinnias in a simple way - regularly remove faded and damaged inflorescences.

And finally …

Zinnias today are represented by the widest range of colors and shapes, which allows you to grow single plants.

Zinnias of bright colors are used in the design of monocultural flower beds, mixborders, often large-sized arrays of plantings are created from them, especially those that look great against the background of the lawn. Tall varieties are often used to decorate solid flower beds, rabatok, such plants look great in group plantings, especially with marigolds, marigolds, asters, chrysanthemums. The lot of dwarf and medium-sized varieties is a pot culture, they will be able to decorate both a flower bed and a window sill, both in the city and beyond.

Creeping varieties are ideal as ground cover plants, especially popular for creating alpine slides. Blooming zinnia is great when cut. She is able to decorate absolutely any composition, and varieties with both large and small inflorescences are suitable for drawing up bouquets. Plants are cut when about half of all buds have blossomed. The ends of the stems should be trimmed in warm water, so they will last longer - more than two weeks.

The so-called distillation is also applied to zinnia - in order to decorate your home with living flowering plants, you need to dig up plants with a lump of earth before frosts and transplant them into large pots, water them abundantly and keep them in the room on the window located on the south side of the building. Blooming plants will delight you in the winter cold for several weeks.