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Among the many flowering plants that can be found in modern front gardens, flower beds and especially in hanging baskets, and pots, 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 growers try to preserve 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.
This means that planting petunias 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 flower growers do this, since sowing petunias for seedlings and further caring for it 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 get the opportunity to grow absolutely any varieties that you can choose, and there are so many varieties and varieties of this flower that an experienced florist can get confused in them, let alone beginners.
Selection of seeds for sowing
Before dealing with the question, how to plant petunia for seedlings, it is necessary to understand what seeds it has and what groups of petunias are known at the present time.
Plain and pelleted seeds
Those who have ever encountered cultivation petunia seed, knows how small her seeds are.
Therefore, in recent years, the so-called coated petunia seeds have already become familiar to many flower growers. What is it?
The seeds are specially enveloped 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 trace elements. Often, special protective agents against fungal diseases and repelling insect pests are also included in the composition of the enveloping layers.
It is thanks to all these components that pelleted seeds, reacting with water, germinate well and develop normally at the earliest stages of their existence.
In addition, dealing with pelleted petunia seeds is much more convenient and pleasant, because they can be sown quite easily individually, in rows and in the future there will be no big trouble with picking seedlings.
The pelleted 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. Because the protective shell can only dissolve with a sufficient amount of water.
Varieties and groups of petunias
Among the variety of varieties of petunias, it is customary to distinguish the following groups, which, in addition to their other characteristics, also differ in the duration of the growing season, and, therefore, in the timing that determines when to sow petunias for seedlings.
- Multiflorous bush forms (Multiflora) - they have a very large number of small flowers, the size of which is no more than 5 cm. They differ in the comparative compactness of the bushes, unpretentiousness to any weather and soil conditions. There are simple and double forms of petunias.
- Large-flowered bush forms (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 moodiness, and long vegetation periods.
- Floribunda - have the advantages of a multi-flowered group, since they have a high resistance to unexpected weather conditions, and on the other hand, they have quite a lot of fairly large flowers, which reminds of the grandiflora group. Thus, the petunias of this group have taken the very best traits from their predecessors.
- Cascading - the form of petunias with long, up to two meters shoots. They are able to grow in different directions: sideways, up and down. They are strewn with flowers along the entire length of the shoots.
- Ampelny - the shape of petunias is also with long shoots, but they only grow downward and form some semblance of curtains of flowers.
- Surfinia - a hybrid variety of ampel petunias, which is distinguished by early flowering periods and resistance to not the best growing conditions.
Sowing dates of petunias for seedlings
If you are puzzled by the problem of when to plant petunias for seedlings in 2021, 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 plant seedlings of petunia in the ground it is possible starting from mid-end of April. In mid-latitudes, where Moscow and the region and adjacent areas belong, 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, seedling petunia for planting in open ground should be ready no earlier than early-mid-June.
- Secondly, each grower has different initial conditions for growing seedlings. Someone has special lamps for highlighting seedlings, and he is ready to provide them for seedlings of petunias, starting almost in January. The other does not have the ability to use additional lighting for seedlings. But 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 carried out earlier than March. And even then, in the event that you have well-lit windowsills, but with the obligatory 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 2021.
So, most multi-flowered bush forms of petunias, as well as surfinia, usually bloom 10-11 weeks after the first shoots appear.
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 date - in January or February - with the obligatory 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 conditions of germination, but on average it can be from 5 to 10 days.
Thus, in order to roughly determine the time frame for planting petunias for seedlings in 2021, you need to subtract the number of weeks from the date of planting petunias seedlings in your region that a particular type of petunias needs for development and do not forget to take away more 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), you subtract 9 weeks and another 10 days. It turns out about the first half of March.
For ampelous and large-flowered varieties of petunias, it is advisable to plant seeds one to two weeks earlier.There are no exact dates here, it is advisable only to finish sowing by the end of March - the beginning of April, since in this case you will have to enjoy the blooming of petunias only closer to the middle of summer.
How to plant petunias for seedlings
Finally, you can start answering the question - how to sow petunia for seedlings. This requires seeds, any small plastic container, soil for planting 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 obtained from such procedures. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, most seeds are sold in a coated form, which means they are not subject to any special preparation - they already have everything they need for the first time.
To grow seedlings of petunias, you can take any container, plastic containers with lids for salads, pastries, etc. will be ideal.
It is possible to purchase purchased soil for seedlings. If possible, you can mix the potting mix with your own hands. To do this, take half of the sod land from the garden, half of the 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 spilled with a biological product "Baikal" to saturate with beneficial microorganisms that have died after steaming.
Another way to disinfect the soil is to spill it with a solution of phytosporin or glyocladine. After these procedures, the soil mixture should be given the opportunity to settle for 1-2 days, fill the planting containers with prepared soil, and only then proceed to sowing.
Planting petunias on seedlings itself is not very easy due to the small size of the seeds. Therefore, if you are dealing with ordinary, non-graded 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 V-shaped tray out of a sheet of paper, place the seeds there and gently pour them row by row onto the soil surface.
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 - there are usually from 5 to 10 seeds in each pack of seeds. They can be gently picked up with a needle or a damp match tip and spread over the soil surface by only slightly pressing them.
After you distribute 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 ° 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 seedlings to picking
After sowing, it is advisable to control the planting containers every day, and at least once a day to remove the lid or bag and remove the accumulated condensate. Seedlings may appear in 5-6 days after sowing petunias, and maybe in 10-12. Plated seeds usually germinate faster, but not always. When shoots appear, they are usually quite friendly, they need at least 10-hour illumination. Direct sunlight for small sprouts is contraindicated at this stage; the best solution would be a special lamp or a solar window sill with shade using 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 seedlings appear is maintaining optimal soil moisture. It should not be allowed to become waterlogged, but it is also unacceptable to dry out even the uppermost layer of the soil, since the root system of petunia seedlings is still tiny and cannot 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 that will help the seedlings of petunias to take root well.
It is advisable only to air the tiny seedlings every day, while increasing the time they get used to the usual room conditions.
While airing every day, gently moisten the soil in the container using a pipette or small syringe, if necessary.
The video below shows petunia shoots a week after planting, and describes the care of delicate shoots in the first days of their existence:
After about three weeks after the first shoots, the petunia seedlings have real leaves and can be transplanted in separate containers. To do this, each bush is carefully dug out with a disposable teaspoon and transferred to a separate pot.
The bush can be deepened into a new container up to the very cotyledonous leaves. For the next few days, see that the direct sun does not fall on the seedlings, and only after the new leaves appear, the seedlings of the petunia can be gradually accustomed to the sun.
In the future, caring for seedlings is reduced to regular watering and several feeding petunias until the moment of landing in the ground.
Thus, although sowing a petunia is not the easiest thing, 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.
