How to save petunia seeds. How to collect petunia seeds and grow flowers from them? Seed propagation of petunias

15.06.2019

Petunia is a favorite of gardeners, as it is distinguished by a wide variety of colors and shapes, unpretentiousness and undemanding care. It is not difficult to grow a flower on your own, but in order to collect petunia seeds at home, you need to know some rules and subtleties.

Collecting petunia seeds at home

Petunias are easiest to grow from seed. Florists note that their germination leaves much to be desired, so many collect the seeds of this beautiful flower on their own to save on the purchase and have them with a margin.

What are petunia seeds

Petunia seeds ripen in a capsule fruit. It is small, but contains about a hundred dark brown, sometimes yellowish seeds. Due to their tiny size (about 0.5 mm), the seeds have a small supply of nutrients, which is why their germination is incomplete.

Petunia fruits are a bivalve box that cracks when ripe with very small seeds of dark brown, rarely yellowish color.

Without problems, you can collect seeds from one-color, simple varieties of petunias. They are stable in offspring, every year they will repeat the color and shape of the parent plant. But the hybrid forms of seeds are practically not tied up, so it is extremely rare to find a seed box on these varieties of summer. This is due to the fact that the pistils of the flowers are transformed into additional petals. Even if an exception to the rule has occurred, and a box with seeds has formed on a terry petunia, do not flatter yourself - such seeds usually do not carry signs of a parental form.

In terry varieties of petunias, varietal characteristics are unstable, many of them do not produce seeds

Experienced flower growers successfully propagate hybrid forms of petunias with cuttings.

Seed collection time

One of the conditions for the lush flowering of petunias is the timely removal of wilted flowers. Since the seed box ripens only on dry, naturally dried flowers, the lower buds are noted at the beginning of flowering, left on the plant and waiting for maturation. Signs of seed readiness for harvest:

about two months have passed since the blooming of the flower;
the seed pod changed color from green to yellowish and began to dry out.

If the fruit-box of a petunia opens, then all the seed material can simply scatter in the wind

by the most favorable time Flower growers consider the collection of petunia seeds August-September.

Collecting Petunia Seeds: A Step by Step Process

Only ripe seeds should be collected, as immature ones simply will not sprout. Collection of boxes is carried out in dry, clear weather:

Video: collecting petunia seeds

Storing Petunia Seeds

After collecting and drying, the seeds are poured into small bags of paper or natural fabric, each of which must indicate the name of the variety and color.

It is easy to glue paper bags for storing seeds from ordinary office paper according to the presented scheme.

Sachets must be stored at room temperature in a dry, dark place. high humidity, as well as direct sunlight spoil the quality of the seed. Subject to storage conditions, petunia seeds retain their germination capacity for 3-4 years.

If the collection was carried out taking into account all the indicated nuances and the seeds were stored in appropriate conditions, then you will be able to provide high-quality seed material not only for yourself, but also for your friends.

How to collect petunia seeds? This question often torments plant lovers. Breeding a flower with seedlings costs a tidy sum. That is why the tendency to collect seeds on their own is growing. But here you need to know some nuances. Just how to collect terry petunia seeds will be discussed in our article. We will consider the technology of all stages of growing a plant.

The seeds of this flower are very, very small. They reach a diameter of not more than 0.6 mm. Most often they have a brownish tint, a little less often - yellow. The flower seeds “sit” in a special box, which is also quite small (up to 1 cm). But in such a "warehouse" there are a lot of them. In stores, professional petunia seeds are sold individually, each of them is packaged in a separate special package.

Collection technology

Let's start studying this process. To begin with, it should be noted that new seeds suitable for collection will appear in places with wilted flowers. Shrunken petals should be removed in time. So the plant will bloom all the time and bring new "fruits". It is also worth noting that the formation of boxes prevents flowering. This means that in order to figure out how to collect petunia seeds, you need to carefully monitor the plant. The box should open slightly. This will serve as a signal to collect. Seeds must not be allowed to scatter throughout the plant. Then the collection work will be much more difficult. You will have to perform the action with a brush, and the seeds themselves will need to be swept into some kind of container.

If you are afraid to "slam" the moment

If you have doubts about the fact that you will not have time or miss the moment when you need to collect, then you can use an interesting technique.

To begin with, you should select a few buds at the base of the stem, which will be our "suppliers". After that, they need to put on a small bag. Fix it. It can be a tea bag, coffee, a small piece of cloth, a handkerchief - anything, the main thing is that the seeds do not crumble. After the buds have dried, the bags can be collected. Seeds must be spread on any surface. For example, place them on a table, nightstand, window sill. It takes a few days to dry them out. After that, we offer to put all the seeds received in a cardboard box. Remove them until spring in a dark, dry place. We figured out the question of how to collect petunia seeds.

What's next?

Petunia seeds, by the way, come in several types - clean and with a shell. It is preferable to use the latter. It is easier to plant them, and they have protection due to their “clothes”, and they have fewer diseases. Nevertheless, pure seeds are still in demand. They attract the buyer with their price. That is, we can say that they are available to everyone and everyone.

A tip for all beginner gardeners: label your crops so you remember where and what variety you have planted. The most important thing is to feed and water the plant abundantly. If you want it to grow as a bush, pinch it over the 3rd leaf.

When is the best time to land

Seeding times may vary. If you want the plant to bloom by the beginning of summer, then planting is best done in February. At the same time, since autumn, you should worry about the supply of soil for sowing. For this, take equal parts humus, earth and two of the same portions of sand. All this is mixed and used for sowing. When to plant is your choice. Only the container should first be covered with a newspaper, covered with our mixture and allowed to freeze well - this is a kind of soil disinfection. With the onset of winter, the earth should be "unfrozen" - you can land.

Plant care during growth

The next step in deciding how to grow a petunia from seed is planting and caring for the plant during flowering. After the appearance of the first sprouts, you can “transfer” them to moist soil, to sunny places, warm and warm. Planting should be dense - about 70 plants per 1 meter.

After sowing, the ground is pressed down, sprinkled with a substrate on top and the seedlings are watered with a 0.1% solution of the Previkur preparation. Flowers should sometimes be sprayed with settled water. Once a week, or even less, will be enough. Feeding should be alternated.

You can dive seedlings as early as three weeks after planting, subject to these rules. Note: when using seeds in granules, parallel grooves should be made in the soil. They are landing. After the seeds are laid out, spray them with water and cover with glass or film. Place the container in a warm place until sprouts appear.

For picking, use small plastic cups. Buckwheat or millet husks can be added to the soil so that the earth can “breathe”. After that, it is necessary to make holes in the cups, place them on a stand and water them periodically. The plants are then transplanted into a large container. Expanded clay is poured at the bottom of the container, earth is added on top. So keep the plant until the fall. Thus, we learned how to collect petunia seeds and how to grow this flower from them on our own.

Reference! Petunia is a perennial or annual herbaceous or semi-shrub plant of the Solanaceae family.

Petunia stems are erect or creeping. Depending on the species, the height of the plants varies from 10 to 100 centimeters. The leaves are sessile, variable in shape and size, entire, covered with fluff. The flowers are mostly large, often solitary, simple or double. Arranged on short stalks. The corolla of a petunia has the appearance of a funnel and consists of five petals.

Flower color varies:

Petals can be fringed or ruffled. The fruit of a petunia is a box. The plant comes from South America. Petunias are bred as annual garden or balcony ornamental plants , are usually used for pot culture.

What are seeds?

Very small. One seed is half a millimeter in diameter. The seeds are light brown or dark brown in color and are formed in small boxes 5-8 millimeters in diameter, each containing about a hundred seedlings.

When do they appear?

Petunia bloom usually lasts for several months: from late June to October.

Buds form within a week.
Then comes the flowering period and the buds open - it takes about 20-25 days.
The plants are then pollinated.
Petunia pistils ripen before stamens; these are cross-pollinated flowers.
Seeds are laid for about a month.
On site withered flower a box is formed in which the planting material is formed.

For full maturation, petunia seeds need 3 months from the moment the flowers open.. Ripening occurs unevenly: on one plant you can find absolutely dry opened boxes, strong hard and even unripe green fruits.

Collection period

The collection period for seed material is August-September. As soon as the flowers are completely withered and the boxes begin to turn yellow or light brown, you need to start collecting seeds. A dry, sunny day is best for this event.

Important! The petunia fruit cracks when ripe. Seed material can be collected only until the box is fully opened.

Now you know when to collect.

Step by step instructions with photo

Here you look at the photo, how the process goes step by step at home.

Important! If the buds are a little underripe, you need to place each box in a bag of thin transparent fabric or a tea bag and leave it on the windowsill. A few days later, the ripe boxes open, the seeds are in bags.

What to do after?

Choose a dark, well-ventilated place.
Spread the planting material at room temperature in a thin layer on clean slate paper.
Leave to dry for 2-3 days.

It takes 3-4 months for the seeds to ripen. It is not necessary to wait for full ripening. After drying, planting material can be sent for storage until sowing.

The key to good seedling germination is proper storage. To do this, you need to follow these recommendations:

The contents of the fetus should be placed in paper envelopes, on which it is necessary to indicate the type and variety of petunias, the date of collection. You can write down some important characteristics for the gardener.
Petunia seeds should be stored at room temperature in a dry, warm place. It is necessary to choose a place away from heating devices, since overheating has an extremely negative effect on germination. planting material.

seeds prepared in this way can be already in February-March. It is also permissible to leave this planting material for the next year. If stored correctly, they do not lose their properties for 3-4 years.

Many varieties with terry and other complex flowers when collecting planting material manually and in the future, they give specimens that differ from the parent in shape, size, and even color.

Conclusion

Preparing petunia seeds at home is a rather laborious and time-consuming undertaking. However, if you know and follow all the recommendations, the process will not be too difficult. The result will certainly be positive, because petunia is a plant with high germination of seed.

Petunia is quite a beautiful and fragrant flower. Many people say that petunias are annuals, but they are not. Petunia is a perennial herb. You can buy it in the spring and plant it on the balcony, but then you will definitely want to have it in the apartment, and not for one year. But to do this is quite realistic, you only need to collect petunia seeds for the next time. But many people do not know at all how to collect petunia seeds, and articles on the Internet describe everything in an incomprehensible and inaccessible language. In our article, we will talk about how to collect petunia seeds and how to get them.

What do these seeds look like?

In fact, petunia seeds small size. They are usually dark in color - black or brown. There are also exceptions when the seeds are yellow color. The fruit itself is in the form of a small box that contains seeds. One such box contains about a hundred seeds. If you are interested in the question of where to buy seeds, then the answer will be simple - in the store by the piece in separate bags.

Is it possible to collect petunia seeds and how to get them?

For the constant flowering of this plant, it is necessary to do timely cleaning of stuck flowers. It is from these flowers that you can collect seeds. To do this, you will need to, when the flower begins to bloom, make a mark of several buds. It is desirable that they be at the bottom, but not at the top. After choosing the buds, you will need to stock up on a considerable amount of patience. The seeds will take quite a long time to ripen, so you will have to wait a long time. The period in which the seeds ripen lasts about four months. Therefore, you should collect seeds from these buds, which you select before flowering.

In order for you to be able to successfully collect seeds, you first need to make a choice of a petunia variety, it must be done correctly. Do not forget also that many varieties of this plant are not so stable and durable. There is nothing special about the fact that many people ask the question - how to properly collect petunia seeds, especially terry, because it is one of the most beautiful of all flowers of this species. But it is with these seeds that the big problems usually arise. The main problem there is also the fact that such seeds are pretty badly tied. This all arises due to the fact that this particular variety of such a petunia has its appearance due to the ovaries in the petals. At the same time, the development of stamens occurs without any disturbances. But is it possible to collect petunia seeds and how to do it?
You need to remember a few useful things, so that later you would not have questions or problems. First of all, before collecting petunia seeds, you need to remember that an absolutely unexpected result can turn out. There were, of course, situations when nothing grew from seeds at all. But this was extremely rare. Also, in the very process of planting and flowering, the flowers may not be the same color as they should have been. It could also be different size. In general, the grown flowers can be completely different from the flowers from which you collected the seeds. So do not panic and think that you are guilty of something. This all may depend not only on you, but on the seeds themselves.

The cultivation of seeds itself is best done in the middle of spring. It is worth planting seeds in the greenhouse itself in April itself. Well, May will be in order to sow seeds in the ground. Petunia should be planted in bright and open places, because it is good for both the sun's rays and the heat itself. The mail should not be drained and not acidic, because the petunia does not prefer this option. You need to be very careful and careful when planting flowers yourself. If you make some mistake when growing, then it is unlikely that you will be able to achieve a good result. You can plant flowers in containers, a box is also ideal. The soil itself should be loosened and nourished from time to time. Petunia will grow very well if you add humus or compost to the soil. It is not necessary for water stagnation to occur, but the soil should not dry out either. This can adversely affect both the plant itself and its further flowering.
Petunia itself should be planted close to each other. Watering petunias should be done quite often, this will ensure her good growth and abundant flowering. It would also be nice to sprinkle it with water all the time. A spray bottle can help you with this. But do not forget the same, and feed the plant. It does not need to be done so often, usually once a week will be enough. It would be nice if you alternated feeding the plant under the root itself and vice versa. If there are reasons for slowing down the growth of a plant, a growth stimulator can help you with this problem. It is not necessary to allow a draft near this plant, and do not forget to also remove those flowers that have withered.
In general, collecting petunia seeds video will help you sort out all the questions and problems. There are also photos on the Internet on how to collect petunia seeds. In general, there is nothing complicated in this collection.

We do the correct sowing of seeds, grow seedlings and transplant petunias

Petunia seed cultivation begins in mid-March. Petunias will germinate best if the soil is loose. The main thing when growing this plant is careful watering, avoiding dry terrain and very high moisture. It is because of these factors that rotting of flowers and suffocation of roots can begin. When growing, you can use not only watering, spraying, but also a growth stimulator. You should not use it often, just a couple of times a growth stimulator will be enough for you. If you grow a petunia with seeds, then its flowering will be in seventy-two days. But this result of the study is not very accurate, since a lot also depends on the petunia variety. Landing in open ground can be done as early as May. This plant loves heat very much, but can safely withstand both slight frosts and cold snaps.

It is best to transplant seedlings in cloudy and evening hours. Before that, you will not need to forget in advance to pour water on the boxes where these plants are located.

Around the petunia itself, humus should be placed in the ground; peat is also ideal. It is with this that you will retain moisture and protect the plant from slight frosts.

When and how to collect petunia seeds with your own hands at home? The end of summer is on the nose, and as it should be, based on the realities of flower life, many novice flower growers have problems collecting completely microscopic petunia seeds.

Without being cunning, we can say that this is a rather tricky business, since there are several factors whose importance cannot be underestimated. So what should you do if you like the most beautiful petunia with a particularly pleasant smell (its variety), and you are betting on collecting exactly its seeds?

What you will learn from this article:

1 From which petunias can seeds be collected
2 When to collect petunia seeds: timing
3 How to collect petunia seeds
4 How to store petunia seeds

What petunias can you collect seeds from?

All are suitable for collection. simple single color varieties petunias. If you sow them regularly, collect them and sow them again, they will repeat the same color every year.

By the way! You can’t find a seed box of a terry petunia (it simply doesn’t exist, there is an empty place there), because it does not produce seeds. However, the successful experience of flower growers suggests that you can propagate it by cuttings.

The same applies to hybrid varieties and varieties. Sometimes there are exceptions to this rule, so it’s still worth checking for the presence of a box with the treasured seeds, but the coloring of the flowers is likely to change.

What kind of petunias can you collect seeds for sowing

When to collect petunia seeds: timing

When the flower of the plant itself completely wilts, becomes dry naturally, its seed box matures (at first it is green), acquiring a yellowish tint, and then opens (or does not open, it's not scary), you can start collecting seeds.

Advice! The main thing is not to miss the right moment, otherwise all the seed material will simply scatter around the yard.

As a rule, the period for collecting petunia seeds begins in June and continues until September (in other words, during the entire flowering). From this it directly follows that they need to be collected as they mature.

Naturally, the procedure is best performed on a dry sunny day.

How to collect petunia seeds

Many people mistakenly think that small, barely noticeable seeds are somewhere in dried leaves, and this is partly true.

By the way! If you do not want the petunia to waste energy on the formation of seeds (or you do not need them, although this is very strange, because you are reading this material because, on the contrary, you want to collect them), then you can simply cut the buds as they fade , then you can prolong the lush flowering of your beauty.

Step-by-step instruction collecting petunia seeds:

Wait for the flower to wither and dry.
Carefully tear off the dry flower.

Next, you will see a green tubercle - the future seed box.

When this seed box ripens, dries up (turns brown) and begins to open, then you will see small dark brown or black grains that are much smaller than poppy seeds (0.5 mm in diameter, 0.05 g in weight). This usually takes up to 3 weeks. If the box does not open, although it has already dried up, then you can pick it up and open it yourself at home.

Now you will need to cut off these heads (seed boxes along with sepals) and bring them home.
Already at home, carefully place the chopped heads with boxes on paper towel(or on a napkin), which is then placed in some not very deep bowl.

Now it remains only to carefully pour out all the seeds from each box.

And then collect in bags, sign and put in storage.

Important! Some flower growers advise not to pick flowers, that is skip step #2.

How to collect seeds from petunias

How to store petunia seeds

When the seed material is all collected and dried, all that remains is to pour it into paper envelopes or bags, which must be signed, indicating the name of the variety or color.

Advice! It is convenient to collect the seeds in a special small plastic flask and store in it.

Petunia seed material should be stored at home at room temperature in a reasonably dry place.

And next year you will be able to grow simply magnificent petunias from your own seeds.

By the way! Read about how to grow petunia seedlings from purchased or your own seeds. in this material.

As is well known, petunias produce a lot of seeds, but you only need to collect them correctly and save them until sowing in next year. And this is not at all as difficult as it might seem at first glance. The vector of the procedure is given, now you know about the required collection time, about the years worked the right methods collection and storage of high-quality seed material. So, good luck!