Tag Archives: Zin Master Zinnias

In a Vase on Monday – Summer’s Last Hurrah

It’s Labor Day, the holiday weekend that marks the end of summer. The plants in my garden are feeling the cumulative effects of summer and slowing down. The zinnias I have enjoyed cutting all summer are very capably catching all the fungal organisms Florida has to offer and displaying them on their foliage. The flowers are visibly smaller. It’s time for removal and renewal. The good news! All the seeds are on sale – the bad news, not everything I would like is available. I am making do by trying some new things and thankful I thought ahead a little and bought my favorite tomato seeds. Last year I had weird tomatoes due to poor timing. The tomatoes were good, just sort of oddly gigantic cherry sized fruit that was not quite red.

What’s in the vase:

Multi colored flowers at bottom of image are ‘Zin Master’ Zinnias; white daisies are Bidens alba; purple spikes are Arabian Lilac (Vitex trifolia) ; pink and white flowers are Vinca (Vinca rosea).

Yellow spikes are Thyrallis (Galpinia glauca); red, white and peach spikes are Tropical Red Salvia (Salvia coccinea). The vase is a thrift store find.

There! A full color display of the summer dregs from my garden. Not bad, all things considered.

For a full late summer garden tour via vases follow this link to visit Cathy’s blog.

In a Vase on Monday – New Summer Favorite

I am a fairly recent convert to Zinnia lover. It all started with a pack of Green Envy seed planted a few years ago to satisfy my desire for chartreuse cut flowers. I let the Envy go to seed and ended up with a new generation of greenish beige zinnias no one would envy so I bought some new seed. These are Zin Master Zinnias. They are living proof open pollinated seeds are what they are. These were advertised as a mixture of sizes, shapes and colors. The plants are prolific, all about three feet tall, and produce enough flowers that I cut a Vase every other day. The colors and flower size are the only things that are mixed.

My feelings are not mixed. These zinnias are my new summer favorites. For some reason, I have never grown zinnias in summer. I have them in containers – the ones that get the full brunt of South Florida summer sun are producing the most flowers. I am in awe and fully intend to grow more. Stay tuned.

A closer view:

The flowers are Zin Master Zinnias; purple foliage is Purple Prince Alternanthera; A bit of chartreuse coleus and some Asian Sword Ferns complete the vase. The crystal vase was a gift from my dearly departed brother.

I just found a few bags of seed starting potting mix on my front porch….fall zinnias should be appearing in a couple of months. And a few other things.

Thanks to Cathy for hosting IAVOM. Follow this link RamblingintheGarden to her blog to see more vases.

IAVOM Everything is Coming Up – Zinnias

People do grow roses in South Florida. I just don’t have the stomach for it, imagining the black spot and fungal diseases is sufficient, thank you, no. I need plants that will beat the heat and humidity. The Zin Master Zinnias are in fine form this summer. I am cutting a few every day and admiring how long they last in a Vase. About a week.

Given the broad range of colors in the zinnias; I decided a simple treatment was best. A grey vase found at a thrift store filled with a rubber band secured bouquet of zinnias and a few sprigs of my inexhaustible supply of the invasive Asian Sword Fern.

The stars:

The zinnias definitely like to be outside more than I do!

To see more vases visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden.

Happy Gardening!

In a Vase on Monday – Zen, Zin & Min

I am enjoying my new crop of zinnias – ‘Zin Master’, planted in big terracotta pots. I have been cutting most of the flowers in hopes of getting actual long stemmed zinnias – something that has always eluded me, my zinnias are always very short in stature. These are the longest stems I have ever grown and have a wiry appearance that I like. I visualized this vase as a Zen Ikebanaesque arrangement with winding stems of zinnias intertwined with the Min – Miniata Bromeliads. It was not to be, the glass frog serving as a base was not up to the challenge of the weight of the flowers. I had to add rocks on top of the frog to keep everything upright. I ended up not having a very Zen flower experience at all. It is what it is. A soup bowl filled with flowers.

The Zin – ‘Zin Master’ Zinnias grown from seed started around the first of May. I am enjoying the color mix, but thought I would get some different types of zinnias. I guess these are semi-double something. I bought some Cactus Mix seeds this week to spice things up. I am not quite sure what will happen in mid July with seed starting. Always an adventure.

The Min. These are Miniata Bromeliads (Aechmea miniata). A reliable summer flowering shade perennial, if one can think of bromeliads as perennials. The tropical plants always twist my mind a bit in sorting out what they are – house plants, perennials, epiphytes, plain weird? The big green leaves in the back are from a coleus and the vase is actually a soup bowl.

That is all from South Florida this Monday. I’ll be seeking further garden Zen from Zinnias this week. Follow the link to visit Cathy at RamblingintheGarden and see what’s appearing in other vases this week. Or soup bowls.

Six on Saturday – Summer Delights

My garden walk-around this morning produced photos of a few garden delights that followed me to the kitchen. I picked the last of the Thai dessert mangoes and am down to eight ripening on the counter. I have also been making desserts, plotting desserts, making salsa and chopping and freezing bags of fruit. The Zin Master Zinnias have been beautiful producing flowers and really attractive plants. I have had a vase of these by the kitchen sink for a couple of weeks. For an international garden walk-around experience visit Jim’s blog, Garden Ruminations and follow the links in the comments section.

This weeks mango dessert. Mango-Blackberry Coffeecake. Nice and not too sweet.

The bitter end of the mango harvest. These are all Thai dessert mangoes, Nam Doc Mai. I think the reason these are not found in grocery stores very often is they go from not ripe to emergency chop and freeze in a matter of hours. The one on top is hitting the emergency point.

We are still in the kitchen. Admiring the Zin Master Zinnias. Thanks to SOS, I now know how long it takes from seed to flower. About two months.

Foliage on Zin Master Zinnias. I have cut all the flowers!

Back to the Bromeliad garden for some July fireworks. These are very reliable July bloomers. Aechmea miniata Bromeliads.

Another hot summer flower, Firebush (Hamelia patens var patens) I have grown to love orange in the garden since moving to Florida.

More fruit, Rangpur limes coming along. These are orange when ripe and the juiciest limes I have ever encountered. There are at least 50 on the tree and these are very perishable, so I could be having another freezer festival late this year.

Happy Summer Gardening!!

Six on Saturday – June Things

I looked back to last year and noted my first mango! was picked on June 2. We are a few days behind this year, but I am thrilled to introduce the first victim of my serrate knife – to be chopped, pureed and made into a Mango Key Lime pie this afternoon! This is a Glenn mango, flavor profile sweet and peachy with hints of citrus. Ha! just like wine speak, I think they taste coconutty.

The indestructible Red Shrimp Plant (Justicia brandegeana) is starting back up. This is another amazing plant, dump it in sugar sand, forget about it, and it still keeps going.

Another great summer red (not wine again) is the Petunia exserta. These are sort of viney and meandering through the White Flame Salvia.

The orchids I placed in trees are establishing nicely and loving the humidity (unlike me). This is an unnamed Dendrobium in a Catalina (or Cuban) Avocado.

I tried a new mix of open pollinated Zinnia seeds for summer. These are called Zin Master Mix and I am more than curious about what I am going to get here. The plants are gorgeous (I thought they were going to die) I have a bunch of these plants and was planning to try some in the ground, but we have been overrun by Marsh Rabbits this year and they find the Zinnias to be an extreme delicacy. Another gardening dilemma. These rabbits are so confident they build nests inside the fence with a greyhound! These are in a big pot with a chartreuse Coleus and under planted with Blue Scaveola. No idea what color Zinnias are. Hope it works.

The Marsh Rabbit – looking for Zinnias in all the wrong places.

That is all from my garden this Saturday morning. To tour other SOS gardens, visit Jim’s blog, GardenRuminations and follow the links in the comments. I will be hopping into the kitchen to bake.