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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Petunia Propagation: Work in Progress

In the last couple of episodes, I talked about a much awaited recovery of my red & white Petunia. I also showed a couple of Petunia pictures I got from Tagaytay and mentioned how amazingly big they got their plants there. 

In between those days, I made a couple of attempts to propagate my Petunia.   I tried:
  • Stem cuttings in water - I took a 4-inch stem from a healthy Petunia, removed a couple of the bottom leaves and soaked the bottom in water.  I tried this in both a zip locked plastic bag and an open glass container.  After about a week or so, the stem wilted.  No roots.
  • Stem cuttings in soil - Same type of cutting only I placed it in a pot with soil with medium sunlight exposure.  In less than a week, the stem wilted.  No roots. 
  • Simple Layering - I scraped off part of the stem (on the node) then I bent the stem to touch the soil.  I covered the stem with additional soil.  The stem wilted!  No roots.
  • Seed Germination - I collected Petunia blooms that i deadheaded and dried them out in the sun.  After a couple of days, I took what I think are seeds inside and sowed them into small pots.  I put multiple seeds per pot to increase my chances.  It's been almost two weeks.  No sign of germination.  


Between those experiments and cats bumping and breaking my stems, my red & white Petunia now looks awful (the ugly looking plant on the right).  Contrast with the purple one, which continues to show lush foliage and plentiful blooms.

How about you?  Have you successfully propagated your Petunia?  Do share your techniques.



6 comments:

  1. I recently broke a stem on my petunia plant. I simply put the petunia in water, curious what would happen, it still had blooms so I figured it would at least bloom those, two weeks later the petunia is still alive but I dont see any roots, can I keep it this way? The plant is still alive with no signs of wilting and making new blooms.

    Is this normal?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, that's really good. Did you place it under sunlight or in the shade? Personally, I haven't successfully rooted Petunia in water. In fact, keeping the stem alive for two weeks is pretty good. Do tell me what happens.

    Or if you have rooting hormone...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I recently purchased four huge hanging petunia plants - gorgeous hot pink - and I gave them all a "hair cut" and I want to try to use the excess that I removed to see if I can get them to make some new plants and grow roots from these cuttings! I will post photos soon and will hope for the best!
    Michelle Platt, Corinth, Mississippi

    ReplyDelete
  4. Let me know what happens! I haven't succeeded in doing that. And both my Petunias died! Sigh. I hope you have more luck than I do.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous7:20 AM

    I have propagated my petunias (regular store-bought kinds) for years now, from seeds.
    But seeds are hard to grow, so I've been saving more than using.
    Recently, I tried stem cuttings; I used big stems, with flowers on the end (to indicate it's healthy), and 2 of the 5 have roots now, a week or two later. One has enough (but v.short ones) that I can soon put it in soil if I want (I don't), the other has just one tiny root-nub, but it's there.

    The others do not have roots, but are still alive. Even my little one, that fell over last night and got re-cut and put in water again this morning, still has its tiny little flower on the end. I hope it survives, fingers crossed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous5:12 AM

    for your petunias to root they need sufficient auxin at the nodal zone.the cutting will be much more effective if very young before blooming stsrts

    ReplyDelete

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