How can I tell if my Zinnias are hybrids?

[Cassandra12208]

Hello, I am new gardener this is only my 2nd year. I was just wondering if there is somewhere I can look up if my Zinnias I got from
Walmart (seed packets) are hybrids? Every site I find tells me something different. I did order some online from Park Seed and found out they were hybrids which means I cannot collect seeds from them. I am hoping the other ones I got aren't so I can collect some seed from them. Please help.

[tomc]

Hello, I am new gardener this is only my 2nd year. I was just wondering if there is somewhere I can look up if my Zinnias I got from
Walmart (seed packets) are hybrids? Every site I find tells me something different. I did order some online from Park Seed and found out they were hybrids which means I cannot collect seeds from them. I am hoping the other ones I got aren't so I can collect some seed from them. Please help.

No. F1 hybrid seed does not mean you cannot save seed of a particular plant. It means they may not be identicle to what you grew this year.

Hm, a possibly off-topic example for fun winter time reading, might be to read up on the "Dwarf Project". This is a project to breed up new examples of open pollinated tomato suitable for patio's and containers.

If you do save seed of F1 hybrid zinnia, you may be setting your foot on the path of dehybridizing those zinnia. *If* (and some seed houses lie) they are in fact F1's. You might just like what you get from your trial.

[rainbowgardener]

Agree... I collect seeds from hybrid flowers all the time. I have lots of beautiful petunias of all different colors and markings that are descendants of originally hybrid petunias. It just means they won't necessarily breed true from seed, your next generation plants may be much more diverse than the original ones were.

And yes any seeds you got from WalMart are almost definitely hybrid.