October marks the middle of spring - the most popular planting season of the year.
Many of you will have your summer vege crops of lettuce , peas, courgettes and tomatoes top of mind right now. And rightly so!
But have you thought about which flowers you’d like to pot up in your garden this summer?
For a colourful injection of beauty into your pot plants and garden you can’t overlook petunias. Petunias have a cheerful flower that can bloom nonstop from summer through to late autumn.
They are also incredibly diverse. Petunias come in an amazing range of colours, shapes and sizes. They can have a single or double layer of petals, being ruffled or smooth. Many have a gramophone shaped flower. Petunias are ideal for bedding, borders, pot plants and hanging baskets.
Larger petunias (referred to as grandiflora) can grow up to 80cm across (if you really let them go) and have huge flowers spanning 15cm. Their impressive size make a real statement but with this comes more responsibility. The large flower means if it is planted in an exposed place, it will get hammered from wind and rain. And you need to deadhead them to encourage more flowering.
The medium-sized varieties will grow between 25 – 50 cm high, with flowers that span 5cm. Flowers on the smallest petunia plants only span 2cm. They are great for path borders and cutting gardens too.
I recommend mixing a few of the smaller varieties and combining them in pots together. Petunia mini picobella and duo red and white are early bloomers suited to pots. And they don’t need much deadheading.
At time of writing this there are 24 varieties of petunias on offer on our Awapuni Nurseries online shop. And this year we also have two new varieties available – duo burgundy and double mix. Excitingly they are both brand new varieties to all of New Zealand (as far as we know). So get in now to plant something truly unique in your gardens this summer.
You can grab your Awapuni Nurseries petunia seedlings from our online store have them delivered direct to your door. We guarantee you’ll be happy with the quality of your plants and if you’re not we will replace them.
Planting-wise petunias are pretty easy. They like a sunny well-drained, fertile spot. Plant seedlings between 15 - 40cm apart depending on their size. Individual guides come on their labels and you’ll also find this information on the Awapuni website. If your planting plot is partially shaded, plant them slightly closer together.
Watch out for snails and aphids on petunias. If they stop flowering sooner than you expected aphids could well be the cause. Petunias can also catch diseases. One method to reduce your chances of disease is to avoid overhead watering.
But if you really want to give your petunias a fighting chance - buy Awapuni Nurseries petunia seedlings. We grow our seedlings with high quality seeds that have increased disease resistance. This means Awapuni petunias are more likely to deliver months of beautiful blooms.
In about six to eight weeks your pots should start to look perky with petunia colour.
