Knowing how to care for a petunia, you can easily create a unique flower garden in your garden that will delight you with its beauty until late autumn. It is not necessary to buy seedlings. You can grow it on your own, which is not so difficult with knowledge of agricultural technology.
Material Content:
Growing petunia from seeds
Growing petunia from seeds allows you to get a multi-colored color scheme with minimal financial costs. But this will require compliance with certain rules. If even small mistakes are made during the growing process, the risk is high that young plants will die.
How and when to sow seedlings?
Sowing seeds is required very early. Optimal time is the last week of February or the beginning of March. Use for seedlings can containers or peat tablets.
Sowing seeds is superficial, since they are light-similar.
In order for the contact of the seeds with the soil to be sufficient, you should slightly press them to the ground. This should be done carefully, as small seeds can remain on the finger. Germination of seeds is possible only with high-quality lighting, humidity of about 98% and a temperature of at least +25 degrees.
Before they germinate, the container must be covered with glass or a plastic bag. Without this, the conditions necessary for the plant cannot be created.
Soil requirements
High-quality soil is necessary for petunia to fully develop. In gardening stores today you can buy special soil or pellets for growing flower seedlings. This option is optimal.If it is impossible to buy soil, you will need to prepare it yourself.
This requires:
- sand - 1 part;
- humus - 2 parts;
- peat - 2 parts;
- garden land - 2 parts.
All components of the substrate must be mixed. It is not necessary to add mineral fertilizers or organics. This applies to the cultivation of terry varieties.
A claydite drainage layer is poured at the bottom of the tank, and soil is poured on it to a thickness of up to 7 cm. After this, the soil is poured with a pink potassium permanganate solution for disinfection. After such preparation, the seeds can be planted in 2-3 days.
Before planting, the soil is moistened with clean sprayed water using a spray gun.
Seedling Care
After seed germination, it is important to provide maximum light to the seedlings. Even if the windowsill is light, in this period of natural sun there will be little seedlings, it must be illuminated. Use for this should special lamps for plants. Illumination is required 12 hours a day. If it is not there, the seedlings will stretch and die. It is not worth holding a petunia near the battery. The optimum temperature for its growth is from +18 to +20 degrees.
Water the plants very carefully, using soft warm water without chlorine. The best time for watering is evening, since at this moment the growth of seedlings is accelerating. A thick stream of water will break the delicate sprouts, and therefore it is better to water first with a spray gun.
How to make a pick?
Diving seedlings are carried out when the sprouts have grown enough and began to interfere with each other's development. Usually this is observed in the phase of 3-4 real leaflets. When diving plants, carefully using a small scoop, remove them from the box, pinch them with the root root and transplant them into separate pots. Deepen the sprouts to cotyledon leaves.
After 45 days, the seedlings will need a second transplant into pots 2 times larger. After this, the plants are left to grow in them until the time of planting in a permanent place.
Growing seedlings in peat tablets
Growing petunia in peat tablets is considered the best option. With this method, diving is not required, which greatly simplifies the entire process of obtaining seedlings. 1 seed is planted in each tablet.
Before sowing the seeds, the tablets are soaked in water for 10 minutes and then left to drain for 5 minutes. Then the tablets are placed in a container and in the recesses, which are made one at the top of each, 1 seed is placed with tweezers. After landing, the container is closed with a lid. Further, the care of seedlings will be reduced only to exposure and watering.
How to care for petunia?
Proper care of the petunia is necessary to maintain its attractive appearance throughout the growing season. If the plant does not grow correctly, then it will not be possible to obtain high-quality flowering from it. Planting this flower in a flowerpot is very popular.
Temperature, humidity and lighting
Petunia begins to bloom only from the moment the temperature rises to +19 degrees. Already a flowering plant will feel good at a temperature of +10 to +30 degrees. Due to such a wide temperature range, it pleases with flowering almost the entire warm season.
Humidity is important for petunias, and should be sprayed in the heat in the morning and evening. This will prevent leaf falling.
For adult petunias, both sunny areas and partial shade are equally suitable.
If the plant is too much heated by the sun, the lower leaves will begin to turn yellow and crumble, from which the petunia will lose its attractive appearance.
Watering and feeding
Watering needs moderate. When the weather is not hot, the plant is watered once every 2 days. In the summer heat, watering is required daily - in the morning and in the evening. Abundant watering will not damage the petunia, but only if there is no stagnation of water in the pot in which it grows.
Top dressing begins 2 weeks after the plant is planted in open ground, and then every 10 days. Complex fertilizers with a high content of phosphorus and potassium should be used for top dressing.
Plant pruning
Pruning petunias is necessary for rapid flowering. Faded inflorescences are removed immediately. Also, if the bushes began to lose their beautiful appearance and stretch, pruning stems. Cut pieces from the shoots can be no longer than 15 cm.
It is not so difficult to grow petunia in your garden if you know and follow the basic rules of care.
