Colourful Zinnias     

‘The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly’
-Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun
IF YOU love to watch butterflies, and you don’t have Zinnias in your garden,  you need to plant some.
A Zinnia is to a butterfly what a magnet is to steel fillings:  A source of natural attraction.
The Zinnia is a genus of some 20 species of the Daisy or Sunflower family, native to the United States and originating from the southwest area of the country and some areas of Mexico and Central America.
Named after German botanist, Johann Gottfried Zinn (1727–59), Zinnias are noted for their solitary long-stemmed flowers that come in a riot of bright colours.
The flowers have a range of appearances, from single row to dome-shaped petals. Most are solid, but some, in particular the Z. haageana, are bicoloured with a contrasting hue at the tip of each petal.
Colour also ranges from yellow to orange, cherry, pink, purple, scarlet, and white, as well as fashionable chartreuse; in short, just about every colour under the sun – except blue.
There are miniature Zinnias and giant varieties, ranging in size from about a foot long for miniatures, to giant varieties that can grow to over three feet tall!
Zinnia leaves are opposite, and usually stalkless, with shape ranging from linear to ovate, and pale to middle green in colour.
All Zinnia flowers make great eye-catching  additions to the garden bed or border.
For decades, Zinnias have been the flowering annual of choice for spreading glorious colours throughout the garden, as well as for cutting to bring indoors.
But historically, it wasn’t always so. When the Spanish first saw Zinnia species in Mexico, they thought the flower was so unattractive, they named it mal de ojos, or ‘sickness of the eye!’
Years of breeding have however brought striking new colours, shapes, sizes, and growing habits to the  Zinnia.
Each year, representatives of the professional horticulture industry in the United States of America select one flower and one vegetable to be showcased, because they are popular, easy-to-grow, widely adaptable, genetically diverse, and versatile. For flowers, they have designated 2011 as the Year of the Zinnia.
Usually grown from seed, local horticulturalists recommend planting Zinnias in pots and containers indoors, then transplanting them outdoors into fertile, well-drained soil and full sun, with proper spacing.
Soil should be moist, but not wet. Plants should be watered during dry periods, once or twice per week.
Zinnias, as indicated earlier,  are especially favoured by butterflies, and many gardeners add Zinnias specifically to attract them.
Seeds are available locally at Caribbean Chemicals Limited.