The Zinnias progressed nicely throughout the season and just recently bit the dust in late November. While they may not have been much to look at in the beginning, these flowers sure grew into their beauty for the last few months.  They had a good run and we will be ready for next years Zinnia planting. The seeds came in a huge pack and we have tons more.  Something tells me we’ll have an overload of pink, red, and orange Zinnias in 2012!

The season is pretty much over at this point with a few stragglers hanging on for dear life.  I stopped watering and tending back in November and figured I’d see how the plants do on their own.   The Okinawa weather is slowly but surely starting to get chilly.   Every time I thought the Zinnias had stopped growing… a new one would pop up bigger and much prettier than the last.

A very simple flower and not too needy.  A bit of water and sunshine and they did their thing like nature intended. The soil we planted in was a clay based soil… which the label was in kanji (bought at the DIY store in Okinawa, Japan) so I had no idea until it was too late.  To remedy the problem I added grass mulch from the lawn mower.  It may or may not have helped.   I read online that adding organic material and/or mulch, etc can eventually work its way into the soil and make it less compact.  The clay soil made it nearly impossible for water to sink into.  The water would just sit on top of the soil.  Which at first glance made me think I was over watering when in fact the flowers were drying out because the water was unable to penetrate the hardened clay dirt.

A few weeks after adding the mulch and spraying with a (safe) chemical pest killer I noticed mushrooms growing in the pot.  Apparently a little fungi didn’t hurt at all, and before I knew it the Zinnias were growing like crazy.  Note to self: research the effects of fungi/soil/flower growth.

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