Zinnias

General Care & Feeding.

I have planted Zinnias quite a few seasons in a row now. Generally speaking they take very little effort to keep alive and happy. I live up in Cedar Park, Texas where it gets pretty hot in the summers. So far they have seemed pretty tolerant of the heat (they even survived 2023), generally speaking I only have to water them 3 times a week even in peak summer.

So far I have only come across two challenges with Zinnias. The first can be where you plant them, and direct sun. We have a flower bed against the back of our house that gets the afternoon soon. Right above this bed is a window that reflects quite a bit of heat. In August the Zinnias will creep out to avoid where the sun reflects. This year I plan to get some sensors to measure just how hot it gets in the sun reflection vs no reflection.

The second issue is bugs. The unfortunate matter is that for everything you plan to try to attract a bee your are going to get about 5 things that want to eat the plant. You can use insecticides, but those can also upset the friendly bugs. Here recently I have been focusing on sacrificial plants to plant with the Zinnias. That to say, plants that taste better for the bugs, so that I can preserve the Zinnias.