Another tunia haircut

Most of my Aloe Vera looks abused due to overwatering, bad light and/or bugs, but I have one perfect little plant that has been sitting on an upper shelf in a garage window that has escaped all of that. It isn't growing very fast now, but I'm expecting great things once it moves to the greenhouse in a little over a month. Next to it on that upper shelf is Petunia #2, the cutting I took Nov. 15. It was becoming a monster and threatening to swallow the aloe. I knew something had to be done. If it was May and it was in the greenhouse now, I would give it a haircut, repot it, and hit it with fertilizer. But in the limited space of the garage, I don't want it taking up more space than it already is, so a haircut is all I was able to do. Here are before and after images of #2 next to the perfect little aloe.

Petunias are not annuals, they are "tender perrenials," which means they will survive in a heated garage over the winter and be ready to go outside again come warmer weather. I have the big Pentunia #1 pot that I kept from last summer, Petunia #2, and three or four plastic cups that contain cuttings from #1's haircut at the end of January. (BTW, #1 has grown about five inches since the trim six weeks ago.) I don't really want that many of this type of petunia, whatever it is. Some sort of purple-veined hybrid from Home Depot is my best guess. All of this is just practice. Propagating from petunia cuttings is something I want to be good at next fall when the Supertunias are about to get frozen.

Eight of the 12 flowers I'm getting from Garden Crossings the second week of May are Supertunias. There also are two each of Superbells and Superbenas, but I'm not sure if I will attempt anything with them. With all of the succulents I've bought recently, garage space is at a premium and I will have to make some tough choices when the greenhouse heat goes off next November. I counted today and I've got 10 peppermint plants. I do not need 10 peppermint plants. I need about four so I can have something in greenhouse window boxes that the deer won't eat. And if they do eat it, I won't care. Some of the peppermint may get moved to a dark corner after Monday, which appears to be the date for the next succulent shipment unboxing. I should have known not to believe that crap from the USPS about delivery today, but I'm just a starry-eyed optimist. Of course after months of a mild winter, we are having a blizzard today and the heat pack I bought with the order is probably almost drained.

I anticipate the flower baskets with the 12 Supers will be outside from June 1 to August 31, then they will take refuge in the greenhouse when frost threatens and survive in some form until mid-November. With that assumption, this is the plan:

• Don't wait until November, start taking tunia cuttings in September.
• Use rooting hormone.
• Take more than one cutting from each variety. If some of them don't prosper by mid-October, there will be time take more cuttings.
• The cuttings don't have to become monsters like #1 and #2, they just have to survive the winter in relatively small pots.