New zinnia plants and seeds

Well, I was walking by my neighbors house the other day and she was throwing out this old fountain.  I took it apart and it had this beautiful base to plant flowers in!  Of course, I knew it had to be zinnias!  I have no idea what has come over me with these darn flowers, but I just love them!  Below are some of the new plants (top 3 photos).  In the middle of this top photo are a kind of bushy pink zinnia, which I think MIGHT be a Zahara strawberry or cherry.  This is a guess.  It is has a much wilder  petal look to it.  On the sides are two yellow and 2 white POSSIBLE Profusion zinnias.  The one yellow had two shabby looking blooms on the plant, but tons of buds. I left them on just to see the yellow for the picture. I found the pots all had two or three actual plants in each pot that I found at HD today!!!  Yeah!  It was nice to be able to spread things around a little! This will look so gorgeous when it fills out!

In this second photo are more of the whites. Surrounded by light peach mini roses, and hot pink portulaca.

Third photo there are two new zinnias here.  In the front you see a similar color one to the bushier ones in the back.  Two different varieties.  Oh, by the way, I bought every last zinnia plant they had at HD!!!  They only had one larger one, and 4 small ones.  But as I said each of them had two or three plants inside!!!!!  

Not sure how I got this shot of my feet, but I thought I would include it so you could see at least part of me standing there waiting for an actual SWALLOWTAIL butterfly to return to the garden!  I saw one briefly today and it was huge and so gorgeous!  My heart nearly jumped out of my chest!  I think my parsley is attracting them now!  I waited about 30 minutes after I finished planting and watering to see if he would return, but he never did.  By the way, I have a 5 gallon bucket of italian flat leaf parsley from seed that seems to be growing well, and then I bought an established plant of regular old parsley at Walmart the other day too.

Some of my older pink liliput zinnias. They just keep on producing, which I find to be just so fantastic!!!

Another grouping of pinks.

A large grouping of orange Liliputs.

OK, now here is a photo of my current kitchen windowsill.  My containers are getting larger and larger to hold all of the zinnia cuttings.  I have started cutting the older heads off to dry, and will save seeds.  

Now, I was thrilled to find that HOME DEPOT does not send their seeds back to the  seed companies in April or May.  Many of the shops do this as they have a program that saves them money on unbought seeds by that date each year.  They will not have seeds available until Sept, I believe it is.  So, when I walked into HD and found flower seeds, I was thrilled.  They had Ferry-Morse, and Burpee who both offered zinnia seeds.  I bought two more purple colored ones, but did not get a picture before sending off to my cousin for her birthday.  She loves purple, so I included them with her other surprises!  I was reading a blog just yesterday and that gal was talking about her FRUIT SMOOTHIE zinnias, and LOOK, I found them!!!  Then I decided to give Carnations a try.  I see that they will grow in zone 10.  Hey, I'm up for a little fun experiment!  

Wish me luck!

xoxo- Julie

P.S.  As soon as I get a photo of that Swallowtail, you will see it here!!!