Petunia Growing Tips

I potted my petunia seedlings into individual pots of their own. Two of them were already blooming! Some people hate petunias because they are annuals and you have to buy seeds every year but I absolutely love them and if you can make the petunias produce seeds, you won't have to fork out money to get new seeds every year. Petunias have a soft spot in my heart. They were the first flowers I've ever grown from seed. Mind you, these grow very slowly from seed. It takes probably a month before they are ready to transplant, but when they get full sun and warmth they really take off. I'll pinch the flowers when they fade. Petunias typically bloom twice in a season and if you pinch them, you'll get more flowers.

Last year, I actually collected petunia seeds from my flowers. Here's how to collect the seeds:

1. After the second bloom appears, take a paint brush and hand pollinate the flowers.

2. In a couple of weeks, you'll have a large seed pod. The seed pods will burst if you're not watching so I put a tulle bag underneath the pods to capture all the tiny seeds. The seeds are tiny like specks of pepper so store them carefully.

The picture above shows my petunias early in the season last year. With some pinching, they are blooming like crazy. The other pictures are of a petunia seed pod and the subsequent seeds that followed.