Zinnia

Zinnia elegans

Asteraceae

A stiff, honest cut flower that keeps blooming if you keep cutting — the pollinator tower of a hot vegetable row.

Garden zinnia. Not a food crop. Cut-and-come-again for the house and for the insects.

Parts used: Flower (cut and insectary)
Traditional notes: Cut flower · Pollinator strip
Grow · USDA 6b: Tender annual. Loves heat. Direct after frost. Thin. Pinch once for a bush. In work: May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep
Harvest: When the stem is stiff and the bloom is just open.

Open singles and semidoubles for the insects; doubles for the table.
A row on the south edge of the tomato bed is a landing strip.

Safety

Not a salad flower

Companions

Plant with Anise hyssop, Bee balm, Borage, Calendula, Cornflower, Cosmos.

Lore

Named for the German botanist Johann Zinn, who did not live to see the county fair. The Aztec gardens already had it. Modern bedding dwarfs are a joke compared to a five-foot cut-flower row in August.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.