Who decides these things anyway? Dixon, Illinois, the so-called petunia capital of the world, is under three metres of snow, while practically every boulevard, border and bed in Abu Dhabi is trumpeting their hybrid cause. No offence to Pinky Petunia (Dixon's mascot), but we can grow the things year-round if we care to. We have what Pinky and her friends really want: more sun than you can shake a frost-killed Illinois-grown petunia at.
Still, half of you are probably saying it's a dubious honour anyway. Who wants to be famous for frilly froufrou flowers, or as Tana somebody inelegantly stated on a gardener's blog: "Fussy old lady flowers that stink." Another worldwide wag, Jack Scheper from Floridata, explains: "My most unpleasant gardening experience to date was the job of deadheading mom's nasty petunia bed - pulling sticky limp flowers from smelly plants in sweltering summer heat. Sticky, stinky, common ... petunias leave me cold."
But petunias today, at least some of them, and especially the trailing types for groundcovers, window boxes and hanging baskets, are not the picotee petunias of your parents (or grandparents). Garden gurus talk of the petunia revolution (maybe you missed it; were you away the last 14 years?), and some are using the words "exciting" and "petunia" in the same sentences ... sometimes even next to each other. And let's not forget, even with their drawbacks, some liked the cheery colours of those old petunias just fine, thank you.
Today's petunias come in a much wider assortment of size, shape, colour and pattern; some self-clean - no deadheading required - and some of the trailers are so vigorous you need never pinch them back. The range includes the 13cm-wide trumpets on some grandifloras to the milliflora miniatures to the mounding behemoths that climb more than half a metre before spilling off in all directions. Here's a quick look at the broad categories:
This elder group includes the big, bold, ruffly-edged flowers, sometimes double-flowered, that don't fare too well in heat, wind and rain, or in our case, heat, wind and an overhead sprinkler. Some of them cascade nicely, with pendulous stems and flowers that once made them very popular for hanging baskets in a protected setting. Shades of white, salmon, pink, red, magenta, lavender, purple, blue and yellow are available, along with the contrasting stripes and rims (picotees, stars, halos, morns, etc.) that some love and others loathe. Check out Prism Sunshine for a creamy yellow grandiflora that still receives rave reviews. Deadheading is required with this group. Use them for borders, colourful containers and window boxes.
Multifloras are more compact, bushier, and have smaller flowers than the previous group, around 5-7 cm wide, but in much greater profusion. The smaller flowers and growth form are a big help with the elements, and this group with its myriad colour options is also a dependable choice for massed plantings and a big impact in the garden bed. Floribundas are a modern multiflora derivative that, at least initially, had larger flowers than multifloras and better weather resistance than grandifloras. The Madness series from the 1970s was there at the start of it, and still makes a big splash, particularly with its red.
Debuting in 1996, these mini-mounding and compact petunias are laden with masses of flowers 2.5cm or so across. With their tidy growth form, they don't need pinching back to counter the mid- to late-season straggliness characteristic of the previous types. Check out the specs on the Fantasy or Supertunia Mini (a spreader) series to get a better idea. Millifloras can be used for edging, but are spectacular in containers and hanging baskets.
The Wave series, developed by the plant scientists at Japan's Kirin Brewery and introduced in 1995, was probably the spark that ignited musings of a petunia revolution. Here was a plant just 15cm tall that, given enough water and fertiliser, could rapidly ramble over a metre or more of ground, loaded with so many flowers the foliage was hardly visible. They didn't need pinching or deadheading, and they looked amazing hanging from or spilling out of a container. In just a decade, the Wave had captured almost a 10th of the US petunia market.
There are now five Wave series to choose from including Shock Wave, just introduced last summer, featuring small brightly coloured flowers that rapidly recover from overhead watering, and the Tidal Wave series, giant mounder/spreaders that given the space will form dense, mounded hedges. There's even a Wave fan club for you to join. The Wave petunias are seed grown, but there are also great trailers raised from cuttings that may be even more vigorous, such as those in the Surfinia series (bred by another Japanese beverage company, Suntory) and the Supertunias from Australia.
The pull of these modern petunias is so strong that even Jack Scheper, one of our petunia haters, gave in to them a few years after his initial comments: "I planted a bunch of Wave petunias, they have such great colour I had to, and besides, they don't seem to stink as badly as I remember. I put in a few dozen purple, blue and white and they are quickly forming great colourful masses. Hmmm, I guess I like petunias now - at least one variety anyway?."
