No petunias allowed!

Warning: This article may be offensive to some gardeners. Reader discretion is advised!

For the life of me, I cannot believe that petunias are the annual of choice for so many gardeners! Every where I look I see petunias in gardens, hanging baskets and containers. There is no escaping them! Talk about cookie cutter landscaping!

Why? Why do so many gardeners plant petunias? What is the attraction? Is it because petunias are drought tolerant? Low Maintenance? Showy? Is it because they are easy and cheap?  For the life of me, I just don’t understand why so many people like petunias!  One theory of mine is the marketing behind the petunia. The gardening public has been inundated with adverts telling us that petunias are the wave of the gardening past, present and future. Well I say it’s time gardeners waved goodbye to petunias!

Petunias are one of the few plants that I will not allow on my property and I include calibrachoas in that ban. Now, I have grown petunias in my garden and, in my greenhouses. Thirty years ago when I was first learning to garden, petunias were the recommended annual for a novice gardener. I soon learned of their shortcomings and within two gardening seasons I came to detest petunias and my garden to be a petunia-free zone.  So intense is my dislike of the petunia, when I was operating the greenhouses, my staff could always tell when I was planting petunia seeds by the frozen scowl on my face and the constant muttering coming from the propagation area. Even with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (the most beautiful music ever composed) playing in the background, I my mood could not improve until the last petunia seed of the day was planted.

Why do I detest petunias? I find them boring, blowsy, overused and just plain ugly! Not to mention they become weedy looking by mid summer. And, they are sticky little things. The use of petunias shows no imagination whatsoever.  Why limit yourself to petunias when there are hundreds, thousands of alternatives available?  Flowers that are every bit as easy to grow, and just as colourful, not to mention more interesting. 

If you are among the millions of petunia planters out there, I encourage you to explore your local greenhouses, skip over the petunias and you will discover how much more beautiful and interesting your gardens can be sans petunias.