How To Save Zinnia Seeds

A colorful flower garden with vibrant zinnia blossoms in various shades of pink, orange, and yellow, surrounded by a wooden fence and a rustic building in the background. — *My 40 foot long cutting garden – zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers.*

Do you love zinnias as much as I do? Though it is easy to grow a long bed of zinnias like this bed above, and seeds are relatively inexpensive considering the big bang you get for your buck, saving seeds makes it even more affordable and fun. Seeds for free! In the colours you love!

A person holding a dried zinnia flower head with wilted petals, surrounded by green leaves in a garden setting.

Grow flowers from your own saved zinnias to save on your cut flower budget next year. You can also do this with marigolds, nasturtiums, sunflowers, snapdragons, cosmos, and calendula.

This flower above is almost ready. Just needs a few more days to dry completely. You want them to be as ripe (brown) as possible. If picked too early, the seeds will not be viable.

A close-up of a dry, brown zinnia flower on a green background, showing dried petals and a brownish center.

Here it is a few days later. Perfect!

You can easily collect your own seeds from these spent blossoms. Wait till the flower is brown and dry, harvest the blossom, leave to dry in a warm, sunny place for a few days.

A bowl filled with dried zinnia flower heads next to a bowl of loose zinnia petals and seeds on a wooden table.

Clip off mature flower heads that are dry, or almost all dry.

You can place them in a warm, dry location to fully dry for 2 months. I like the potting shed or greenhouse for this part.

You can leave the dry flowers for many months, till you are ready to deal with them. I often wait till I have more time, usually in late winter.

Close-up of dried zinnia flower heads with seeds on a white wooden surface. — *The little arrows are the seeds.*

Pull the petals out of the flower head to find the arrow shaped seeds at the bottom of the petal.

You can also rub the flower between your fingers to loosen the seeds from the flower head.

A close-up view of a white shallow bowl filled with zinnia seeds, resting on a weathered wooden table, with scattered flower petals and seeds around it, and a person's legs and skirt visible in the frame.

Remove the petals from the seeds and place in a shallow bowl. Leave the petals to dry another day or two before you winnow, if needed.

Blow across the bowl, across the top of the seeds. Anything that easily blows away is either debris or sterile seeds. The heavier seeds, the ones that stay in the bowl when you blow across it are the viable seeds. Yes, this make a huge mess. You do not want to do this inside the house.

Package the seeds into small coin envelopes with the name of the flower and the colour that you think it will be. Don’t forget to label with the date they were harvested, including the year.

Many zinnias are hybrids so the seeds will not look exactly the same as the parent flowers. They will be pretty nevertheless, totally worth saving and growing.

A colorful row of blooming zinnias in a garden bed, showcasing various hues of flowers against a wooden planter and a gray fence.

Early summer zinnias, still growing, just starting to flower. They will flower all the way till frost.

See how to grow zinnias in this post here. They are super simple and so beautiful.

A vibrant garden filled with various colorful zinnias, featuring red, yellow, and pink flowers with greenery in the foreground.

These are Apricot Blush zinnias from Renee’s Garden Seeds. One of my favourite zinnia seed suppliers.

A dog sniffing colorful zinnias in a garden bed filled with vibrant flowers.

Ruby Tuesday has her nose checking out the Raspberry Sorbet zinnias from Renee’s.

A vibrant garden scene featuring various zinnia flowers in shades of peach, yellow, and orange, surrounded by lush green foliage.

Green Envy and Apricot Blush Zinnias.

A vibrant display of zinnias in various colors, including pink, orange, yellow, and white, growing in a garden bed surrounded by greenery.

Zinnias come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. Some pompoms, some singles, some that look like cupcakes.

They are all pretty and I love them all. I prefer the lilliput and dwarf types in containers and the taller ones in cutting gardens, but anything goes. You grow what you like.

Keep in mind that if you are growing them for the pollinators and hummingbirds, simple blossoms are better.