Anyone ever plant petunia seeds?

[karlkuehn]

You gotta be kidding me.

With the nice weather we've been having, I got the spring bug and I figured I'd save a little money on planting flowers in the yard this year by planting my own seeds instead of buying the flowers when they come out at Walmart.

I really like petunias - hard to kill, direct sunlight, lush, colorful flowers and greenery, and they bloom the whole season around here.

Sooooo....I opened the package and dumped it onto a paper plate, and here's what came out:

The package says to plant two seeds in each cup, and then thin later. Yeah...okaaayyy...

Man, next year I'm going to stick to sunflowers or something. Anyone loan me some tweezers and a telescope? heh []

Hope I don't sneeze.

 

[Penmonkey]

LOL tiny seeds, not my thing. Just pour them in a hole and see what happens.

 

[Monty]

Man, next year I'm going to stick to sunflowers or something. Anyone loan me some tweezers and a telescope? heh []

Hope I don't sneeze.

You need a microscope, not a telescope. Or how bout I sell you one of my very nice, one of a kind magnifying glasses with a custom turned wood or acrylic handle of your choice.[}][}]
I even have a nice small one on a lanyard that you can wear around your neck so you don't loose it.

 

[karlkuehn]

Originally posted by Penmonkey

LOL tiny seeds, not my thing. Just pour them in a hole and see what happens.

Well, that's where it ended up going. I have a little indoor greenhouse plastic 'flat' thing that has 72 little cups in the tray. I took a little piece of paper, folded a crease in it, and used it to 'scoop' them.

Here's how the planting went.

Row 1: 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds

Row 2: 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds...

Row 3: 2 seeds, 3 seeds, 5 seeds...

...

Row 6: 8 seeds, uh oh, how many seeds was that?, oops, shoot, (open another package)

...

Row 8: Some seeds, I think some seeds, ohlook a squirrel outside!, uh oh - where was I? Ohyeah row 7, (new package)

Row 9-10: put seeds on plate and sprinkle gently across two rows

Rows 11-12: Out of petunia seeds, plant some gazinia seeds that I can actually pick up

Watered, got the lid on, now I need to find a flat spot somewhere by a window somewhere...

Was nice to get my fingers in the dirt a little. Come on, spring! [8D]



Micro, Tele, whatever, can't get ahold of the little suckers anyways!

 

[RonSchmitt]

PLANT SEEDS!!!!!
We have about 10 inches of snow so far today with more coming. The wind is gusting to 50mph, and my Beagle is in the yard SOMEWHERE! Gotta put one of those blaze orange collars on her.

 

[great12b4ever]

Karl, seriously, there is an easier way to do this, especially as hardy as Petunia's are. Take an cardboard box, like a shoe box and cut the sides off until you have a tray about 1-1&1/2" deep. Put your fine soil mixture in the tray, smooth the top of the soil, put the seeds in your hand and lightly scatter the seeds over the soil. Then using a fork lightly scratch around the top of the soil, partially covering the seeds, smooth and water in. keep in a warm place with adequate moisture to the soil. Once the seeds sprout and start getting their true leaves, then you can gently separate and transplant the seedlings into larger pots, and keep in greenhouse environment until time to plant outdoors. See, simple.

 

[karlkuehn]

Originally posted by RonSchmitt

PLANT SEEDS!!!!!
We have about 10 inches of snow so far today with more coming. The wind is gusting to 50mph, and my Beagle is in the yard SOMEWHERE! Gotta put one of those blaze orange collars on her.

Yeah, still pretty cold here, but the petunia package says to plant them 8-10 weeks before the last frost. I've probably doomed us to have frost into August now, and my house is going to become a jungle with ever-enlarging greenhouses at each 'thinning'. I think I just planted about 300 seeds where 120 were supposed to go. At least I think I did. For all I know they just floated away when I dropped them towards the cup!

Here's a picture of some of my planting last year, just to give you a breath of warm air:

 

[karlkuehn]

Oh, a note about the picture: The stumps in each one of the little planting mounds are box elder. The previous owner had cut them down after one near the front of the house fell and did a little damage. If you look straight down at them, you can see amazing flame patterns still.

He gave the timber to the neighbor for firewood. *sigh* [V]

The tree I took down last summer is over to the left of this photo about 100 feet.

 

[mrcook4570]

Drill tiny hole in pen barrel. Glue seed into hole. Add water. [)]

 

[jhs494]

Come on Karl you don't really think winter is over do you?
We may be having a warm spell (I'm in Ohio) but it ain't over yet.
I think we are gonna pay for this...[}]
I hope not, but Mother Nature always gets the last laugh.
Local news issued a flood warning today.
I just can't wait for my yearly winter trip to Florida. Work related of course.

 

[Proud_Poppa_of_2]

Originally posted by karlkuehn

. . . the petunia package says to plant them 8-10 weeks before the last frost.

How exactly does one figure this out?

Is it sort of like the old joke where the first bus passenger asks the second bus passenger which stop to get off to go to the post office, and the second bus passenger says, "That's easy. Just get off two stops before I do."?