Garden Tips: Pretty petunias provide color all summer long

When it comes to petunias, I am a sucker for a pretty face. However, while a pretty petunia may pique my interest, I need to know more before I can commit. I need to know if the petunia is heat tolerant and well behaved. Can it be counted on for continuous bloom through the season? Will it get leggy in late summer? Is it self-cleaning, not requiring the removal of spent flowers to keep it blooming?

Petunias of yesteryear may have had gorgeous flowers, but they were not impressive once summer heat arrived and flowering slowed to a stop. When the Wave petunias arrived on the market in 1995, I fell in love. They kept on blooming prolifically throughout the summer, producing virtual waves of color. As with any new plant introduction, the available colors of Wave petunias were limited at first, but Ball Seed Company, who introduced the Waves, soon developed a larger palette of colors.

Since making a big hit with the first Waves, Ball Seed Company has greatly expanded the types and colors of Wave petunias. The original Waves were vigorous, with plants that grew 5 to 7 inches tall and up to 3 or 4 feet wide, and worked well in containers and as groundcovers. They were followed in 2001 by Tidal Waves. With name a name like that, you can imagine these petunias were even bigger, growing up to 5 feet wide!

In 2002, Ball introduced Double Waves, with double flowers; in 2003, the Easy Waves; and in 2009, Shock Waves with abundant smaller, petite flowers. My current favorites are the Easy Waves, because of their more controlled mounded-spreading habit, growing from 6 to 12 inches tall and 3 feet wide. They do not have as much of a tendency to take over a planter and crowd out other flowers, but they still provide plenty of colorful blooms all summer. This year, Ball is introducing three new Waves: ‘Easy Wave Pink Passion,’ ‘Easy Wave Silver’ and ‘Easy Wave Yellow.’ I cannot wait to give them a try,

While my first petunia crush was on Wave petunias, there are now other petunias that can turn my head. Supertunias, introduced by Proven Winners in 2006, are vigorous but less aggressive than Wave petunias, and do not have the tendency to overwhelm the other plants in a container garden. Supertunias are heat tolerant, blooming throughout the summer. They do not require deadheading, nor do they become leggy late in the season. They vary bit in size, but generally have a compact, mounded habit, growing up to 2 feet tall and wide,

I was thrilled with the ‘Supertunia Raspberry Blast’ that I planted last year. The flowers were a bicolored bright raspberry pink colors. This year Proven Winners is introducing ‘Supertunia Honey’ — with flowers that range from yellow, to pinkish-yellow, to an amber honey color — distinctly different from most other petunia colors. Other new Supertunias to check out include ‘Latte’ with creamy white flowers and with brown-purple throats, ‘Picasso in Blue’ with purple-blue flowers with a lime green edges and ‘Picasso in Burgundy’, along three new members in their Charm series with abundant petite blooms.

Surfinia petunias are yet another line of heat-tolerant compact trailing petunias that are marketed by Suntory. While Surfinias are the most popular easy-care, heat-tolerant petunia in Europe, they have yet to become as popular in the U.S. Suntory touts that their Surfinias do not get leggy, like some of the competing, trailing petunias and have shorter nodes, larger thicker leaves and more branching.

Wave, Supertunia and Superfinia petunias provide summerlong color in containers and gardens even during the torrid summer months.

I adore them all.

This story was originally published March 11, 2016 at 9:48 PM with the headline "Garden Tips: Pretty petunias provide color all summer long."