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Nothing more spectacular and rewarding than to grow your own zinnias. In this post, I share how I personally How To Dry and Save Zinnia Seeds From Bouquets.

How To Save Seeds From a Zinnia Bouquet

zinnias in my Home Garden

Who doesn’t love a fresh cut bouquet from a home garden to enjoy indoors? I have lost count of how many smiles my zinnias have brought.  It is rewarding to cut and given as gifts.  It is super easy to dry the flowers and save the seeds to grow more bouquets in the years to come.  In fact, I have had seeds saved for close to five years that produced a flower.  Below I will share how I save seeds from zinnias to grow more bouquets.

NOTE: for a zinnia to come back to true (or the same as it was the year before) it must be an heirloom.  This doesn’t mean the zinnia seed won’t grow from seed if it was a hybrid.  

Zinnia Bouquet From Michigan Farmers Stand

You will need 

  • A brown paper bag ( lunch size)
  • Sharpie to mark the bags for drying
  • Wire
  • Zinnias
  • Cool and very dry location to hang the zinnia’s for drying

Zinnias

Zinnias in my Raised Bed Garden

* As the flower starts to fade it is time to remove it from the vase indoors.  be sure to rinse off the expired leaves and other things that start growing around the steams in the vase water.

Zinnias Start To Fade

*after the stems have somewhat dried from removing the extra growth place the zinnia flowers facing inside the brown paper bag.

Saving Zinnia Seeds

Place Zinnias in Bag to Finish Drying

* Use floral wire to tie off the brown paper bag holding the zinnia flowers. Be sure the stems are wrapped and somewhat out of the bag so as the seeds dry they will drop into the bag.
The brown paper bag helps keep bugs and critters out and it also provides a place for the seeds to collect.

Use Wire to Tie Top of Brown Bag

* Be sure to label your brown paper bag with the date and what variety you have placed in the bag to dry. This makes it so much easier next year when you go to plant your cut flower garden.

Label The Bag of Zinnias

In this blog post, we are using a mixed bouquet that will grow perfect together because they are all the same plant and the heights are the same. In bigger bouquets, you may want to remove the larger flowers ( like sunflowers) and dry them separately because they don’t always grow well together.

* Hang the drying bags in a cool dry location. I hang mine in my garage where it is low light and I know there aren’t any critters that will be able to get into them.

Hanging Bag of Zinnias to Dry

This process is how you can dry the zinnia flowers in order to save the seeds.  As the flower dries the seed usually falls to the bottom of the bag.

How to Make Envelopes to Save Zinnia Seeds

Once the zinnias a dry you can also save the seeds for years to come. It is also easy to wrap the dried seeds for storage. I share how you can save space by putting the dried zinnia seeds in homemade envelopes.


I hope this video was useful for you. Be sure to direct questions and comment to me on my website.

Let’s Connect

I would love to hear what you think about Zinnias.  Please be sure to comment on this post.  Reach out to me anytime with questions, comments or just a ‘howdy’.  I hope I can help you grow your own zinnias.

Happy Gardening,

Bren Haas

Note that this post has been revised from a 2014 blog post by Bren Haas.

12 Responses

  1. This looks so easy. It had never occurred to me before to try this. I just pitched a Zinnia bouquet from the farmers market last weekend. Guess I have to go back and get another one!

    1. Yes … it really is a great way to ‘recycle’ and enjoy next season! I’m looking forward to enjoying that zinnia bouquet again next year. Thanks for stopping by Tracy!

  2. Thank you for sharing this post . I had no idea it was that easy to save seeds.

    1. Endless Bouquet for sure .. thanks for stopping by and commenting Tammy.

    2. I have been growing Zinnias for ten years now in Redding. I also save my seeds and because I’ve saved and planted my seeds annually I have a new type of Zinnia. It truly is worth the effort.

      1. Hey Carla – thank you for sharing your experience with saving zinnia seeds. I am excited to focus more on saving all types of zinnia seeds in the years to come. I use to only save the heirloom. It doesn’t take much time or effort to save the seeds so why not go for it! Happy Gardening and thank you for commenting on my blog.

  3. Thanks for the video. I have 2 varieties I want to save that I planted this year for next year. I wasn’t sure how to do it or what kind of envelope or container to put them in.

    1. Awesome.. so happy to help you out with this Toni.

  4. I have seen online that If I didn’t let the flowers dry on the plant the seeds would not grow. I threw away a 100 beautiful zinnias. When will I learn not to believe everything I see online. I still have a few bouquets, I will do both, some dried on plant and others from my bouquet to see if they both grow, so happy I came across your post

    1. Yes.. be sure to let the flower dry. I like letting them air dry outside in the garden. I pick them and wrap them in the paper like in the video. The paper prevents moisture from being trapped in the seeds. You can keep the dried flower pieces if you are short on time. I did this last year with the white zinnias I’ll be saving this year. Maybe I will do another video to show what I am doing with these seeds. Thanks for commenting and I hope this helps!

  5. I thought I messed up because some say we have to let the flower fully dry on the plant. But if you’re finding out different than maybe my seeds are viable. 😊 I’ll try growing some of these. They’re so beautiful so if they don’t sprout I’ll buy new seeds. 🥰

    1. You have a great attitude about saving seeds and gardening Marsha! I have been doing this method of saving zinnia seeds for years and I always get a row of beautiful blooms. Thank you for commenting!

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