Every year, I head to the nursery and get sucked into buying petunias, especially those hanging baskets that look like a cornucopia of magnificent blooms. Three to six weeks later, my petunias look about as scraggly as Gollum from The Hobbit.
Yeah, I dead-head my petunias. I’ve tried keeping the soil moist. I’ve tried letting the soil dry out before watering them. I tried sun, partial sun, partial shade, full shade, and artificial lights. I tried fertilizing and not fertilizing. No matter what I do, within 3-6 weeks, my petunias have gone to pot.
Next spring, I am banning petunias from my garden. I’m going all impatiens – the regular variety, double impatiens for hanging pots, and my all time favorite New Guinea Impatiens for some extra pizzazz. All I do is water these guys, and they flower all summer long – none of that dead-heading nonsense.
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I’m with you! I bought a beautiful basket of purple double petunias two weeks ago. They are so scraggly and ugly now. But planted some in a pot around my day Lillys and they are georgous. I can’t figure out what happens to the baskets!
Hi, Cheryl
Thanks for sharing your observations. I’m going to try a couple in pots and see whether that makes a difference. My daughter is trying to convince me to give petunias a second chance in pot arrangements. I may still be a bit too lazy to dead-head, though.
I absolutely hate petunias!!! My mother loves them. I can tell you from twenty years of gardening experience, forget trying to grow them in pots: they become so heavy they actually pull their root system out of the soil. If you must have them, flower beds are the only way to go. They have a short “pretty” cycle of a few weeks, except for some of the new varieties with small blooms that I have seen succeed in planters. Give me a begonia anytime, and the heck with petunias!
I tried petunias again, most in a pot as Cheryl suggested. Full sun, water every other day, and they’re looking great. The petunias in the hanging basket look awful. They seem to need more room for their roots than a hanging basket allows, but I’ve seen some great petunia hanging baskets around. There must be a secret to keeping petunias looking good all summer.