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Among the many flowering plants that can be found in modern front gardens, flowerbeds and especially in hanging baskets and planters, petunia has been especially popular for many years. This is a perennial plant that is grown as an annual in the climate of our country, and only a few enthusiastic flower growers try to save the mother bushes of these flowers for the winter. But this flower is distinguished by a very long growing season, that is, from sowing seeds to the appearance of the first flowers, it can take from 2,5 to 3,5 months.
And this means that planting a petunia for seedlings is a mandatory procedure, without which it will not be possible to grow this wonderful flower. You can, of course, buy ready-made seedlings in the spring, and many amateur growers do just that, since sowing petunias for seedlings and further caring for them is not the easiest thing to do. But if you know all the secrets and subtleties of this process, then the matter will not be as complicated as it seemed to many.
But you will get the opportunity to grow absolutely any variety that you can choose, and there are so many varieties and varieties of this flower that even an experienced grower can get confused in them, let alone beginners.
Selection of seeds for sowing
Before dealing with the question of how to plant a petunia for seedlings, it is necessary to understand what seeds it has and what groups of petunias are currently known.
Regular and pelleted seeds
Those who have ever dealt with growing petunia seeds know how small the seeds are.
Therefore, in recent years, the so-called coated petunia seeds, which have already become familiar to many flower growers, have appeared. What is it?
Seeds are specially wrapped in many layers of a special composition, as a result of which they take the form of small balls. The composition can include both nutrients and growth regulators and trace elements. Often, the composition of the enveloping layers also includes special protective agents against fungal diseases and repelling insect pests.
It is thanks to all these components that pelleted seeds, reacting with water, germinate well and develop normally at the earliest stages of existence.
In addition, it is much more convenient and pleasant to deal with coated petunia seeds, because they can be sown quite easily one by one, in rows, and in the future there will be no big trouble with picking seedlings.
Coated petunia seeds also have disadvantages: firstly, a rather high price, secondly, a shorter shelf life, and, finally, they have a much greater need for moisture at the very first stage of germination. Since the protective shell can only dissolve with enough water.
Varieties and groups of petunias
Among the variety of varieties of petunias, it is customary to distinguish the following groups, which differ, in addition to their other characteristics, also in the duration of the growing season, and, therefore, in the timing that determines when to sow petunias for seedlings.
- Bush forms multi-flowered (Multiflora) – they have a very large number of small flowers, the size of which is not more than 5 cm. They are distinguished by the comparative compactness of the bushes, unpretentiousness to any weather and soil conditions. There are simple and terry forms of petunias.
- Bush forms large-flowered (Grandiflora) – there are not so many flowers, but they are very beautiful and large, up to 15 cm in diameter. There are also simple and terry forms, but both are characterized by increased capriciousness and long growing seasons.
- Floribunda – have the advantages of a multi-flowered group, as they are highly resistant to unexpected weather conditions, and on the other hand, they have quite a lot of fairly large flowers, which resemble the grandiflora group. Thus, the petunias of this group took the best features from their predecessors.
- Cascading – a form of petunias with long shoots up to two meters. They are able to grow in different directions: to the sides, up and down. Along the entire length of the shoots, they are strewn with flowers.
- Ampelnye – the form of petunias is also with long shoots, but they only grow downwards and form some kind of curtains of flowers.
- Surfonia – a hybrid variety of ampelous petunias, which is characterized by early flowering and resistance to not the best growth conditions.
Dates of sowing petunias for seedlings
If you are puzzled by the problem of when to plant petunias for seedlings in 2022, then you need to decide on some points:
- Firstly, a lot depends on the region where you are going to grow this beauty. In the southern sunny regions, it is possible to plant petunia seedlings in the ground starting from mid-late April. In mid-latitudes, which includes Moscow with the region and adjacent areas, petunias are usually planted in open ground in the middle or even at the end of May. In the northern regions, in the Urals and Siberia, petunia seedlings for planting in open ground should be ready no earlier than the beginning or middle of June.
- Secondly, each gardener has different initial conditions for growing seedlings. Someone has special lamps for highlighting seedlings, and he is ready to provide them for petunia seedlings, starting almost from January. The other does not have the opportunity to use additional illumination for seedlings. And how to plant a culture that cannot grow without an abundance of light? This means that in this case, planting petunias for seedlings cannot be done before March. And even then, in the event that you have well-lit window sills, but with obligatory shading from direct sunlight.
- And thirdly, the varieties and varieties of petunia themselves differ in terms of vegetation, and this must certainly be taken into account when calculating the timing of sowing petunias for seedlings in 2022.
So, most bushy multi-flowered forms of petunias, as well as surfinias, usually bloom 10-11 weeks after the first shoots appear.
In large-flowered, ampelous and cascade forms of petunias, flowers appear later – 12-15 weeks after germination. Plants are usually planted in the ground one to two weeks before flowering, although under favorable conditions and good care, petunia seedlings may well bloom before planting in the ground. But for this, it is advisable to sow the seeds at the earliest possible time – in January or February – with mandatory highlighting.
It is also necessary to take into account the germination time of the petunia seeds themselves, and it depends on the duration and conditions of their storage, as well as on the temperature and germination conditions, but on average it can be from 5 to 10 days.
Thus, in order to approximately determine the time frame for planting petunias for seedlings in 2022, you need to subtract from the date of planting petunia seedlings in your region the number of weeks that this or that type of petunias needs for development and do not forget to take away the germination time seeds.
For example, when calculating the timing of planting surfinia in the Moscow region, from the last week of May (time for planting seedlings in the ground), subtract 9 weeks and another 10 days. It turns out about the first half of March.
For ampelous and large-flowered varieties of petunia, it is advisable to plant seeds another one to two weeks earlier. There are no exact dates here, it is only advisable to finish sowing before the end of March – the beginning of April, since in this case you will have to enjoy the flowering of petunias only closer to the middle of summer.
How to plant petunias for seedlings
Finally, you can begin to answer the question – how to sow a petunia for seedlings. To do this, you need seeds, any small plastic container, soil for sowing and a plastic bag if the plastic container for planting is without a lid.
Usually, petunia seeds are not processed before planting due to their very small size – the risk of losing them during processing is greater than the benefits received from such procedures. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, most seeds are sold in pelleted form, which means that they are not subject to any special preparation – they already have everything they need for the first time.
To grow petunia seedlings, you can take any container, plastic containers with lids from salads, confectionery, etc. will be ideal.
It is possible to purchase purchased soil for seedlings. If possible, you can mix the soil mixture with your own hands. To do this, take half of the sod land from the garden, half of the purchased neutral type peat, add 1/10 of the total vermiculite, and a handful of wood ash. The resulting mixture must be calcined in the oven, and then spilled with the Baikal biological product to saturate with beneficial microorganisms that died after steaming.
Another way to disinfect the soil is to spill it with a solution of phytosporin or glyocladin. After these procedures, the soil mixture should be allowed to settle for 1-2 days, fill the planting containers with prepared soil, and only after that proceed with sowing.
The very planting of petunias for seedlings is not very easy due to the small size of the seeds. Therefore, if you are dealing with ordinary, non-grained seeds, there are two ways to make your life easier:
- Mix the seeds with fine calcined sand and simply gently scatter this mixture over the surface of the substrate.
- Bend a V-shaped tray from a sheet of paper, place the seeds there and carefully pour them row by row onto the surface of the soil.
Pelleted seeds are much easier to sow, as they are much larger and clearly visible on the soil surface. In addition, there are not so many of them – in each pack of seeds, usually from 5 to 10 pieces. They can be gently picked up with a needle or the wet tip of a match and distributed over the surface of the soil by only slightly pressing them.
After you have distributed all the seeds in this way, the containers are either closed tightly with lids, or they are put on a plastic bag with stationery gum. Then they are placed in a bright place with a temperature not lower than +22°С -+25°С. Petunias are very thermophilic, if the temperature is below + 20 ° C, the seeds may not germinate at all. For more information, watch the video below on planting petunias for seedlings:
From shoots to picks
After sowing, it is advisable to check the planting containers every day, and at least once a day remove the lid or bag and remove the accumulated condensate. Seedlings may appear 5-6 days after sowing the petunia, or even 10-12. Usually coated seeds germinate faster, but not always. When shoots appear – they are usually quite friendly, they need at least 10 hours of illumination. Direct sunlight is contraindicated for small sprouts at this stage, the best solution would be a special lamp or a sunny window sill with shading with a curtain. And in the evening or on cloudy days, it is necessary to place petunia seedlings under special lamps.
The second point that you should pay attention to when sprouts appear is maintaining optimal soil moisture. It should not be allowed to become waterlogged, but it is also unacceptable to dry out even the topmost layer of soil, since the root system of petunia seedlings is still tiny and will not be able to cope with drying out. To do this, it is usually undesirable to remove the film or cover from the seedling container in the first weeks after germination. Thus, greenhouse conditions are formed inside, which will help the petunia seedlings to take root well.
It is advisable only to ventilate tiny seedlings every day, while increasing the time they get used to the usual conditions of the room.
During airing every day, gently moisten the soil in the container with a pipette or a small syringe, if necessary.
The video below shows the shoots of a petunia a week after planting, and describes the care of tender sprouts in the first days of their existence:
After about three weeks after the first shoots, true leaves appear in the seedlings of the petunia and it can be transplanted into separate containers. To do this, each bush is carefully dug up with a disposable teaspoon and transferred to a separate pot.
The bush can be deepened into a new container to the very cotyledon leaves. For the next few days, see that the direct sun does not fall on the seedlings, and only after new leaves appear, the petunia seedlings can be gradually accustomed to the sun.
In the future, care for seedlings comes down to regular watering and several top dressings of petunias until planting in the ground.
Thus, although sowing petunias is not the easiest thing to do, even a beginner can cope with it, knowing all the features of the petunia culture. So you need to dare, try, and everything will definitely work out.