Trial: Annual

Years Trialed: 1999

Good Qualities

Great color combinations and unusual patterns (4); Flowers are pretty awesome!; Daisy-like with different foliage. Holds up well in arrangements; Great keeping quality. Mixed well with many other cuts and was also sold by itself; Easy to spot good lowers. More vibrant, bicolors interesting. Filled in space around it, easy care; Good vase life; Have a friend that dried them - she uses short stems. Dried great; Good germination.

Problems

Too short (5); The bugs loved this one. They chewed the blossoms so badly (what few appeared) that I was able to cut none. I also think they did not like the dry summer; First planting burned up in field. Second planting stems too short. Will grow again next year; They were really hard to pick because they bloomed so heavily. You really had to look closely to see which were useable or too mature; Same bug chewed on buds and a lot of flowers were missing petals. Older flowers faded. Some colors were dull, uninteresting. Fell over in winds, definitely needs staking/netting; stems brittle; Almost melted down in heat; long time between blooms on each plant; Gets tall and bushy - needs space; The rabbits loved it, they ate it all off, it came back, but by then was too short and bushy.

Comments

Color combinations reminded me of Persian Carpet Zinnia which also had great keeping qualities; This was worst flower I have ever grown. Even after the bugs left and everything else recovered and flowered well, these guys were still doing nothing!; Too many other items to grow other than this item; Probably a good crop for bouquet use but my retailers did not care for it. Might have gotten taller but I couldn't justify irrigating it; Blooming time seemed short–about 3-4 weeks. Once very hot and dry weather started, the plants appeared to slow in production; The flowers had “old fashioned”, homey appeal; Think different cultural practices should held stem length; Too few and small flowers on a stem to be a marketable cut flower; I will try them again because of great color.

Trial Data

¹1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the best. Market ratings are based on sales to wholesalers, retailers, or final consumers direct.

Supplier

Benary Seed 1444 Larson St. Sycamore, IL 60178