Spring bedding plants – Petunias, Lobelia, Flowering Tobacco, and Salvia

Petunias

Petunias are among the best spring sellers. Hybridizers have done so much work on breeding diverse varieties that it is difficult to recognize the old petunia form in some of the new double beauties. Grow your petunias from the best seed you can obtain; it costs very little more than inferior seed and assures you petunias different enough to sell at a premium to gardeners in your community or to a retailer.

Sow petunia seed in mid-January for flowering plants by the first week in May. Transplant the seedlings to flats of average greenhouse soil, spacing them about 2 inches apart. They can be grown on and sold directly from these flats; or, as they crowd one another, you can pot some of them in 2- or 3-inch pots. Petunias do well in 65 to 75 degrees F. and can stand full sunlight. If growing them in pots be sure to check carefully for water; when the sunshine is bright they require watering nearly every day. If you are short of greenhouse room, shift your petunias to the cold frame as soon as hard frost no longer threatens. Aphids are their worst trouble, but in this case, too, mala-thion makes short work of the pests.

Lobelia

With its bright blue flowers, lobelia is a popular springtime seller. Sow the seed in March in fine moist soil. If kept at 60-degree temperatures, the seeds germinate rapidly and will be ready to shift into flats or pots in April. You can harden them off by placing them in the cold frame in April or you can grow them on in the greenhouse.

Flowering Tobacco

Nicotiana or flowering tobacco, a tender perennial, is usually treated as an annual and most northern gardeners replace it every year. The most popular form is 32-inch high affinis or Jasmine tobacco. This evening bloomer is deliciously scented. There is also a compact dwarf variety, White Bedder, which blooms in the daytime. Most of the rosy-red kinds are non-fragrant but some affinis hybrids in shades of rose, red, and crimson have a wonderful fragrance. Sow the seed in early March, cover with fine sand and germinate in 60-degree temperature. Plants will be ready for pots or flats in early April.

Salvia

Salvia, often called scarlet sage, comes in compact dwarf forms, also in taller varieties. Start the seeds in mid-February. Accord salvia the same treatment as lobelia. The salvia plants you sell in the spring will more than likely be minus flowers, but experienced gardeners will purchase these plants anyhow because they know that salvia will lend brilliant red to the garden later on. You may be able to increase sales by suggesting as companion plants to salvias some of the dusty millers (Senecio cineraria), artemisia, or centaurea. These plants have wonderful silvery foliage and make perfect complements to the red salvia flowers.

Display a few seed packets showing the bright red salvia flowers. This will give novice gardeners an idea of the color of the flowers. Indeed, with any of the small plants you sell from pots or flats it is always a good idea to have displayed near them a gaily colored seed packet or poster detailing their colors.

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