Caged

My 2025 petunias, which at this time last year were scraggly little stems in baskets, are mounding like crazy. Less than a month ago I gave the pots a severe trim, and they have bounced back with great vigor. Petunias are tender perennials, so they will survive the winter if kept in a warm place, like our garage which is heated to 50 degrees. After I got the greenhouse a year ago, I transferred the petunias from the baskets to a pot in the greenhouse, moved it to the garage in November, and this is the eventual result.

I have another pot identical to this one, and a mixed pot with geraniums and more of these petunias. I still do not recall what variety these are, but I probably got them at Home Depot in Spring 2025 and I suspect they may be Waves or some other named variety instead of just generics. I'm sure they are hybrids, but are not sterile because I've had a few volunteers with flowers that are pink, not purple. The oldest image I can find of the purple petunias is from October 18 after they had been in the greenhouse for about six weeks. This is a healthy group (at least three plants, maybe more), but nothing like what we have today. Over the winter I did get a some clones going (see below) and that's how I ended up with 2.5 pots of purple petunias this year.

The other thing to notice about the top image of the big mound of petunias is it is caged. Maybe I have have mentioned this before (a few hundred times), but deer eat everything here. I saw this morning that the deer topped off the Rudbeckia (Black-Eyed Susan) in the front yard AGAIN. It was in a two-foot cage, but there was no top and they bent the cage as they dove in. I gave it a taller cage today, and maybe that will allow the plant to flower this year. And as a reminder, may I quote the internet:

"Rudbeckia plants are generally considered deer resistant, with top varieties like 'Goldsturm', 'American Gold Rush', and Brown-Eyed Susan frequently skipped by hungry wildlife. Deer usually avoid them because of the coarse, fuzzy hair on the leaves and stems along with a bitter taste."

Lies, lies, lies. Our deer do not have access to the internet so they don't know they aren't supposed to eat Black-Eyed Susans and Shasta Daisies. I have Shasta 'Daisy May' in a barrel next to our new trees. I have a cage on it, and it will remain for at least the next year.

An alternative to caging is to use baskets. (Another alternative is an 8-foot fence, but the HOA is not cooperative.) This is probably as good as the Really Red/Latte basket has looked this summer.

Even though it is summer, overwintering is always on my mind. I have been trying to clone the nine Supertunias since I got them in April, and have had occasional success. The 2025 purples were a challenge to clone from cuttings. My first attempt failed completely. I had a little better success after I started using rooting hormone. I think my main problem is overwatering followed by underwatering, which means appropriate attention every few days rather than drowning them and then forgetting about them for a week. This is my first successful clone, image taken January 8 after taking a cutting in mid-November. This clone and at least one other one are the basis for one of the big mounded pots we have today, the source for the other pot being the original plants.

I haven't kept meticulous records of the petunia cloning success rate, but I'm guessing it is maybe 25%. With Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic'™ and Coleus, the success rate this year is 100%. Persistence is a virtue with the tunias. There are two Supertunia Jazzberry cuttings in the garage right now that look very promising, and that is the variety that I most want to have success with. I've gotten something from most of the others, with Latte being the biggest challenge so far for some reason. Even Priscilla, which (to be frank) sucks in the big basket at the house with Hoopla gave me a good clone that I have in a small basket by itself in the greenhouse.