These are some pictures from one of my containers. I wonder if it will be able to catch up with the surrounding plants any time soon. Around it: a marigold, an established dusty miller from last year, some ivy and a bit of Creeping Jenny.

This is a supertunia.

I also wanted to ask how do people fertilize wave or supertunias in the landscape? Just some slow release or do you water by hand with soluble fertilizer too, given they are such heavy feeders?

arent there buds on the babes already???

they will catch up.. when they have a root mass large enough to do so .. and probably when they get out into real sunshine ... not to mention heat .. outdoor temps i mean ...

be patient ... if they live.. they will get going ... and there isn nothing you can do to make it happen faster.. and if they are a week or two behind sore bought plants.. who cares.. think of all that money you saved ...

harden them off properly before moving them to full summer sun ...

ken

ps: is you soil so barren heavy fert is needed in mother earth.. i doubt it.. so they should need lore than a little of this or that ... and as to pots.. how much you need depends on how fast nutrients run out the bottom and is probably related to the media ... i hope you started with new media ... old media can wear out.. and then cause watering problems ... or accumulation of fert salts ....

Ken,

Thank you for your reply. Yes, it looks like there are a couple of very tiny buds coming up. The plant is alive and well but the cutting is very small because I took it from a plant bought I recently bought at the nursery, which itself was not that big. I only bought a couple, each of one color, to save money.

They already are in the real sunshine, I had rooted them for about 10 days indoors, then when I saw they had developed roots, I acclimated them for a few days outside and then planted them in outdoor pots, small like this. I figured outside they will have a better chance to take off, especially now in the spring, when the sun is not quite oppressive as in the summer.

Yes, I started with new media - Pro-mIx soil, that's the expensive kind, so they'd better be grateful.

It is true that the cuttings I carried over winter from plants I had last fall are larger now - soon to bloom.

I only did a small trial and lost a few because I had them in very small cups and I kept forgetting to water, so now I only have three of these. They look like this:

As opposed to the significantly smaller cutting from a plant I recently bought at the nursery:

So it's probably worth the trouble to start from fall and make room for them under lights indoors for a few months.

However, my very best petunia right now, already ahead of the game blooming ts head off, is one I allowed to behave as a perennial. Then again, this is the South. I had it in an outdoor/ over-the-rail container last fall and I let it sit there with pansies to spend the winter outside. When temperatures dropped around freezing a few times, I brought the container inside until the cold front went away.

This spring, she came back to life like nothing else and these pictures are far from doing justice to the gorgeous color. It is a much more vibrant and luscious color, like a rich raspberry red, not the maroon that shows up in this photo. Petunias in the right colors can be spectacular.

Now I want to propagate these and I wonder how long overall until I will see them blooming. They seem to root in no longer than 2 weeks - but then the question is growth and bloom time, as I need to plan for other containers.

I was going to vote for letting them be at the end of the year. I started with some wave petunias some years ago. The first year they returned I thought they were weeds. Ken soon straightened me out and these petunias return every spring without fail. I thin out the pot and put them in planters around the yard. At the end of the season I let the stems dry out and then crumble everything right back in the pot. Then I go indoors for winter 😁. I have had some success with supertunias as well but nor as consistent. Maybe try both methods. You may be

pleasantly surprised.