Transition Farm Field Notes - The Story Behind Our Zinnia Breeding – Part I: The Beginning
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Blushing Nymph - Transition Farm developed Zinnia Photo: 2025
The Beginning
The first Transition Farm bred zinnia varieties can be traced back to a handful of flowers that caught my eye.
Not perfect flowers - Not a specially bred blend nor an expensive variety. Just five softer coloured blooms hiding amongst a few hundred brightly coloured cactus-flowered zinnias.
My love affair with zinnias began in 1990, while working on Crossroad Farm in Fairlee, Vermont. Janet had a beautiful cutting garden and one of my jobs was making bouquets for the farm stand. Zinnias featured heavily - in a diversity of colours, shapes and sizes. I was captivated by the blooms and the productivity of the cut and come again plants in the hot summer.
Zinnias continued to find me. When we were growing vegetables for our CSA, from 2011-2020, we always had zinnias in the field. These heat loving, bright blooms on generous plants were beloved by us and pollinators. We had them mixed into our U-Cut flower borders and flowering hedgerows throughout the vegetables.
Around 2016 we discovered Erin Benzakein and the flower breeding work at Floret in the Skagit Valley, Washington. She shared the process of selecting colours that she and other floral designers were seeking. The colours were gorgeous, so much softer than the bold zinnias in our fields. We were immersed in intensive vegetable production though - there was neither time nor space for flower breeding.
When Transition Farm shifted from vegetable production to seed production, flowers suddenly found their place. They fitted naturally within our crop isolation distances. They helped attract the pollinators we needed. They brought a new level of beauty and diversity to the farm. And they very much aligned with why we transitioned into seed growing.
We want to preserve and develop varieties that aren't available through mainstream wholesale channels. Varieties with exceptional flavour, beauty and adaptability that give Australian growers something genuinely unique.
Violet Blush - Transition Farm developed Zinnia Photo: 2025
To us, breeding begins with noticing something special, then dedicating years to preserving and strengthening those qualities for future growers.
In 2019, we grew a seed crop of CACTUS MIX Zinnias. In this mix, there were several softer colours- blush, butter and soft salmon - and some already showed a form moving away from the cactus filament petal style of the mix. I noticed them immediately but how to preserve their genetics was a complete mystery to me. I began researching zinnia breeding.
2019 Cactus Mix Zinnia Transition Farm Seed Crop - The beginning of our zinnia breeding
First Selections
We had already begun our steep seed-growing learning curve. We were hand pollinating zucchini and pumpkins, documenting the characteristics we wanted to preserve, flagging exceptional plants and selectively saving seed. Applying those same principles to zinnias felt possible.
Erin Benzakein shared an interview with dahlia hybridiser Kristine Albrecht. Kristine spoke openly about the role of chance in breeding and how she would save only a small percentage of seedlings each season. That interview got me thinking that controling the pollination, rather than leaving it to chance, might give us a better possibility of reproducing the colours we were seeing.
We hand pollinated a few flowers, carefully covered them with little bags and gave them their own identification numbers. What would eventually become Blushing Nymph was known simply as 36971B, while Mead began life as 36971A.
Cleaning those first flower heads was a mixture of excitement and hope. There was very little seed, but each seed represented a possibility. Every packet was carefully labelled and tucked away to wait for spring.
The following season we sowed those few seeds. I honestly expected to see blooms similar to the parent plants. We transplanted them close to the shed so that I could walk by them every day.
When the plants flowered, the diversity was astonishing. Bright oranges, fiery reds, bold yellows, singles, semi-doubles and every variation in between appeared with a few that carried the soft blush, butter and salmon tones we had hoped for. Our understanding and appreciation of the complex art of breeding flowers had begun.
That was the moment we truly understood that breeding isn't about copying a beautiful flower or vegetable—it's about patiently selecting, constantly trying to move your breeding goals forward.
The bright colours were removed. The soft blush, butter and buff flowers were isolated. Those few selected blooms were hand pollinated once more, and we crossed our fingers that the seed for another generation would form.
Transition Farm Breeding Zinnias 2023
Continue to Part II: Learning How to Breed Zinnias
Discover how years of patient selection, a few unexpected helpers and countless difficult decisions transformed those first soft-coloured flowers into Blushing Nymph, Mead and Violet Blush. From failed bee experiments and the surprising success of flies to ruthless selection and the final trials before release, this is the next chapter in the story.