We’ve come to that time of the gardening season when we begin to select our winners and losers.

Winners are likely to be purchased again for next year.

Losers are best forgotten.

I’m so pleased that I have very few losers in my garden this season.

Is this because I have decades of gardening experience and a good eye for spotting winners? Or am I just lucky and happened to choose some good plants?

Probably a little of both.

I grew these Double Yellow Profusion zinnias pictured above from seed. They couldn’t have been any easier to grow, and they flower without me fussing over them.

I don’t like to fuss over flowers.

It’s a winner.

Another winner is this yellow zinnia, one of the Zahara series.

I give this one points for blooming strongly once it got going and for doing quite well by the street where one assumes it gets a bit hotter than in a flower bed up by the house.

Bloom, bloom, bloom.

I also started these zinnias from seeds indoors, transplanted them out, kept them watered until they were well established, then a few weeks ago, I stopped watering them. They get rainfall.

Look how nice they look after a week of temperatures in the 90s and no rainfall.

That’s a winner.

I also like that both of these zinnias are on the shorter side. A foot tall? Maybe, but not much taller than that. They are great for edging flower beds.

I like to grow winners! I’m going to grow both of these zinnias again next year.

(No, I won’t save seeds. These are hybrids. No telling what you’d get from their seeds if you collected them. Best to just buy new seeds. Plus, these come in way more colors than yellow, so I might try another color next year.)