Zinnia elegans Crestar! Mix seeds

Zinnia elegans ‘Crestar! Mix’, or the scabious-flowered zinnia, brings together orange, salmon, peach, pink, red, yellow, and cream flowers with large heads, with a charmingly "frizzy" centre. The plants flower tirelessly from summer to autumn in beds, borders, and large pots, and their flowers last a long time in a vase. Awarded in 2025, ‘Crestar! Mix’ is among the best zinnia mixes for the garden and for cut flower arrangements.

A member of the Asteraceae family, Zinnia elegans (synonym: Zinnia violacea) is native to the high plateaus and warm plains from Mexico to Nicaragua. This species colonises sunny fallow land, embankments, and fields. Zinnia elegans is an annual: it completes its entire life cycle in one season, then dies.
‘Crestar! Mix’ has been distinguished by the All-America Selections 2025 and Fleuroselect Approved Novelty 2025. It is a horticultural mix that produces a high proportion of double heads, consisting of a wide crown of external ligules surrounding a very well-developed central disc, forming a pom-pom shape. Each plant forms an upright, branching clump 45 to 60 cm tall and 25–30 cm wide within a few weeks. The angular stems are robust and hollow; the medium green foliage features lanceolate to ovate, entire, slightly rough, 6 to 10 cm long leaves. The inflorescences are solitary heads 7 to 10 cm in diameter. Depending on the plant, they come in yellow, orange, salmon, red, white and cream; the first wave of flowers concentrates the greatest number of double heads. Flowering spreads from June to October provided faded stems are regularly removed. After pollination by insects, seeds form, which can be harvested to sow the following spring.

Zinnia ‘Crestar! Mix’ can be planted en masse in a large flower bed or in large containers. It can also be grown in the vegetable garden for cut flowers. You can pair it with fine ornamental grasses like Pennisetum 'Black Beauty', Cosmos ‘Sensation Purity’ and dwarf dahlias such as 'Gallery Sisley' or ‘Gallery Pablo’. To make cut flower arrangements, cut the stems when the external ligules (petals) are fully open and leave 2–3 leaves on the stem.

Zinnias were cultivated in Mexico long before their spread to Europe in the 18th century. They quickly found their way into cottage gardens because of their prolonged flowering and the ease with which they produce seeds that can be resown year after year.