Petunia care and cultivation at home

Content:

Brief description of petunias
Petunia: care and cultivation of seedlings from seeds
Petunia: planting in open ground
- Landing dates
- Landing rules
Petunia: planting cuttings and caring for them
Petunia care during flowering

Petunia is a real find for those gardeners who want to get colorful flower beds and mixborders without investing much effort and money. This bright flower is a wonderful decoration for balconies, verandas, French cornices. For its unpretentiousness, versatility and the ability to decorate the most unsightly corners of space, city planners and landscape designers love it.

Brief description of petunias

Petunia flowers were brought from Uruguay at the end of the 18th century. J. Lamarck, a famous botanist of that time, named the colorful plant Nicotinia axillaris, mistaking it for a variety of another flower - scented tobacco. Later, as the plant was studied, it was decided to rename it Petunia axillaris.

Petunia in landscape design

For your information! In the first half of the XIX century. active work began on crossing two species - Petunia axillaris and Petunia intergrifolia. It is these two representatives of petunias that are at the origins of the varietal variety of the garden pet that exists today.

Petunia is a perennial member of the Solanaceae family. In the territory of the Russian Federation, as a rule, this flower is grown as an annual plant. The stem of the flower is fleshy, erect and covered with fine hairs. Secondary and tertiary shoots are formed on the stem: erect, creeping or drooping. The leaves are small or medium-sized oval, the edges are even.

Depending on the variety, the color of the leaves can vary from light green or pale green with a silvery tint to a rich green. Gramophone flowers can be of the most varied colors: from white to dark blue or lilac. The edges of the buds are most often even, but there are hybrids in which the buds have a wavy, even curly edge. The smell of petunia is ambiguous, closer to unpleasant. The fruit looks like a box, which is filled with small seeds.

Petunia flower

Important! At home, petunia propagates by sowing seeds, as well as by cuttings.

Petunia is a rather unpretentious flower from the category of those that are said to be "planted and forgotten". However, to obtain a guaranteed result in the form of a lushly blooming flower bed, it will still take some effort. How to care for petunia so that it blooms profusely?

Petunia: care and cultivation of seedlings from seeds

Ampel petunia - growing in hanging pots

The popularity of the flower is so great that today many agricultural firms and flower nurseries are engaged in growing it for seedlings. Therefore, planting material can be purchased starting from mid-April in any large supermarket. You can easily grow petunia for seedlings on your own, thereby saving a significant amount of money. Despite the fact that petunia is an unpretentious plant, you should know how to plant correctly and when to sow seeds for seedlings.

Petunia seeds

Time to board

It will take several months for a strong healthy plant to grow from a small seed, pleasing with itself for a long time. For petunias, the growing season is approximately 65 days. Thus, sowing seeds for seedlings must be started at the end of winter, in the second half of February.

Note! If you delay planting seeds for seedlings, then you need to understand that the date of transplanting planting material into open ground will be postponed.

Choice of capacity

Usually, seedlings thrive in specially designed greenhouse containers. They are sold freely in flower shops and agricultural supermarkets. Such containers are equipped with a hinged lid, under which a favorable climate is created for the growing sprouts.

You can organize a mini-greenhouse on your own, adapting any plastic container for it. To provide seedlings with a greenhouse effect, the container can be covered with glass or stretched cling film. From time to time, provide the sprouts with fresh air.

Soil and seed preparation

You can purchase a universal ready-made soil, but even novice gardeners are quite capable of preparing an earthen mixture suitable for seedlings. Usually it is prepared from equal parts of several components:

humus;
peat;
river sand of medium fraction;
black soil.

Important! Before sowing seeds for seedlings, the soil should be calcined or microwaved. This is done to kill bacteria and the larvae of harmful insects.

Seedling care

You should start providing petunia seedlings with good care immediately after planting the seeds in the soil. The first shoots will appear in 14-16 days. First of all, young growth must receive a sufficient amount of sunlight. Ideally, if the seedlings are provided with lighting 24 hours a day.

Some gardeners install phytolamps for supplementary lighting of shoots. But if there is no such possibility, then the supply of light for 15-16 hours will be quite enough.

Seedling petunia

Watering the seedlings is necessary if the soil is dry and a crust has formed on the surface. However, you should not skip watering, as the seedlings can quickly wither and then die altogether.

Note! But waterlogging of the soil is also unacceptable. In this case, the seedlings can be affected by a fungal disease called black leg, which is completely useless to treat.

Dive and transfer

If the first 4 permanent leaves appear on the seedlings, the seedlings should undergo a pick and transplant into individual plastic or peat pots. It is best to plant young plants together with an earthen lump. So the seedlings will better tolerate this procedure and will hurt less.

In some cases, 2-3 seedlings can be placed in one container.

After each sprout is in an individual pot, the top with a pair of top leaves should be removed. The pinching of the top of a young plant is carried out so that lateral shoots are actively formed.

Petunia: planting in open ground

Ampel petunia - growing in pots and care

How and when to plant petunias so as not to be disappointed by ruined seedlings?

Landing dates

From the moment of planting petunia seeds in open ground to the appearance of the first buds, an average of 3 months pass. Based on this, the timing of planting seedlings in a permanent place in the garden should be calculated. Usually this is the first decade of May. In latitudes where May night frosts are possible, the dates are shifted by 10-14 days. In any case, you should make sure that the danger of freezing has passed and nothing threatens the plantings.

Planting petunias in open ground is best done at the end of May.

Landing rules

Before sending the seedlings to a permanent place of growth, it is necessary to prepare the soil. The earth should be dug up, the roots of the weeds should be removed, well loosened, crushing large clods of earth. In addition, fertilizers need to be applied. For petunia to be lush and blooming, you need to ensure that the plant receives enough nutrients throughout the growing season.

The step-by-step algorithm for planting seedlings is as follows:

Dig holes 8-10 cm deep.
Remove the bush from an individual plastic container along with a clod of earth.
Add the missing earth, filling the voids around the earthen coma.
Tamp the ground
Water abundantly.

Note! If the seedlings grew in an individual peat container, then they are planted in open ground with it. The worst option is to shake off the clod from the root system of the plant. In this case, the probability of plant death is high.

Planting a flower in a hanging planter or a floor flower-pot is carried out according to the same rules, but care should be taken in advance to remove excess moisture.

Petunia cuttings

Petunia: planting cuttings and caring for them

Theoretically, any variety of petunias can be propagated by cuttings. However, there is a group of this type of plant that can be propagated exclusively by cuttings. These are the so-called vegetative petunias. They can be distinguished from ordinary ones by the following features:

miniature root system;
lack of seeds;
bright color of flowers;
early flowering;
the ability to grow throughout the year in a winter garden or on the northern windowsill of the apartment.

Begonia - home care, cultivation

Reproduction of petunias by cuttings begins with the preparation of planting material. Cuttings about 10 cm long are taken from a healthy flower that is actively flowering. Cut off the appendage obliquely using a sharp garden knife.

Important! Before rooting, the cuttings are treated with an antifungal agent and immersed in a root-forming solution for several hours.

After the cuttings have passed preliminary preparation, they can be planted in individual containers. Each stalk should be placed in a planting container at an angle of 45 °, and it should be deepened into the soil at least 3 cm.

Pots of cuttings are placed in partial shade and left there for up to 15 days. During this time, the root system will form, get stronger and be ready for planting in open ground. When the air warms up to 14-16 ° C, petunias may well take their place in the garden or in a flower bed.

Petunia care during flowering

In order for a plant planted in open ground to quickly adapt to external conditions, it must be provided with proper care. First of all, this applies to regular watering. It should be done at dusk and preferably with warm water.

The first application of fertilizers is carried out 15 days after planting petunias in the ground in the open air. First, fertilizing with nitrogen-containing fertilizers is applied, which will contribute to the formation of foliage, and after two weeks, petunias will require potassium-phosphorus supplements. The latter stimulate the flowering of the plant.

Note! So that the plant does not look sloppy, it needs to remove faded buds in a timely manner. In addition, the tops of the flower should be pinched from time to time to form the growth of lateral shoots. With the help of these simple manipulations, the petunia bush will be lush and beautiful.

If you want to get a new planting material next year, you can wait for the plant to bloom, forming a box filled with seeds. Seeds that are in a brown and dried box are considered fully ripe. After carefully removing the seeds, they should be placed in a paper bag and sent to a dark, dry place.

Ampel petunia

Many different wonderful flowers usually grow in the garden. One of them is petunia, growing and caring for this vibrant garden plant is not that difficult. But what if the petunia is not blooming? First of all, do not despair. It is necessary to analyze the situation, identify the cause and correct the errors.