Petunias are unpretentious plants of the nightshade family. They have long won the love of gardeners for long continuous flowering, a variety of shapes and a wide range of colors. Some varieties grow in flower beds with compact bushes, others hang with beautiful ampels, saluting with delightful cascades of delicate flowers.
Each petunia bud blooms within a week, blooms for 5 days, and then fades. A tiny seed box is formed in place of the flower. Of course, the idea arises of how to collect petunia seeds and grow many beautiful flowers. It is very easy to do this, but you need to know some features of the plant.
How to collect petunia seeds
Petunia seeds ripen slowly: for full ripening, they need 3 months from the moment of flower dissolution. Therefore, when collecting seeds, you need to take those that are at the bottom of the stem. Seeds ripen unevenly, with careful consideration on one stalk you can find completely dried, opened pods, still strong hard boxes and unripe green seeds. Dried boxes easily crumble under mechanical stress, so you must be very careful when collecting them.
There is one way to collect seeds: petunias are placed in a bright place. When the first flowers have bloomed, a homemade bag is put on a green seed box (for example, a tea bag). Now, even if the seed box opens, all seeds will remain inside. But usually this is not required: petunia blooms very plentifully, and 2-3 boxes are enough to grow a large number of plants.
Unexpected surprises
Looking at beautiful, large and bright flowers, I want to grow the same. How to collect terry and semi-double petunia seeds?
This is difficult to do, since terry is achieved through the transformation of the ovaries into petals. These varieties of petunias extremely rarely form seeds, and it is easiest to propagate them by cuttings. Surprises can also occur when growing seeds collected from flowers of complex and unusual colors.
Most petunias planted on city beds and sold in nurseries are hybrids. Therefore, seedlings obtained from seeds can retain the properties of the mother plant only partially. They will rise well and will be beautiful in their own way, but their color may be paler and the flowers smaller.
Growing seedlings
The question of how to collect petunia seeds was left behind. Now we need to grow strong plants from small, like dust, seeds.
Seedlings develop quite a long time. The first flowers appear after 3 months, so they must be sown early in early March. Good lighting is very important for them, so you need to organize lighting.
It is better to plant in a container, in a light soil based on peat. Seeds mixed with sand scatter on the surface and are moistened from a finely divided spray gun. Then you need to close the container with glass or film and withstand the temperature of 22-25 degrees Celsius. After a week, the first sprouts appear. At this time, the petunias are freed from shelter, and the temperature is lowered to + 17-18 degrees.
After 3 weeks, petunias are dived into peat tablets or individual pots.
These flowers are susceptible to rot, especially at the beginning of development. How to grow petunia seeds so that they are not affected by a black leg fungal disease?
- Do not thicken the landing.
- Water moderately and only with settled water.
- Perform prophylactic treatments with Fitosporin or similar preparations.
- Before planting, treat the substrate with fungicide.
Petunias love good care. 10 days after a dive, you can start feeding. Flowers are transplanted into flower containers 3-4 weeks after the pick, then the content temperature is gradually reduced to + 14-16 degrees.
For petunias to fully develop, they need room. With thickened plantings, they grow worse and bloom later. A distance of 30 cm between plants is recommended.