Make Waves in the garden
Stopping to smell the flowers
Arlene Marturano

Arlene Marturano a master gardener, writer,and educator.As an advocate of gardening as a tool for learning,she helped develop the Carolina Children's Garden at the Sandhill Research and Education Center.She is an education consultant with T.E.A.C.H. marturano@yahoo.com

The popular petunia is anything but a plebian in the garden. The sun- loving South American native annual flowers from spring to frost.

Verve, variety, and versatility are standard features. Petunias are vigorous bloomers with few pests and diseases. Aphids and slugs can be controlled. A rainbow of colors is available from solid, to striped, to star- patterned.

The trumpet flowers may be large or small, ruffled, fringed or double. Hybrid petunias are unsurpassed for long- lasting color in borders, patio containers, window boxes, hanging baskets or as groundcovers.

One of the petunia cultivars sweeping the nation over the last few years has been the Wave® series first introduced in 1995 by Ball Horticultural. All cultivars are groundhugging spreaders. Double Wave® has frilly ruffled flowers suited to containers and planters. Easy Wave® is a spreader with more height. Tidal Wave® is an upright spreader useful for screening or across fencing or latticework. It exhibits a mounding growth habit as it climbs and has been called hedge petunias due to its spread and dense growth. The newest of the series debuts in 2008. Shock Wave™, named for the high voltage colors, has smaller flowers of 1.5- 2" diameters covered in clusters of bloom.

Planting en masse yields dramatic effects.

Petunias perform well in S.C. but require one to two inches of water per week and biweekly applications of a balanced liquid fertilizer to support their fast growth and prolific blossoming. Their leggy growth should be pinched back to create fuller plants.

As members of the Nightshade family, they are related to many favorite summertime vegetables: tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.

Patio petunias make great decorations for upcoming outdoor Memorial Day festivities or graduation parties. It brings to mind a mother on her day in May with a basket flowing with flowering petunias.

Hybrid Petunia Picotee