There are several tips I’ll pass along about getting petunias to bloom very heavily and expand to their full potential. I’m also going to review some of the plants I’ve grown on trial in my garden.
The Growing Details
- Sun: Full sun or very light shade
- Bloom time: most of the summer
- Propagation: seed from older varieties and cuttings from newer
- Soils: almost anything other than heavy clay that holds too much moisture and rots them
- Distance apart: for the Supertunia types – 30-inches to 48 inches.
- Hardiness: not frost tolerant (they might take a degree of frost if they’ve been hardened off but don’t count on it.)
- Varieties: literally hundreds to pick from based on your favorite colors.
Petunia ‘Supertunia Royal Magenta’ by Proven Winners. Goodness, I hadn’t grown this one before but it acted as all those other silly plants. It grew like stink and bloomed its head off. Bright color! Understand the key to success with these super petunias (from any source) is to feed them regularly. They demand a ton of food to support all that growth and blooming. If you fail with this plant, it’s likely because you didn’t feed it enough. I’d grow it again in either containers or the full sun garden if I wanted this bright magenta color. Good plant.
Petunia ‘Double Dark Blue’ I must be holding my mouth wrong when it comes to these double flowering petunias. Others get great growth. Mine is just-OK. The singles in this class of plants outgrow the doubles in my garden but… Then again, I’m not a double flower fan so perhaps this is the problem. Your results may vary.
Petunia ‘Blue Wave’ see the above comments about growing these fast-growing plants and this dark violet-blue flower is equally good in my opinion. It’s really a matter of choosing your color as to your preference. “Waves” or “Supertunia” are both good plants but different marketing companies. I love all the ‘Wave’ colors and it’s tough to beat them in the open sunny garden.
The Trick To Getting The New Petunias To Bloom Heavily
The new petunias need a lot of feeding if they’re going to really perform in your garden. I’d consider feeding weekly, or every second week if you have decent soil, with a fish emulsion or other organic liquid fertilizer to enable them to perform to their optimum level.
Do You Like This Color Of Petunia
If you do like this Supertunia ‘Picasso In Purple’ from Proven Winners, I’d say go and grow it. It grew really well in my trials and filled a pot completely all by itself.
Black Petunia
This black petunia won two awards at the Evening of Excellence at OFA Short Course, earning the Industry’s Choice and Reader’s Choice awards in Greenhouse Grower’s Medal of Excellence program.
‘Black Velvet’ edged Punch Superbells calibrachoas from Proven Winners and ‘Suntastic’ scaevola from Westhoff for the two awards.
And this means of course that it’s going to be coming to a garden center near you next spring for sure. 🙂
Last but not least, there is some thought that some insects don’t like the smell of Petunias