Each month our editor, Laura Lukes, highlights an outstanding plant, an interesting insect, a fun place to visit, a new technique, or helpful tool.
Zinnia
This month we pay tribute to the beautiful, cheerful, and easy-to-grow zinnia. This showy annual comes in many colors, shapes, and sizes and is particularly fun to cut for indoor arrangements. Outdoors, they attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
Some sources claim that zinnias are best grown from seed as they dislike being transplanted. In our experience, the birds eat most of the seeds, and we have had the best luck seeding them indoors and transferring them to the garden once they are a few inches tall.
Many seed companies sell variety packs of zinnias. It is so much fun to plant them and wait to see what bright colors come up! Zinnias love lots of sun, and they do require ample water. They will bloom all summer long, especially with regular deadheading, but they are sensitive to frost and won’t last into the colder weather.
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