How to Save Zinnia Seeds to Plant Next year

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Zinnias are the ornamental pillars of my raised bed vegetable gardens because I enjoy growing a mix of food and flowers. Not only do the flowers feed pollinators, the plants continue producing blooms, often right up until the first frosts, attracting butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. Knowing how to save zinnia seeds is a great skill to have in your gardener’s toolbox. Zinnia blooms produce so many seeds, in fact, that you might not have to buy new ones for many years—if ever.

Whatever you decide to do with the seeds you collect, there are a few important best practices around when and how to save zinnia seeds—as well as how to properly dry, store, and label them—that you’ll want to keep in mind.

Why save your own zinnia seeds?

Before delving into exactly how to save zinnia seeds, let’s consider why you might want to. If you’ve ever grown zinnias before, you might already know that they’re absolutely stellar as cut flowers. But they’re also strong performers in the vegetable garden, since they’re irresistible to many beneficial insects, including bees and other hard-working pollinators. So, let’s say you have a zinnia plant that’s extra large, has eye-poppingly bright blooms, or is absolutely teeming with butterflies. By saving zinnia seeds from individual plants with characteristics you really like, you typically can ensure that you’ll have more zinnia flowers with those characteristics next year.

Can you save seeds from any zinnia plant?

If you were to grow one of the more unusual hybrid zinnias, like Burpeeana Giant, and you collected and planted its seeds next season, you would not get more of the same. When you plant zinnia seeds saved from hybrid plants, you’ll usually end up with a zinnia that looks like the most dominant parent plant. The result of a cross between parent plants, hybrid varieties may have unusual foliage, doubled flower heads, or interesting specks of color. However, if you save their seeds expecting to see the same unusual traits again next year, you’ll likely be disappointed.

a black swallowtail butterfly on one of the zinnias in a raised bed with Brussels sprouts in the background — A black swallowtail butterfly on a zinnia in one of my front yard raised beds.

Wondering how to save zinnia seeds so that you get reliable—and replicable—results? First, opt for “heirloom” or open-pollinated plants. Some classics to try include:

Benary’s Giant Zinnia: Can reach four feet tall or more with blooms up to six inches across.
Cut-and-Come-Again Zinnia: Prolific enough to keep your cut-flower vases full all summer long.
Thumbelina Zinnia: A dwarf heirloom variety suitable for containers and smaller spaces.

Seeds collected from these open-pollinated types usually will produce plants with identical characteristics in the future. Of course, that’s not always the case. With their pollen baskets brimming, honey bees flitting between many different open-pollinated types may help you to inadvertently create your own plant crosses. To keep each zinnia seed strain as true-to-type as possible, establish open-pollinated plants in individual blocks spaced well apart from one another.

When to harvest zinnia seeds

Before getting into the specifics of how to save zinnia seeds, let’s take a look at the best time for seed harvesting. You must allow your zinnia flowers to fully mature and produce seeds, and the flower heads themselves should be dry when you harvest them. Finally, it shouldn’t recently have rained and you shouldn’t have watered the area either.

a dead zinnia touched by frost — Zinnia seed heads need to be absolutely dry before being harvested and dried further indoors.

How to save zinnia seeds from year to year

Concentrate your efforts on only your healthiest plants. (Those with damage from insects or signs of diseases like powdery mildew are not good seed-saving candidates.) Also, make sure you’re only saving seed from open-pollinated varieties and not hybrids.

Tools needed

These items can make saving and processing zinnia seeds easier:

Clean, sharp garden shears: For separating a mature seed head from the flower stem.
Buckets or boxes: For sorting seed heads by bloom size or color.
Old window screens: For spacing out and fully drying just-harvested seeds.
Small electric fan (optional): For circulating air around seeds to be dried.

orange, yellow, and fuchsia zinnias — Only gather the seeds from the healthiest plants. You may wish to mark them during the growing season, so you can remember later on when you’d like to harvest. You can tie a piece of twine around one of the stems or slip a milk bag tag around a stem.

Steps for saving zinnia seeds

Seed-saving at a glance:

Allow flowers to set seed and fully mature.
Detach and sort dried flower heads.
Remove seeds from flower heads and begin processing them.
Dry, package, and label the dried seeds.
Place all seed packets in an airtight container, and store this away from moisture and direct sunlight.

Step 1: Wait for the flowers to mature

Seeds saved from a zinnia flower that hasn’t finished maturing usually aren’t viable. So, how do you know when flower heads are mature? If you can still tell what color a flower was, it’s too early. When fully mature, the petals on a zinnia seed head become brittle and brown.

learning how to save zinnia seeds is easy, you just need to be patient — If you can still tell what color your zinnia is, the seeds aren’t ready to harvest. Here you can see varying stages of zinnia blooms gradually fading.

Step 2: Remove the seeds from the flower head

Snip mature seed heads off of plant stems and then sort these by size, color, or other characteristics if you like. The mature zinnia seeds are inside the flower heads—often still attached to the dried petals. Usually, if you pull gently on an individual petal, the mature zinnia seed comes out along with it. You can vigorously crumble the dried flower head into a paper bag to collect any remaining, hidden seeds.

Step 3: Separate the seeds from the chaff

Zinnia seeds are firm, arrow-shaped, and typically darker in color than the surrounding flower material. Although it can be a little tedious, hand-pick only the most robust-looking, mature seeds and set these aside for further drying. You can toss out the chaff—remnants of dried petals, pieces of stem, and, possibly, some immature seeds.

a zinnia seed head lying on an envelope — Separating the seeds from the rest of the flower can lead to better success when you want to replant the seeds you’ve saved.

Step 4: Drying zinnia seeds

Choose a cool, dark space. Spread the seeds out onto paper towels or old window screens to finish drying. (If your seeds aren’t thoroughly dried before you package them, they’re much more likely to develop mold. This can ruin your seeds and, ultimately, next season’s germination rates.) You can speed the drying process by using a small electric fan to gently circulate fresh air around your seeds.

Step 5: How to store zinnia seeds

You’ve been through the steps for how to save zinnia seeds, but what about their long-term storage? Ideally, you should loosely pack your dried seeds in a paper seed packet or paper envelope. Planning to separate your seeds by color? Be sure to label each seed envelope accordingly. (You can even print color photos of specific zinnia colors to include on the outside of your seed packets, if you like!)

a butterfly on a yellow zinnia — Once you’ve got when and how to save zinnia seeds down, you’ll never be without your favorite open-pollinated zinnia varieties.

Next, seal your zinnia seed packs inside an airtight container or a glass jar with a lid. Using a permanent marker, label the container and store in a cool, dark cupboard or closet. Zinnia seeds that have been adequately dried, packaged, and stored in a low-humidity environment can remain viable for three years or more. (When you’re ready to plant again, direct-sowing zinnias outside after the danger of frost has passed is your best bet.)

Seed-ing is believing!

Remember that some important keys to success include harvesting the flower seeds of each open-pollinated variety at the right time. That means collecting zinnia flower heads from only disease-free, dry plants and separating, further drying, and storing the finished product so that your seeds will last and last. Also, don’t forget to label your zinnia seed packets with the variety name, date collected, color, and any other relevant notes.That way, you’ll be able to keep all of your seed varieties of zinnias straight for next season.