This exciting new cultivar stunned Fleuroselect's expert judges with its beauty, disease resistance and excellent garden performance. Zinnia marylandica Double Zahara Fire has large, truly perfect, fully double flowers and is particularly disease tolerant versus Zinnia elegans guaranteeing superior consumer and landscape performance and the variety a place of honour as the 2011 Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner.
Double Zahara Fire is also the recipient of the All-America Selections award for performance in North American trials.
Use
Zinnia marylandica Double Zahara Fire has been developed for use in mass landscape plantings in high light and warm temperate climates. It is a must for borders and containers and will be available in 10.5 cm pots for consumer sales.
Market Value
The grower will appreciate the professionalism of this variety. Excellent germination, easy crop scheduling and compactness make it a perfect, modern annual. The landscaper really wins with Double Zahara Fire. Stunning beds of disease-tolerant plants flower from late spring to first frosts making low-maintenance borders, while the sizzling, red-orange hue intensifies outdoors to make a spectacular display. The unique colour and large, truly double flowers will draw consumers at the retailer and back home the purchases will continue to please as Double Zahara Fire is drought-resistant and heat-loving ensuring a superb, garden show all summer long.
Background Information
Zinnias are members of the Asteraceae family and named for Johann Gottfried Zinn, a German professor of botany. Zinnia marylandica is a modern, artificial hybrid cross between Zinnia angustifolia and Zinnia violacea and derives its name from the University of Maryland, where it was developed in the early 1980s. Zinnias were recognised as highly ornamental annuals, but their use was limited by their susceptibility to fungal diseases. The objective of the hybridization was therefore to produce more disease-resistant hybrids with unique flower colours and plant habits. Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner Double Zahara Fire raises this goal to new heights by expanding the genetic variability of Zinnia marylandica with highly ornamental, fully double, fiery flowers on prolifically flowering, disease-tolerant plants.
