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Among the many beautifully flowering plants that can be found in modern front gardens, flower beds and especially in hanging baskets and flowerpots, petunia has been especially popular for many years. This is a perennial plant, which in the climate of our country is grown as an annual, and only a few enthusiastic gardeners try to preserve the mother bushes of these flowers for the winter. But this flower has a very long growing season, that is, from sowing the seeds to the appearance of the first flowers, it can take from 2.5 to 3.5 months.
This means that planting petunia 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 gardeners do this, since sowing petunias for seedlings and further caring for them is not the easiest thing. But if you know all the secrets and subtleties of this process, then the matter will not be as difficult as it seemed to many.
But you will have the opportunity to grow absolutely any varieties that you can choose, and there are so many varieties and varieties of this flower that even an experienced gardener can get confused in them, let alone beginners.
Selecting seeds for sowing
Before dealing with the issue, how to plant petunia for seedlings, you need to understand what kind of seeds it has and what groups of petunias are currently known.
Regular and coated seeds
Those who have ever encountered growing petunia seeds, knows how small her seeds are.
Therefore, in recent years, the so-called coated petunia seeds, which have already become familiar to many gardeners, have appeared. What is it?
The seeds are specially coated with many layers of a special composition, as a result of which they take the form of small balls. The composition may include both nutrients and growth regulators and microelements. Often, the enveloping layers also include special protective agents against fungal diseases and repellent insect pests.
It is thanks to all these components that the pelleted seeds, reacting with water, germinate well and develop normally in the earliest stages of existence.
In addition, dealing with pelleted petunia seeds is much more convenient and enjoyable, because they can be sown quite easily individually, in rows, and in the future there will be no big hassle with picking seedlings.
Coated petunia seeds also have disadvantages: firstly, a fairly high price, secondly, a shorter shelf life, and, finally, they have a much greater need for moisture at the very first stage of germination. Because the protective coating can only be dissolved with sufficient water.
Varieties and groups of petunias
Among the variety of varieties of petunias, it is customary to distinguish the following groups, which differ, among other characteristics, in the duration of the growing season, and, therefore, in the timing that determines when to sow petunia for seedlings.
- Bush forms multi-flowered (Multiflora) – they have a very large number of small flowers, the size of which is no more than 5 cm. They are distinguished by the comparative compactness of the bushes and their unpretentiousness to any weather and soil conditions. There are simple and double forms of petunia.
- Large-flowered bush forms (Grandiflora) – there are not many flowers, but they are very beautiful and large, up to 15 cm in diameter. There are also simple and double forms, but both are characterized by increased capriciousness and long growing seasons.
- Floribunda – have the advantages of a multi-flowered group, since they are highly resistant to unexpected weather conditions, and on the other hand, they have quite a lot of fairly large flowers, which reminds them of the grandiflora group. Thus, the petunias of this group took the best features from their predecessors.
- Cascade - a form of petunias with long shoots, up to two meters. They are able to grow in different directions: sideways, up and down. Along the entire length of the shoots they are strewn with flowers.
- Ampelous – the form of petunias also has long shoots, but they only grow downwards and form some semblance of curtains of flowers.
- Surfinia – a hybrid variety of ampelous petunias, which is characterized by early flowering and resistance to not the best growth conditions.
Timing for sowing petunia seedlings
If you are puzzled by the problem of when to plant petunia seedlings in 2024, then you need to decide on some points:
- Firstly, a lot depends on the region where you are going to grow this beauty. In southern sunny regions planting petunia seedlings in the ground possible starting from mid-late April. In mid-latitudes, which includes Moscow, the region and surrounding areas, petunia is 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 early to mid-June.
- Secondly, each gardener has different initial conditions for growing seedlings. Does anyone have special lamps for illuminating seedlings, and he is ready to provide them for petunia seedlings, starting almost in January. Another does not have the opportunity to use additional lighting for seedlings. But how to plant a crop that cannot grow without an abundance of light? This means that in this case, planting petunia seedlings cannot be done before March. And even then, if you have well-lit window sills, but with mandatory shading from direct sunlight.
- Well, thirdly, the varieties and varieties of petunias themselves differ in terms of growing season and this must certainly be taken into account when calculating the timing of sowing petunias for seedlings in 2024.
So, most bush multi-flowered forms of petunias, as well as surfinias, usually bloom 10-11 weeks after the appearance of the first shoots.
In large-flowered, ampelous and cascading 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 obligatory lighting.
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 range from 5 to 10 days.
Thus, in order to approximately determine in what time it is necessary to plant petunia seedlings in 2024, you need to subtract from the date of planting petunia seedlings in the ground in your region the number of weeks that a particular type of petunia needs to develop and do not forget to subtract the germination time seeds
For example, when calculating the timing of planting surfinia in the Moscow region from the last week of May (the time of planting seedlings in the ground), subtract 9 weeks and another 10 days. It turns out to be approximately the first half of March.
For ampelous and large-flowered petunia varieties, it is advisable to plant the 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 - beginning of April, since in this case you will have to enjoy the flowering of petunia only closer to mid-summer.
How to plant petunia for seedlings
Finally, you can begin to answer the question - how to sow 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.
Typically, 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 obtained from such procedures.Moreover, as mentioned earlier, most seeds are sold in pelleted form, which means 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 for salads, confectionery, etc. would be ideal.
It is possible to purchase commercial soil for seedlings. If possible, you can mix the soil mixture with your own hands. To do this, take half of the turf soil from the garden, half of purchased neutral peat, add 1/10 of the total volume of vermiculite, and a handful of wood ash. The resulting mixture must be calcined in the oven, and then poured with the biological preparation “Baikal” to saturate it with beneficial microorganisms that died after steaming.
Another way to disinfect soil is to spill it with a solution of phytosporin or gliocladin. After these procedures, the soil mixture should be allowed to settle for 1-2 days, the planting containers should be filled with prepared soil, and only then should sowing begin.
Planting petunia seedlings itself is not very easy due to the small size of the seeds. Therefore, if you are dealing with ordinary, uncoated seeds, there are two ways to make your life easier:
- Mix the seeds with fine calcined sand and simply scatter this mixture gently over the surface of the substrate.
- Bend a sheet of paper into a V-shaped tray, place the seeds there and carefully pour them row by row onto the surface of the soil.
It is much easier to sow pelleted seeds, since they are much larger and are clearly visible on the soil surface. In addition, there are not so many of them - each packet of seeds usually contains from 5 to 10 pieces. They can be carefully picked up with a needle or the wet tip of a match and distributed over the surface of the soil by only lightly pressing them.
After you have distributed all the seeds in this way, the containers are either closed tightly with lids, or a plastic bag with a rubber band is put on them. Then they are placed in a bright place with a temperature not lower than +22°C -+25°C. 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 petunia seedlings:
From germination to picking
After sowing, it is advisable to monitor the planting containers every day, and at least once a day remove the lid or bag and remove accumulated condensate. Shoots may appear 5-6 days after sowing petunia, or maybe 10-12. Usually pelleted seeds germinate faster, but not always. When seedlings 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 shaded with a curtain. 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 seedlings appear is maintaining optimal soil moisture. It should not be over-moistened, but it is also unacceptable for even the top layer of soil to dry out, 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 not advisable to remove the film or lid from the seedling container in the first weeks after germination. Thus, greenhouse conditions are created inside, which will help the petunia seedlings to take root well.
It is only advisable to ventilate the tiny seedlings daily, while simultaneously increasing the time they take to get used to the normal conditions of the room.
During aeration every day, carefully moisten the soil in the container using a pipette or a small syringe, if necessary.
The video below shows petunia seedlings a week after planting, and describes how to care for the tender sprouts in the first days of their existence:
After about three weeks after the first shoots, the petunia seedlings begin to develop true leaves and can be transplanted into separate containers. To do this, each bush is carefully dug out using a disposable teaspoon and transferred to a separate pot.
The bush can be deepened into a new container up to the very cotyledon leaves.For the next few days, make sure that direct sun does not fall on the seedlings, and only after new leaves appear can the petunia seedlings be gradually accustomed to the sun.
In the future, caring for seedlings comes down to regular watering and several feeding petunias until planting in the ground.
Thus, although sowing petunia is not the easiest thing, even a beginner can cope with it, knowing all the features of petunia culture. So you need to dare, try, and everything will definitely work out.
