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How to Grow Petunias
by Jane Lake
Annual petunias are prolific blooming flowers that are easy to grow in most home gardens and flowerbeds. You can also grow petunias very successfully in pots, window boxes, hanging baskets, barrels and many other flower planters.
Petunias bloom continously, from spring to frost, in a wide range of colors and flower sizes, making them ideal for use as single specimens or mass background planting.
Petunia Varieties
Grandiflora petunias are the most popular, featuring single or double blooms that are three to four inches across. Some grandifloras have a trailing habit suitable for container growing, while others produce a dense mound from twelve to fifteen inches tall.
Multiflora petunias are more compact plants with profuse single or double flowers that add a vivid splash of color to mass plantings.
Milliflora petunias produce miniature flowers, a little more than an inch in diameter, making them useful for mixed flower containers or as edging plants.Groundcover petunias hug the ground, growing only about six inches high, but their spreading habit can quickly cover a wide area in densely packed flowers. They trail delightfully from hanging baskets, or over the top of retaining walls.
Petunia Growing Conditions:
Petunias love the sun. Full sunlight is best for flower production, but five or six hours of bright sunshine can still produce a very attractive display.
Petunias prefer well drained garden soil, preferably improved by the addition of compost or manure, worked into the top six or eight inches of soil. A balanced fertilizer is beneficial, worked into the soil before planting, then applied as liquid fertilizer once every three weeks, or two weeks for container grown specimens. Vigorous spreaders should be fertilized weekly.
Most petunias thrive in hot weather, providing they receive a good soaking, to a depth of at least six inches, once weekly. Hanging baskets, containers and spreading types need more frequent watering to prevent wilting.
Growing Petunias from Seed or Starter PlantsAccording to the University of Minnesota Extension, petunias can be started indoors, but the seeds are tiny, requiring light for germination, making them a challenge to grow successfully from seed to transplant size, even for experienced gardeners. However, see their instructions for growing petunias from seed if you'd like to try it.
Fortunately, garden centers and farmer's markets stock a wide variety of transplant size petunia plants in the spring. These should be planted outdoors after any danger of frost has passed.
Spacing
Place groundcover petunias about 18 inches apart, or grandifloras and multifloras about a foot apart, in full sun locations; slightly closer if the location is partially shaded. Millifloras should be spaced about four to six inches apart.
Protect the new transplants from midday sun for a few days to harden them off. Grandifloras or multifloras should be pinched back once they reach half their full height, to encourage lots of flowering side shoots.
Deadheading
Remove wilting petunia blooms to prevent seed production and promote more flowering. This is particularly important for maintaining healthy container plants with lots of flowers.
To the owner of this forum and to the others, I am very sorry for having posted some messages in french. It will not happen any further, promised.
It just happened that a classmate from the 1960's just came in this forum giving me some advises about Non F1 petunias. He gave me an address in Belgium I used to know very well since I was 5! Few miles from my home.:-)
I have written to them but their answer is that there are no more ordinary seeds on the market(Belgian) or world, i do not know yet. I will further investigate. It is very hazardous to purchase seeds in the USA, GB, FR, BR, BE and so on since they are screened through X Rays at the respective airports during the transport. This hurts pretty well germination. We professionals in the tobacco industry(which is also a petunia family) we have encountered very often this problem, as seeds become dormant specially if they get frozen in the cargo area of the planes.
Again thanks to the owner's high tolerance as well as the other ones for your patience.
Wish you all the best.
With best regards
Jean Paul Reuland
Jember-Indonesia
Dear Mr Reuand.
Chez Gonthier A Wanze,ils ont d'excellentes semencesde p�tunia.
Gonthier wanze ,belgique est r�put� .J'utilisais les semences pour mon potager lorsque j'etais au Congo.
Good morning,
Petunias are growing very well in Indonesia!
Can somebody email me a place I can purchase NON Hybrid seeds. I would like to produce my own seeds.
Thanks for your attention
Best regards
Jean Paul Reuland
Jember-Indonesia
mon cher jean paul,
Moi ,a force de rechercher sur le net des gens que je connais,je suis tombé dans les begonias.
Si tu es bien le jean-paul que j'ai connu a waremme et que je suis depuis un certain temps sur différents forum de discussion envoi moi un mail a l'adresse:
sbenmoussa@voo.be
Cher jean paul,
tu croirais encore bien que je n'ai pas fait le rapprochement,mais je te piste deja depuis un certain temps sur differents site ou tu ne te rends plus apparemment et notamment un site ou tu cherchais des infos sur des retransmissions video,un autre au big bang, etc.. Car en fait des jp reuland agronomist qui s'expriment aussi bien en anglais qu'en francais et qui ont la bougeotte au point de se retrouver en indonesie,cela ne court pas les rues.
C'est donc volontairemant que je t'ai adresse ce message concernant Gonthier.
Mon adresse email est albert_ben1@hotmail.com
prends contact avec moi via ce canal
Amities
ben
mon cher jean paul,
mon adresse mail est
albert_ben1@hotmail.com
Prend contact via ce canal
I am trying to grow a couple of tomato plants and they are not doing very well. The bottom half of the plant has turned yellow but the top half looks green and healthy but the baby tomatoes that are growing are brown on the bottoms of them. Do my tomato plants have some kind of disease or am I doing something wrong? I have to grow them on a small patio so they only get about 6 hours of sun a day.
I heard that you have to do something called pinching back Petunias so they get bushier and I heard it prevents them from becoming leggy. Could you tell me if this is true and how where to pinch them?
Hi, Chris,
Generally, petunias are pinched back when they are 4-6 inches tall to promote side shoots and a compact, bushy plant. This is done by pinching off the top growth with your fingers, thus the name.
As the plants grow, petunias benefit from deadheading, whereby the dead flowers are removed, including the small area below the flower where seeds develop. This improves appearance and promotes further blooming, because the plant puts more energy into the flowers rather than seed production.
If you want save some petunia seeds, stop deadheading toward the end of the season.
Sometimes the terms pinching back and deadheading are used interchangeably. You don't normally deadhead spreading or wave type petunias.
I have never had very good luck growing petunias. they either become very leggy or their stems get a sticky substance on them and something always seems to eat the blooms. What could I be doing wrong? I love petunias and would love to learn how to grow them successfully!
