Wave Petunias From Seed?

[greyghost]

Tam, I've never seen the seeds for sale other than mail order. In fact, I see
very few petunia seeds, if any, for sale in seed racks.

Given that you'd have to order, I think it might be a bit late late to get a good
"show" this year. I think I'd try maybe 3 plants in the typical hanging pot-
the more plants, the more frequent watering and feeding.

My biggest concern is that sometimes, in catalog descriptions, I'll see a comment that a particular variety is less sensitive to day length-some such
wording. Never really understood it and haven't thought about it much.
That said, I've sprinkled left over seed of less expensive clumping varieties
in vacant pots and have gotten seedlings later in the season.
Wave seeds are expensive enough (and add in shipping and handling), I
think it might be less expensive to just buy a few plants this summer.
The great thing about Waves is that is years past, you generally had to
purchase cutting-grown plants to have container/spreading petunias.

And remember, they need light to germinate. Dougs suggestion about plastic
wrap/dome is great as it keeps the soil from drying out-otherwise, you might
want to mist seeds until germination-especially the pelleted seeds.

I'll try to check one of my catalogs-Parks, Harris, Jung and see what info they
list about price, the day length issue, number of weeks to frow transplants.

[tam91]

You're probably right that I should just get plants this year anyway. It would be fun to grow some hanging baskets some year though.

[Doug9345]

If you go to Stokes they say the Wave Petunias are day length sensitive.
http://www.stokeseeds.com/product.as...CategoryID=456
The instructions for Grandaflora Petunias
http://www.stokeseeds.com/product.as...CategoryID=431
show March 1 for June 15th flowers. That means that if you planted them about now you'd have flowers around July 4th.

The wave petunia seed sure is expensive.

What I have done is experiment with cheap seed until I am sure of my technique before I try the expensive seed. I've having problems with loosing too many after they germinate. I suspect that it's a light problem.

[Mark0820]

Just to clarify by "less desirable" I mean odd colors and plant sizes. For example, I have looked for marigold seeds at the big box stores and nurseries, but they never sell seeds for the 12 - 18 inch plants with various colors (orange, yellow, gold, white, etc.). All they sell are seeds for 6-8 inch plants or 3+ ft. plants.

It is odd because a majority of the marigold PLANTS these places sell are the 12 -18 inch plants with the various colors. I always wondered if they didn't sell the more common packets of seeds because they were afraid they would cut into their plant sales.

[greyghost]

Doug, Thanks for mentioning Stokes-I was just thinking I was remiss in not
saying they're great for flower seed. They provide a lot of instruction in their
catalog, too. They're one of the best for the Daddy series-individual colors
rather than mixes.

Good idea, too, to experiment with cheaper seed. Cost of Waves is around
$4 for 10/15 seeds (parks, jung); Harris is $6.15 for 25 seeds.

Parks says the Shock Waves are less sensitive to day length giving you two
extra weeks of bloom. I guess I've always wondered if autumn day length
affected bloom??? My petunias seem to bloom even after a light frost so
maybe that's just a factor in the spring.

[ddsack]

I'm surprised to hear about the day length, I've never noticed any difference in blooming, just that if I let the hanging pot waves get too stringy in late summer, they will come back with better fertilization and a little pruning. I used to get my pelleted wave seeds ( I love misty lilac and silver wave which are sometimes harder to find at nurseries than the brighter colors) from Jung. This year I got Avalanche White and Easy Wave shell pink from Swallowtail for 10 pelleted seeds for $3.49 each. Some years I luck out and they all germinate, some years I get 80%, which is acceptable.

I've got my waves up and sprouting now, but some years I have not had time to start them until I do tomatoes at the end of March. Then I end up buying some blooming plants for baskets for early season, and my home grown ones are at their prime later, when the purchased ones are getting a bit over the hill.

[barkeater]

Originally Posted by ddsack

I've got my waves up and sprouting now, but some years I have not had time to start them until I do tomatoes at the end of March. Then I end up buying some blooming plants for baskets for early season, and my home grown ones are at their prime later, when the purchased ones are getting a bit over the hill.

So, that means I'm starting mine late since I'm also in zone 3? When should I expect them to flower if I put them in the ground the end of May? Thanks.

[greyghost]

Ed, I think you'll be fine if you start them asap. I did mine about a week ago-
a couple of days into March. I expect many to be blooming in their pots
by the time I put them into the ground, May 5th to 15th (depending on time and weather and if I've gotten mulch down first). I'm in the south eastern
corner of PA (where the 3 states, PA, DE, MD join), mid-Atlantic region so
we're a couple of weeks if not a month ahead of you.

[ddsack]

Agreed - Bark, you'll be fine if you start now. When I've started seeds at the end of March, plantlets were still quite small, maybe first blossoms just starting to form by the time I potted into the hanging pots in late May. So they didn't look like much compared to the huge trailing baskets at the nurseries - but at $25 to $35 plus, it's so much cheaper to grow your own. They probably looked good by July and lasted into September.

I just have to get in the habit of starting them earlier. I've got so much miscellaneous stuff stored on my light shelves, that I have to do a major sorting and cleaning before there is room for the tomato and pepper seedlings. Any early flower seeds usually have to be content with a sunny south window until I get the light stand in shape for the tomato hoards.

Somewhere I remember reading about rooting cuttings from established plants, so you could in theory make a bunch more from a purchased plant. I've never tried it, so don't know how easily they root. We've got a couple of nice nurseries within 20 miles, lots of good stuff, but so expensive. I did shell out $30 (on sale!) for a giant pale pink fuchsia one year. It was so pale it looked almost white, no red or bright pink on it, and had big fluffy blossoms - never had seen one like it. Unfortunately it didn't do well in the house over the winter, so was gone by the next summer.

[RayR]

I wouldn't know the difference Petunias and Wave Petunias. I grew Petunias last year from seed my neighbor gave me, don't know what they actually were.
Collected a bunch of seed and just planted some seed indoors yesterday.

[bitterwort]

I thought Swallowtail Gardens had a nice selection (at least I was sucked in by a number of them) and HPS (Jungs) had decent prices on some of the fancy series. They were very reasonable on Blue Daddy as well. I agree with you, Greyghost--they smell marvelous. And it's not even a quality that they seem to advertise in catalogs!

I haven't started mine yet (soon), but I expect they'll do fine. They seem to stay small until it gets warm out anyway, but then they catch up fast. One of the big greenhouse growers in Minneapolis (zone 4b) suggests starting petunias early- to mid-March.

[greyghost]

Bitterwort, I'm growing Blue Lace (spreading), 3 colors of Mambo's, a few
others from Swallowtail. Great germination on all but a Picotee purple.
First time I've tried their seeds-I'm starting to get too many great vendors!
No Blue Daddy this year-I'm not sure how I allowed that to happen! There
are other colors of the Daddy series too but the blue is outstanding.

Ray, that's a beautiful photo! They are a "clumping" variety of petunia.
The Waves look like a doiley with arms radiating out. Different forms
like Tidal Wave can have a good bit of height as well as spread but the
Wave is a low, spreading form.

Gave my lab partner (we had huge south-facing windows) a potted
Blue Daddy petunia-he kept it going for a couple of years by pruning-
very dense growth habit that resembled a large African violet.

[bitterwort]

Greyghost, I got sucked in by the Can Can Harlequin Burgundy (not even my usual color palette, but I had to have it), Dolcissima Flambe, and Ultra Blue Star at Swallowtail after signing up for the Blue Daddy and the Sophisticas Blue Morn, Blackberry, and Lime Bicolor at HPS. Then I discovered that I had cleverly ordered some Avalanche Blue Star, Flambe Salmon, and Prism Pale Burgundy Vein in a sale last spring and totally forgotten about it. Well, they look lovely in pots and they certainly help to disguise the front-yard tomatoes, so it seems right to plant them.

I liked petunias as a kid, but then avoided them for years because I thought they were so overused. I don't mass mine, but I've come to really admire them for their intense colors and willingness to keep blooming and their hardiness in the fall--some kept going when it was getting down into the 20s last fall. And the lovely scent of some like Blue Daddy is purely a bonus. Besides, the bees like them--what can I do?

[lakelady]

I love petunias and they always remind me of seaside communities, with their little flowers waving in the breeze on front porches and baskets

This year was my first growing them from seed. No problem germinating them, but they are a month old now with no true leaves yet. Healthy looking, just tiny. Are they supposed to take this long?

[greyghost]

Antoniette, I started mine a few days into March (I would have rather done it
late Feb.). The larger plants are about 1 1/2 to 2" in diameter with round
spoon type leaves. Somewhat flat at this stage-they look like little African
violets. I would have to say that their growth is miniscule but gradual
and then all of a sudden, you say "yikes, I have to transplant them!" It
seems like they're so tiny for so long but by about 5/15, they should be blooming in their pots. I've had mine outside all day night since the
temperature has been well above freezing at night. The couple of times
it was just below freezing, I had brought them in. My grow light area is
full of tomatoes and peppers now or I would have kept them in the garage
under lights although on great warm, sunny, slight breezy days-all plants
go outside (some shade from tree branches at first).

I have about 6 or 7 types-no Waves this year, another spreader Blue Lace-
instead. The rest are clumping varieties. One or two were slower and a bit
less vigorous so it may depend on the variety some.

I seems like they stay tiny for so long and then all of a sudden growth picks
up-I hope yours are at that stage now! They'll probably be much flatter
and much more compact that nursery grown petunias. Those seem to have
a lot of length between the leaf nodes than home grown ones in pots.

I do fertilize mine-usually with whatever I'm using on tomatoes. Fish and
Kelp--also have Algoflash (for tomatoes). They were left out in the rain
and they seemed to like that-they're dark green and it seems like the growth
rate has picked up. Since they were just rains on, I'll let them drain well and then fertilize again.

I grow a lot of petunias for myself as well as for my daughters. It never fails-
I always think I should have started them sooner, they'll be too small when
everyone wants to plant their beds, the girls will be disappointed and
will buy them instead. But then, by May 15th, they'll be blooming in
their 4" pots! I'm hoping if yours are still tiny that they'll put on a growth
spurt!! Let us know how they turn out! I'll let you know when my bloom this
year since I got a bit later start although in past years, they've been quite
rootbound and blooming quite a bit by the 15th---or I should say Mother's
Day-that's generally when we get together and plant since both daughters
live an hour away.

I wonder how Bark's and everyone else are coming along?