SUPERTUNIA MINI VISTA® PINK STAR PETUNIA IN GARDEN BEDS

You might think of petunias simply as container plants, but they make amazing landscape plants too. Their strong growth helps them quickly cover any empty, sunny space in the garden where their spreading stems will knit together to prevent weeds from moving in. Since each plant spreads 18-24”, you won’t need many to make a huge visual impact.

Supertunia Mini Vista Pink Star blooms from planting time to frost without needing to remove the spent flowers. It won’t go to seed by midsummer like so many old petunias do, so you will be able to enjoy its whimsical pink and white striped blossoms all the way from spring to frost.

diamond frost garden bed
diamond frost garden bed 2

PLANTING YOUR GARDEN BED

  • We recommend 12-18” spacing between Supertunia Mini Vista plants in the ground. You’ll need two plants for every 4-5 feet of ground you wish to cover.
  • Space the plants equally in the ground so they fill out evenly with no bare spots in between.
  • Amend your soil with a good quality garden soil, compost, or humus/manure mix. The soil should be well-drained, meaning water drains easily through it without pooling.
  • Mix a bit of slow release plant food into the soil before you add the plants. Follow the package instructions to know how much to use. This will ensure a small amount of food is available to the plants’ roots over the season.
  • Water your newly planted petunias immediately to help the soil settle in around the plants’ roots.

CARING FOR YOUR GARDEN BED

Sunlight, water and plant food are the three main things your petunias will need to thrive all season long in your garden beds. Follow the tips below and they will repay you with a full season of spectacular flowers.

SUNLIGHT

  • Though Supertunia Mini Vista Pink Star will grow in part sun (4-6 hours of direct sun), it will bloom far more prolifically in six or more hours of sun per day.
  • If you are feeding and watering your plants well but they aren’t full of blooms, they may be planted in too much shade. If that is not the problem, you may have the dreaded petunia budworm. Read more about that here.

WATER

  • Plants growing in the ground and in heavier upright containers tend to dry out more slowly than plants in hanging baskets. That means they may not need to be watered quite as often as your hanging baskets.
  • To figure out if it is time to water, stick your finger down in the soil up to your first knuckle. If the soil sticks to your finger, it is moist enough to make it through the day without watering. If not, it’s time to water.
  • Never let your plants dry out to the point where they wilt. That may mean they need to be watered anywhere from every other day to more than once per day, especially as the summer’s heat sets in, depending on your growing conditions.
  • If you don’t have much time to water or if you tend to travel in the summertime, consider investing in a WaterWise® self-watering kit. It saves time and water, is simple to use, and waters up to ten containers at once from a single faucet.

PLANT FOOD

  • Every third time you water your plants, include a bit of water soluble plant food in the water. Follow the package instructions to know how much to use.
  • What does every third time mean? If you water every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then you’ll feed your plants every Friday. If you water your plants more than once a day, every third time you get out the watering can, add some water soluble plant food to the water. During the heat of summer when you are watering more often, your plants are growing faster and need more food to keep up. Feeding flowers is like feeding kids—not so much when they are toddlers but they’ll eat you out of house and home when they are teenagers.
  • Any brand of plant food meant for flowers will work for your hanging baskets. But we recommend Proven Winners water soluble and continuous release plant foods because they are specially formulated with micronutrients to help our varieties grow bigger, stronger, and bear more flowers.

TRIMMING

  • One of the biggest advantages of Supertunia Mini Vista Pink Star is that, unlike many other petunias, it will naturally bloom all season without the need to remove the spent flowers. A more technical term you may have seen for this is “no deadheading required”.
  • By midsummer, your plants should be nice and full, and the space between them should be filled in. To extend the life of your plants into fall, this is the time to trim the plants back. Giving them a “haircut”, taking care not to remove more than 30% of the plant, will make them bounce back with renewed vigor and you’ll have a fuller garden bed as a result.
  • Though petunias growing in the ground should not need to be trimmed as often as those growing in containers, it is perfectly OK to trim them back once per month between midsummer and fall. Some people just love to trim their petunias. You know how good it feels to get a haircut? Plants love that feeling too, and respond by growing new branches filled with flowers.
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