faded flowers

Zinnias in the garden, in the vase and for the future.

The more flowers you pick, the more you stimulate flowering. In the vase, put your zinnias preferably on a small layer of water.

Remove overblown flowers as soon as possible, therefor all energy goes to new flowers, and you have constant bloom.

However, if you want to harvest seeds to sow next year, you need to wait until the flowers finish blooming and allow the seeds to ripen. Just make sure to harvest the zinnia seeds after a few sunny days, whereby the seed heads are dry and not soaking wet.

Don't sow zinnias in the same place two years in a row.

I put these faded zinnias in a vase, and will let them dry and keep the seeds for next year. ... and I also like faded flowers.