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Garden, Plants

The all-purpose annual that carries the garden

July 22, 2022

easy wave petunias

Thank you to Wave Petunias for partnering with me on this post. 

I’m often asked a question that is perplexing to me: “Do you grow annuals or perennials?”

I don’t fault the people asking the question as I think there are some people who grow one or the other, and perhaps that was more typical in the past. But the best parts of my garden rely on the combination of annuals and perennials, not to mention, shrubs, trees, bulbs and even vegetables. 

Annuals, with their season-long color and seemingly endless array of colors, are perfect for tucking around the garden to fill in a gap until another plant fills in or just generally brighten things up. And perhaps the best all-purpose annual is the petunia.

This year I have Easy Wave Petunias in containers as well as in the ground where they bring a much needed splash of color as other plants (ahem, dahlias) take their time getting around to blooming. Easy Wave Petunias bulk up quickly (in fact I mostly bought 2-inch plants sold in six-packs) and have a nice mounded habit that works well in containers but also fills those pesky holes in the landscape.

Easy Wave Petunias come in oodles of colors and I was feeling a strong monochromatic vibe this year. For one container I combined Lavender Sky Blue and Blue (which reads purple to me) with purple sage for a dark, textural vibe. 

I used those same colors in a nearby bed right off the patio, bringing color to an area with dahlias and alliums, including the seedheads of Allium christophii.

In the circle garden, where I like to mass plant in segments, I mixed together all the different pink Easy Wave Petunia colors I could find, from Rose Fusion to Plum Vein. A few surprises snuck in there, including a couple of reds and one white, but the overall look is pretty interesting, especially since different colors have slightly different sized flowers.

A mass planting of a variety of pink tones is brightening up a corner of the circle garden and the red stems of the nearby rhubarb help complete the look.

Easy Wave Rose Fusion has beautiful dark pink veining that looks perfect with a setting sun to highlight its best attributes.

All of these are really just getting going. Easy Wave Petunias get about 6 to 12 inches high and can grow to more than 30 inches wide, so these will keep bulking up all summer.

Here’s what that all-blue container looked like shortly after planting. If you look at that photos above you can see how much it has filled in already.

GROWING TIPS

Like all heavy-blooming annuals, Easy Wave petunias appreciate regular fertilizing. I fertilize my containers with a synthetic water-soluble fertilizer every week to 10 days starting in July. I like to keep things organic for my in-ground beds so I usually use a seaweed or fish fertilizer every couple weeks on those plants.

Petunias are also one of those plants that appreciates the occasional trim, so as soon as mine start getting a little leggy, I will cut them back by half (or even more sometimes). 

Budworm can be an issue on petunias. I’ve only dealt with them once in my life, so I don’t do anything more than keep an eye on them when I’m watering, like I do with all my plants. An organic spray with BT can be used to control budworm.

Petunias will do best in full sun, but you can push them into part sun without a problem.

Petunias are a classic annual, perhaps the classic annual that have been popping up in and around my garden for years. 

Last year I used Easy Wave Lavender Sky Blue in the window box where it put up with a lot of pushy neighbors and provided that gorgeous color all season.

Easy Wave Petunias seem to nail that happy in between place of filling in well and holding up to other perennials in mixed containers and the ground without outcompeting its neighbors. It’s pretty much a perfect partner.

annuals container gardening easy wave flowers petunia wave petunias
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
6 Comments

About Erin @ The Impatient Gardener

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Comments

  1. Teri Bergman says: July 22, 2022 at 4:11 pm

    Erin, do you think that the Wave
    Petunia grows as well as the PW Vista’s?

    Reply
  2. Carol says: July 22, 2022 at 5:08 pm

    In the third photo with the Allium christophii and the blue petunias what is the plant with the little red and yellow flower? A dahlia? Love it.

    Reply
  3. Jeri B says: July 22, 2022 at 5:09 pm

    Great article as always!!

    Reply
  4. Payton says: July 22, 2022 at 7:12 pm

    I also use a lot of petunias in my garden. As they are so very easy to start from seed under lights, that means more money in the budget for other plants later in the season. I have found the Wave petunias larger bloom size to fit in better in certain areas, than PW Supertunias. Therefore, I use both in different ways.
    P.S. Please make sure to do another “what went right” video this year, as they are very helpful to watch, and I usually learn of a new plant to try from your gardening tips. (Thanks to your suggestions,, I now grow: Purple Hyacinth Bean vine, green nicotiana, thalictrum, and wild ginger.)

    Reply
  5. Maureen says: July 22, 2022 at 11:11 pm

    Wonderful article. I love the fragrance of petunias, it reminds me of my grandmother’s garden. Love your color choices and would like to pin this article. How can I pin it?

    Reply
  6. Heather says: July 24, 2022 at 9:33 pm

    I have zero annuals in my garden this year and boy do I miss them! I’ll have to keep these in mind for next year. Thanks!

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Here’s a combo I’m totally digging this year: Wicked Witch coleus with Compact White Sunpatiens. I should have planted more Sunpatiens because they haven’t filled in as much as I expected in this part sun spot, but it’s a great look.
When you leave your garden in the middle of summer you know there’s going to be some clean up on the back end. It’s amazing how the little things we do every day in the garden, even when we’re not “working” in it—pulling a weed, propping up a plant, tucking tendrils into a trellis—add up to important jobs. And you don’t realize that until they aren’t being done. 

When I came home after 8 days away I was planning to whip the whole garden into shape and ended up spending all day in the vegetable garden where things went awry quickly. 

I was rewarded though with lots of cucumbers and zucchini and a few pretty bouquets to put around the house. This is Madame Butterfly Bronze with White (a name I don’t understand at because I wouldn’t use any of those words to describe the color) snapdragon and Apricot Shades strawflower. 

Check the link in the bio to see the whole video and what I found when I first laid eyes on the garden after some time away.
It’s a nighttime hunt in the garden and it’s the best time to find hornworms. You’ll need a black light and a tough gag reflex but you have to remove these guys from your tomato plants or they’ll be gone quickly. If you find a hornworm with white things that look like grains of rice in it, that is parasitic wasp larvae that will eat them from the inside (everything about this is gross). Remove those hornworms from your plants but don’t kill then as you’ll be aiding the beneficial bug population by allowing those parasitic wasps to hatch. For other hornworms you can kill them or feed them to chickens or put on your bird feeder. They do turn into beautiful, big moths but you want to make sure they can’t get back to your plants if you let the hornworms live.
When it comes Echinacea, @garden.evolution (aka Coneflower king) and I don’t often agree, but I think we both feel the same about Color Coded ‘The Price is White’ being an outstanding variety. The flowers are big and flat, hold their white color really well, are sturdy and, well, put on a great show. I’m loving them growing with Rock ‘n Grow ‘Back in Black’ too. Both are @provenwinners varieties from @waltersgardens

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