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.

I cancelled my Garden Crossings order because of uncertainty when the order would arrive vs. our travel schedule in May, but I want to get at least four Supertunias locally for baskets. 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 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.