Rethinking Petunias: Style Icons of High Summer (If Only)
Their sticky texture as you deadhead them, the smell, not only of the plant but also of just-watered, fertile compost, their intense colorways: petunias are a Proustian kind of flower, one you likely associate with a parent or grandparent.
Mixing and harmonizing varieties is a form of self-expression, but throwing every kind of bedding plant into the mix spoils it for everyone.
Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer for Gardenista.
An absence of color shows the rest of this trailing, searching plant to advantage (Petunia x hybrida Carpet Series).
Petunias that bloom in discreet white or velvety black are a highly disciplined take on the rich and jungly potential of this South American flower.
Outside the home of a friend whose interiors are determinedly white I was struck by her window box combination of white petunias with creamy off white tobacco...
...plants sharing the same fresh green fuzzy texture of leaf stem and calyx but with added scent from the tobacco plants and unpredictable trailing from the petunias
Petunia Surfinia Purple Vein, which is a compact trailer, once it gets going.
Veining on a petunia draws attention to the flower’s simple trumpet shape, while stripes and edging are more carnival—and why not?
Petunias are inherently jolly: their colors and patterns are varied enough in themselves to invoke the kind of exuberance found in vintage Marimekko dresses (think late ’60s, early ’70s).
The trick is to celebrate petunias’ gently kitsch qualities without being heavily ironic.
Harmonizing petunias is key, boosted as always with lots of green.
Petunia excerta is a fairly recent discovery from Brazil, and has smaller, less open trumpets of brightest scarlet.
Rich and jungly, petunias are the essence of bedding, packing a lifetime into five months.