This I learned at a dinner party a number of years ago and I have done it since. When they have taken off, you have to selectively cut them back on a rotational basis -- just one or two at a time -- all summer long and they will get even fatter and produce an abundance of gorgeous blossoms. And remember not to just pull a faded blossom out of it's stem. You have to snap off the stem down to the next joint. After having given up on them a few years ago, I now buy lots and enjoy them immensely. Here are a few of mine this year:
Just hacked these back again this morning.
Of course, you have to buy good potting soil and give them drugs. When I first plant, I use Miracle Grow Starter liquid once every two weeks and after that, just regular Miracle Grow plant food. I love taking advantage of the low price and proliferation of the regular, "lowly" petunia. Hope I'm not being too presumptious, but I see an awful lot of sad-looking petunias in my travels around Calgary.
One year I was waiting for B to pick me up outside an Ottawa restaurant and I noticed how meek and pathetic the petunias were in their window boxes. So, I started picking and pruning and the manager came rushing out, after a patron told him I was defacing them. "No, no, what are you doing?" he almost yelled. "I am fixing your pathetic petunias." After I explained how the process worked, he let me continue. A few weeks later I drove by and they were glorious.
So dear readers, it's still not too late to get crackingly ruthless and have lovely flowers by early August. And by the way, I never buy the wave variety; flowers too small and spindly. They are for folks who don't know how to grow the regular variety.
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