Days to Maturity: 84 to 98
Karkulka Petunia, a grandiflora type, is a tender perennial (Zones 10-11), often grown as an annual, offering spring through summer interest. This dazzling petunia blooms heavily and repeatedly throughout the season, blanketing its foliage in heavily ruffled blooms with delightfully fringy edges. Bright and candy colored, the bicolor blooms are speckled with playful spots and stripes of dark pink-violet that contrast beautifully with the white background. These fascinating flowers produce nectar and pollen and attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
Karkulka Petunia is perfect for patio pots and window boxes but is also suitable for flower beds and borders. Planted alongside perennials and vegetables, petunias repel asparagus beetles, leafhoppers, tomato worms, a range of aphids, and many other pests.
Easy to grow and undemanding, petunias prefer full sun to light shade and average, medium moist, well-drained soil. They tolerate poor soils and are virtually disease and pest free and deer resistant. Although petunias are low-maintenance plants, pinching off the tops of established plants results in bushier plants with a heavier bloom and deadheading regularly encourages and prolongs blooming. Cutting back plants that have declined in summer heat promotes a later bloom as temperatures cool.
Direct sow petunia seed after the last frost and as soon as the soil is warm in spring or start seeds indoors 8 to 10 weeks before the last frost and transplant in the garden after all threat of frost has passed.
If you plan to start your seeds indoors, be sure to check out our Bio Dome Seed Starter Kit. With the Bio Dome, you can control the temperature, light, and soil mix to ensure your seeds become strong for transplant.
This seed comes as a pellet. Pelleted seeds are small seeds that have been clay-coated to make them larger and more uniform in size and shape, making them easier to handle when planting.
