My petunias are doing okay. They bloom and grow on their own without too much effort for me. I water heavily, leave them in medium sun, spray my soap solution and use diluted fertilizer about once a week. The red & white one just looks a little slow because it got bumped a couple of weeks ago and I lost a couple of healthy stems. However, my attempts to propagate my petunias by stem cuttings and by simple layering have not panned out.A couple of weeks ago, I also tried collecting and drying the petunia blooms and planting what I thought were seeds inside the petals. That was wrong! I read up on it and found a video on how to find petunia seeds.
Here's how you find petunia seeds to germinate:
- Look at the blooms. Directly beneath the flower, you should see the connecting part. Generally, the leaves have a star formation, like in the picture.
- Once the flower dries out, wait for 2-3 days. The seed pod should form in the center of that star formation and it should be brown. Pluck the star formation leaves (stem and all). Open it until you find the seed pod. The seed pod looks like this. The picture doesn't help much because my E51 is not designed to take pictures with this much detail. Basically, the seed pod is roundish and brown.
- Open the seed pod over a white sheet of paper. Numerous seeds are inside. They're tiny and black. Try opening the pod over a dark colored object and you probably won't see the seeds.
- Try planting the seeds. I read it takes about two weeks to germinate. I'm still waiting for any sign.
Next time, I'll write updates on my petunia stem cutting propagation attempts.
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