PETUNIAS
The world has not heard a sound, but petunias have exploded. Back in the mid to late twentieth century, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, petunias were relatively simple. Every nursery and garden center carried flats of them in shades of red, white, pink and blue-purple with occasional yellow or red and white striped varieties thrown in. Those petunias of yesterday were low growers with somewhat sticky-prickly leaves and big trumpet-shaped blossoms that crumpled into brown globs in the rain. The brown globs were easy to deadhead, however, and subsequent flushes of bloom happened quickly. Petunias were flowers that you could depend on, like marigolds and red geraniums. They looked good in pots and sunny borders and stood out as a symbol of middle class respectability.
In fact, they were so middle class and respectable that the newly minted garden snobs of the eighties and early nineties regarded them as bourgeois and banal. While all that disdain was raining down on the humble petunia, breeders were giving the genus a makeover of epic proportions. The results are plain to see in every garden center and catalog. Petunias have been newly ruffled, super-sized, miniaturized and decked out in trendy colors and patterns. Hundreds of new varieties come to market every year. The fashion for container gardening has collided head-on with the petunia explosion, resulting in petunias of all shapes and sizes showing up in containers ranging from elegant urns to discarded garden boots. The elderly neighbor of my childhood who fussed endlessly over her perfect beds of purple petunias would be flabbergasted by the changes.
The petunia was first described back in 1803. Native to parts of South America, wild petunias species favor sandy soil near water. Both sand dunes and desert conditions suit them fine, as long as there is a water source nearby. Like many humans, petunias have some toxic relatives, including nightshade, tobacco and the downright deadly datura. On the bright side, they are also related to tomatoes, potatoes and other, more benign members of the Solanaceae or nightshade family.
Petunias were introduced into the United States in 1837 and hybridizing began immediately. The result of those breeding efforts was the common garden petunia, which plant taxonomists refer to as Petunia x hybrida. The first great petunia vogue, which started in the mid to late nineteenth century, carried over into the early years of the twentieth. Garden historian Denise Wiles Adams says that over two hundred varieties were listed in pre-World War II catalogs. After the war, the furor died down, leaving everyone but petunia connoisseurs with the fairly narrow range of petunias that many of us remember from our childhoods.
All of that began changing when two big Japanese brewer/distillers, Kirin and Suntory, got into plant breeding. Suntory introduced the colorful Surfinia line of petunias in 1989 and shortly thereafter Kirin brought out the Wave line of brightly colored spreading plants. In keeping with the trend in commercial horticulture, both names were trademarked. Expansion of those lines and the introduction of others continues unabated. Some of the new petunias were bred especially for hanging baskets, while others spread enough to use as ground covers. Overall, the plants are more floriferous, setting flowers all along the stems, rather than just at the ends. Colors are more vibrant and varied and rain tolerance has been improved, so that gardeners no longer have the unpleasant chore of removing sodden brown globs. Some petunias are even labeled “self cleaning,” meaning that you can forgo deadheading all together.
Another big development in the petunia universe is the rise of a little petunia cousin named calibrachoa. The most popular line of these petite bloomers is Million Bells, another name trademarked by Suntory. The last time I went to the garden center, at least two thirds of the hanging basket and container garden arrangements had at least one Million Bells plant. Calibrachoa now comes in double-flowered varieties as well.
It is amazing to think that somewhere out in the world, billion dollar companies are engaged in a horticultural smack down over the humble petunia. The fallout from these battles is a seemingly infinite number of new varieties. The hardest part is choosing among them.
Every plant merchandiser in the county–and probably in the world–supplies petunias in flats, pots and baskets. If you don’t want to leave your property, most of the big online vendors carry them as well. With the plethora of choices, the best advice is to select based on color, application and price. Pouring over the promotional copy and horticultural hype will only give you a bad case of adjectival overload at a time when you will need all your strength to get those petunias into the garden.