Since petunias are relatively easy to propagate and therefore rather cheap, they are usually bought as young plants every year, although overwintering would also be quite possible. However, the effort of regular care in the winter quarters is only worthwhile to a limited extent, since petunias can also be easily grown yourself.

Petunias can be propagated by cuttings, for example

Grow the petunia yourself from seed

If you have petunias yourself in the garden or on your balcony, you can leave some of the wilted flowers on the plants until they have developed mature seed pods. Remove the seeds from these capsules and store them in a dry, dark place so that you can use them for cultivation on the windowsill from February. The following environmental factors should be observed:

  • Temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius during the germination phase
  • sufficiently bright, but no direct sunlight
  • As high humidity as possible (sometimes cover the planters with glass or foil)

In addition, you should not cover the fine seeds with substrate, as they germinate in the light.

Be careful when planting young petunias

As soon as the second pair of leaves has formed on the home-grown petunias, the young plants should be pricked out and separated a few centimeters apart. Now you should also make sure that the growing substrate never dries out completely. Since petunias are very sensitive to frost, the seedlings should not be transplanted into the garden or balcony box until after the ice saints at the earliest. However, the young plants should first be gradually hardened off by placing them outside for a few days during the day and back inside at night.

Propagate the petunia by cuttings

Since the hanging varieties of petunia in particular can develop many long shoots with good care, propagation via cuttings is also an option. To do this, cut off a side shoot about 20 centimeters long and remove all leaves except for a pair of leaves at the lower end of the shoot with the cutting point. Put several such cuttings in a glass of water, some of them will develop fine roots within about two weeks. Once a few centimeters long roots have formed, the offshoots can be transplanted into the ground.

tips

When propagating by seeds, new color variations can occur due to the mixture of neighboring petunia varieties. On the other hand, you get "genuine" offshoots when propagating via cuttings.

Category:

Indoor plants