Surfinia Petunias – Planting, Watering and Care

Surfinia petunias are cascading petunias of length varying depending on the variety. Together with pelargoniums they are some of the most popular plants in balcony pots. They have one advantage over pelargoniums, though. In early spring they are of decent size, while pelargoniums need a bit longer to grow.

The abundance of surfinia petunias depends on proper care. How to look after these beautiful flowers?

First of all soon after you buy them, plant the seedlings in your pots. Special soil, dedicated for surfinia is available in all gardening stores. If possible, select big and deep pots. Of course each pot should have a few holes in the bottom as outlets of excess water.

Surfinia leaves, whenever it is deprived of water, become frail and soft. You can take advantage and transplant it right then avoiding breaking the stalks

1. The spot

Surfinia petunias like the sun. In darker places the plant is not doing that well. Basically the sun is the essential part of growing surfinia. They are not resistant to frost. Fortunately, spring ground frost hardly ever reaches up to our balconies.

2. Rain and draft

This is something surfinia doesn’t tolerate. Wet flowers don’t look good. It is not a problem, though, as surfinia blooms so profusely that the damaged flowers are quickly replaced by the fresh ones.

3. Watering

Traditional purple species of surfinia grow really huge, that is why watering it is essential. Of course young seedlings do not need as much water and fertiliser as the big ones in the middle of the summer.

As for watering, surfinia shows when it is too dry and you will clearly see that you need to water it. In the summer water it either in the morning or late in the evening. Sometimes you will have to water it twice a day. Remember that overwatering is worse than a bit of drought in the plant pot. If you have some doubts, you’d better water them less frequently than too often. A slightly faded surfinia will recover when given some water. The one with too much water will lose its roots and never get back.

Of course the problem is that on a hot summer day surfinia might fade within one day. After a few days like this, without any water, it may go completely dry. Please remember about it before going on your summer holidays.

4. Fertilising

There are some dedicated fertilisers and there are a few options as for appropriate fertilisation. Of course you can always follow the instruction of the fertiliser supplier. You can also watch your surfinia and the moment you realise it is losing some of its intensive colour, apply the fertiliser.

The most beautiful surfinias of my grandparents had a secret behind their beauty. The key thing is to use a tiny does of the fertiliser every single time you water the plants. This is the best way to make your surfinias bloom all summer long. And you don’t have to follow any kind of fertilisation timetable. My grandmother would always water surfinias when she saw that they begin to fade. She would always make sure if the plant’s soil is dry enough before she watered it.  She would apply a bit of fertiliser every time she water them, even if they weren’t very dry.

It is difficult to remove the dry surfinia flowers from your balcony. There are simply too many of them – nobody has enough time to do it. However, we can trim surfinia. When you see you don’t have enough flowers near the pot, you can pinch it after the first or the second leave so that it will branch again.  You can trim the whole plant, then it will branch even more if you bought a seedlings with few shoots.

The most popular is purple one. It has long shoots and blooms intensively. The flowers are huge, too.

This is also the case with white surfinia. The third in terms of length comes coral surfinia.

Beautiful red and yellow surfinias are smaller and much shorter that the purple one. The same with colourful surfinia. Night Sky – this is one of the most popular ones recently.

If you are looking for some medium-length surfinia, go for Vitrotunia. It blooms more in its upper part to the enjoyment of balcony owners and people admiring the balcony from the street.

Surfinias are large flowers... It is difficult to plant them together with other flowers. The only option is to plant some standing flowers in between them.

If you want to have two or three kinds of surfinias, plant two seedlings of one kind next to each other. They will form a uniform pattern. If you mix them, this will not look really attractive.