How and when to plant petunia for seedlings, workshop

Petunia is a bright, unpretentious flower from the nightshade family. It is attractive in that the flowering continues throughout the summer, and planted in a flower pot, it can be brought into the room in the fall and it will continue flowering. In the climatic conditions of the Russian regions, the flower is grown through seedlings.

How to plant petunia seedlings

Despite the fact that petunia is a relative of pepper, tomato and eggplant, sowing petunia seeds for seedlings is different from growing seedlings of these crops. This is primarily due to the microscopic size of the seeds.

Prepare the inventory in advance:

priming
capacities
water
film
the seeds

The soil mixture for petunias can be purchased ready-made.

Suitable land for nightshade crops. Tanks for seedlings, necessarily with drainage holes, are filled with earth the day before planting.

To the edges there should be a distance of one centimeter. We abundantly moisten the ground with the settled water.

The next day we sow the seeds in ready pots. It should be remembered that the seeds of petunias are very small, they can be mixed with fine sand and distributed over the surface. But if you do not plan on mass growing seedlings for sale, then it is better to use granular seeds. Usually they are packed in transparent plastic tubes of 5, 10, 20 pieces.

In each container we place several granules, preferably from 2 to 5.

Important! Sowing seeds is carried out superficially, without embedding in the ground! To prevent drying of the earth - close the containers with foil or glass.

To germinate, put on a well-lit warm window. The temperature for germination is 22-25 degrees. The expected appearance of green sprouts on the 7-10th day.

You can use alternative methods of sowing petunia seeds for seedlings:

- place the seeds in a wet cloth and after germination, carefully plant in pots, the method is inconvenient in that the seedlings are small and fragile.

- place the seeds on peat tablets, and after germination transplant into pots, the inconvenience here is the additional costs.

When to plant petunia for seedlings in 2017

Sowing of petunia seeds is carried out in February - March. Seedlings planted before the 20th of February, usually blooms in the first half of June, and sown in March - in early or mid-July.

If the timing of sowing is guided by the phases of the moon, then you need to sow petunia on the lunar calendar:

in February - the 25th, 27th and 28th;
in March - the 1st, 20th, 24th, 25th.

The "reserve" day, especially if the crops were unsuccessful in February, may be March 6th. The latest days for sowing petunia seed for seedlings are March 31 and April 1.

Which one to choose?

The variety of forms, varieties, hybrids of petunia does not lend itself to accurate accounting. Petunias can be divided into groups according to size and number of flowers:

large-flowered (grandiflora);

medium (floribunda);

small (multiflora).

There are both bushy, from 20 cm to 70 cm high, and ampelous forms.

Petunia blooms with white, red, lilac, variegated, even almost black flowers. New varieties and hybrids appear annually.

It all depends on the individual choice, someone will use a white and red combination of such varieties as "Alexandra" (large-flowered), "Strawberry with cream" (ampelous)

And someone can buy black petunias from the Mystical series:

Black velveteen;
Phantom.

Regardless of color, properly grown petunias will delight the eye until late autumn in the garden, on the veranda, loggia.

Read also the detailed instructions planting pepper for seedlings.