Zinnia elegans Envy Double Seeds

Zinnia elegans Envy Double, also called common zinnia, is a generous and original annual plant. Long flowering, it bears large pompom-like blooms of a rare and useful colour, that varies between chartreuse-green and creamy green, on a compact mound of growth. It is a variety particularly suited for slightly shaded areas of the garden. Its flowers exude a strange scent reminiscent of polish and are very beautiful in fresh or dried flower bouquets. This annual plant is low maintenance, resisting to heat and drought, but requires well-drained soil for best results.

Zinnia elegans is a sturdy annual belonging to the family Asteraceae, that is native to Mexico and has given rise to many cultivars. 'Envy Double' is just one of them and is selected for the unusual colour of its large, fully double blooms. The plant forms a compact, well-branched mound, which grows 50 to 60 cm high and 40 cm wide. Its stems are hollow and snap easily. They carry rough, downy, lanceolate to elliptical, medium green leaves. Flowering occurs from July to September-October in the form of nectar-rich, melliferous blooms. The axillary flowers are large, fully double, hemispherical, 6 cm wide capitula that are composed of numerous ligulate flowers of a rare shade of chartreuse-green to creamy green, giving them the appearance of the inflorescence of certain dahlias.

Seeing zinnias grow is always a lovely surprise. Not only are they able to sprout up from the ground in the most unlikely places, including those disdained by many plants, they are capable of blooming even in gravelly soils and in scorching sunlight. Zinnia Envy Double’s colours blend well with partial shade and white flowers, but also with purple and chocolate blooms or foliage. They assert themselves in cottage-style borders and flowerbeds, combined with cosmos or Ophiopogon planiscapus Nigrescens or by placing them between airy grasses such as Stipa tenuifolia or Eragrostis trichoides. They can also be sown in pots to decorate the terrace in summer.