Zinnia
Zinnia elegans
A cheerful, easy annual for cutting, with bright flowers in nearly every colour from summer to fall, sown straight into the ground after frost, and butterflies and bees flock to it. Deer don't find it appetizing. It needs full sun, drainage and good airflow; in humid regions pick mildew-resistant kinds.
- Mature size
- 3.5 × 1 ft
- 1.1 × 0.3 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 2a–11a
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Dry to medium
- Blooms
- Jun–Oct
Zinnia at its mature size
A mature Zinnia grows 40 to 50 inches tall and 9 to 12 inches wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: johnnyseeds.com, benary.com.
Through the year
What Zinnia looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Below ground · Nov–Apr
Not in the ground: planted after the last frost, pulled after the first.
In leaf · May–Oct
Upright plant with bold magenta, pink and orange flowers.
Photos
Growing Zinnia
- Grows well in
- The Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Plains and Mountain West, the desert Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, and California.
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Good for
- Drought tolerant, deer resistant, pollinators, and fast growing
- Native to
- Mexico
Spacing
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Zinnia, that’s about 1 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Zinnia in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.