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Do you have a guilty pleasure? It doesn’t have to be expensive, just something you enjoy or wouldn’t be without. When it comes to gardens, I have not only one, but a whole list of plants that I wouldn’t be without.

Some have emotional attachments, like roses (Dad), dianthus (Papa Willard) and pansies (Mom), others are irresistible gourmet treats (David Austin roses and exotic dahlias) and there are plants, like plain old zinnias, that l like because they make me smile.

Once the standby annual for thrifty gardeners, zinnias were known to be cheap, cheerful and easy to grow. Homeowners in days gone by could scatter a packet of seeds along the edge of their vegetable patch and enjoy a colourful return for a small investment of time and energy.

A few years ago, I got hooked on tall, florist-quality zinnias (Zinnia elegans). These seed-grown zinnias form bushy, tall plants (one metre tall) that produce a steady supply of huge (12 to 15 centimetres) wide double flowers in a beautiful array of colours including red, pink, yellow, orange, violet, white and lavender. Last summer’s treasure was ‘Giants of California’ Mixed Zinnia with huge, double flowers — some plants even produced a second flower on top of the first bloom.

For the past couple of years, I’ve had excellent results with ‘Holi-Scarlet’ zinnias (Zinnia elegans) and Hybrid Zinnia ‘Profusion Red Yellow Bicolor’, both reach about 30 cm tall and bloom from early June through to late October. They made a cheerful edging for my cutting garden.

Depending on the variety, zinnias take about 60 days for flowers to appear after the seed has been sown. Here in Niagara, seedlings transplanted out in late May or early June will flower by mid-July and continue to bloom well into the autumn.

Zinnias can also be sown directly in the garden once the soil warms in the late spring. Cutting encourages new flowers to appear. Powdery mildew can be a problem for some varieties, avoid overhead watering to discourage this problem.

Zinnias make great additions to pollinator gardens, they are magnets for bees, butterflies and bunnies — in my Niagara garden, it’s a battle of wits to keep young zinnias off the bunny menu.

Some years have been more of a challenge than others. A few years ago, I had to secure two small patches of zinnias with chicken wire fencing — not the prettiest solution, but it did work. Last spring, I inadvertently discovered a nest of tiny bunnies in one of my half-barrel planters. I left the nest alone. Call it karma, but later that summer, the local bunnies hadn’t so much as nibbled on a zinnia leaf, never mind devouring the plant to the bare stem, as their forebears had done.

Given my track record, you might think I would have given up on growing zinnias, but as I mentioned in the opening, they are one of my guilty pleasures.

This spring, I planted two trays of Zinnia ‘Envy’ with chartreuse double flowers that promised to be the perfect foil for the strong coloured dahlias in the cutting garden. I also planted a tray of ‘Holi-Scarlet’ zinnias again, hoping to pepper the cutting garden with their vibrant red flowers. The bunnies had other plans.

First to be sacrificed was the tray of ‘Holi-Scarlet’ zinnias. The tray of seedlings was set out to bask in the sun and toughen up before planting. The first warning came when a few plants were nibbled, the rest of the tray, save three plants, was finished within a few days. The survivors were squirrelled into the greenhouse for safekeeping, along with the ‘Envy’ seedlings. When it was time to harden off the taller zinnias, I put them on a low bench, thinking they would be safe. All of the plants were eaten overnight — they never made it to the garden.

It was too late to start more seeds, so I headed out to search for zinnia seedlings at the local garden centres, but to no avail. I eventually found two abandoned cell packs of tall zinnias (unlabelled) on a back bench at one of the local garden centres. If I transplanted the seedlings into large containers and spoiled them for a couple of weeks, they just might take off for me.

By early July, the seedlings were ready to be planted out, but they were not going to be rabbit fodder if I could help it. Five seedlings were planted up in a large container, with a large tomato cage to support them as they grew. The final six seedlings were treated to a prepared bed, freshly cultivated and topped with compost. To secure the planting bed, a fence was fashioned with bamboo poles and chicken wire, the fencing was secured with zip ties to the poles. The plants had wobbly stems, thanks to their rough start, but they were secured to a bamboo pole to encourage them to straighten out. The surviving three Holi-Scarlet zinnias were planted out with great trepidation, and covered with inverted wire baskets, a quasi-shield that I hoped would deter the bunnies. Surprisingly, it worked (they could have easily slipped between the wires, but didn’t bother trying). July proved to be sunny, hot and dry, so the zinnias were checked daily, watered as required and fertilized biweekly.

It’s now mid-August, and my zinnias are thriving, the cages have come off the three ‘Holi-Scarlet’ zinnias, the chicken wire fence is doing a fine job of keeping the tall zinnias upright, so it will stay in place. At this point, I’ve dubbed the zinnias my $100 plants — if I add up the time, energy and cost expended to date, they probably cost more — but who’s counting?

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