Photo: Harmen de Vries
One of the western world’s most popular annuals is the petunia: indeed it may well be the most widely grown of all bedding plants. The American writer Alice Walker even has a poem about them. The reasons for its appeal are not hard to find: it is a prolific bloomer, producing masses of wide, trumpet-shaped flowers in almost every color, English publicans will tell you it is the best of all flowers in a hanging basket, and it will tolerate quite a wide range of temperature. Moreover it can be grown easily from seed, provided you remember not to cover the tiny seeds, and to keep the humus-rich soil moist while the seedlings grow.
Nowadays, nearly all the plants are F1 or F2 hybrids, and some have been specifically developed for containers. The choice is huge. Among the types of grandiflora [large blooms] are pink and purple cultivars called ‘Daddy’, blue and white varieties [Merlin Blue Moon] and Supercascade and Ultra which both produce flowers in a wide range of brilliant colors. Milliflora varieties have smaller flowers – about one inch across – but are more tolerant of variable conditions, and have blooms which are less delicate. Wave petunias can be used to create effective ground cover.
Petunias originate from South America and should thus be familiar with tropical temperatures. But even petunias find the blazing sun of South Thailand a bit of a handful, and ideally they should be bedded out in a part of the garden where there is partial or dappled shade. Moreover, they are quite gross feeders, and will not flower to best effect without adequate moisture at the roots and the odd application of fertilizer. This is of course especially true of petunias cultivated in baskets or pots. Best grown from commercial seed, all petunias carry recessive genes and self-sown plants may revert to less interesting forms.
green galoshes 