Growing petunias has become a very popular activity. Many factors contribute to this. Firstly, varieties and hybrids of exceptional beauty and variety of shapes, shades and types have appeared on the market. Secondly, growing this flower is quite simple; you don’t need to be an inveterate gardener: with regular care, it pleases the eye with bright colors until frost. And thirdly, if the annual plant is brought into warm room, it can easily become a perennial and produce cuttings for vegetative propagation in the spring. This is how all the features of hybrid forms are conveyed when it is impossible to find seeds of the variety you like.

A little about the amazing transformation

The familiar petunia is no longer the shy one with monotonous small flowers that was familiar to us a couple of decades ago. During this time, breeders have developed a huge number of varieties and hybrids of the most fantastic colors, which also exude an amazing aroma. A previously unknown ampelous variety of petunia has appeared, a variety with huge double flowers.

In its homeland, in Montevideo, this ornamental perennial grows and blooms almost all year round. In our conditions, this riot of colors is interrupted by the first frosts. Petunia does not always survive until autumn in such a well-groomed condition as in the illustrations in publications on landscape design, where she looks like a ball, seemingly consisting of only flowers. However, every amateur gardener can form it in this way.

Why is bush formation necessary?

In order for petunia to begin flowering as early as possible, it... Before flowering, the seedlings will have to live indoors for 2-3 months. It is not always possible to create the necessary microclimate for delicate sprouts or to find enough space and light sources. The seedlings stretch out, become fragile, lean to one side, and their decorative qualities suffer as a result.

Pinching, or pinching, is one of the most common techniques in floriculture. It is used to stimulate the growth of side shoots and make the bush more leafy and compact. Tweezing is used not only by flower growers, but also by gardeners and vegetable gardeners. For example, if you pinch the central shoot of cucumbers, the most productive side shoots will grow. And pinching the stepsons on a tomato will help it not waste energy in vain, but use it to form fruits.

How and when to pinch?

Pinching petunia should be done twice - at the seedling stage and after planting in open ground. If the second pinching can be neglected due to lack of time, then pinching at the seedling stage is carried out in mandatory. It is carried out when the young seedling has 5-6 leaves, maybe a little less, but not more than this amount.

The algorithm is quite simple.

1. Using a miniature pruner, scissors, or just your fingers, you need to pinch the stem of the young plant above the 5-6th leaf.
2. In order for the seedling to recover faster after this procedure, you can water or spray it with a growth stimulator such as Epin or Zircon.
3. A month later, when new side shoots begin to grow, you need to tweezer again. Now it is carried out not only on the central stem, but also on the side shoots, which after this procedure will sprout third-order shoots.
4. After repeated pinching, foliar and root feeding is carried out with complete mineral fertilizer and growth stimulator.
5. It is advisable to pinch ampelous varieties every 3-4 weeks.

All instruments for this operation must be, if not sterile, then at least sharp and clean. When growing an annual plant in greenhouse conditions, the formation of a bush is carried out after the picked seedlings have taken root completely.

What to do with cuttings?

If the size of the branches separated from the mother plant is large enough, they should be used to propagate the plant you like. To do this, the cuttings must have at least 5-6 leaves and a fairly strong stem. It is advisable to use planting material for propagation after repeated cuttings, when the bush becomes stronger and its stems larger. They will quickly take root in a container of water, in which, for greater success, you need to dissolve a little root growth stimulator.

Don't forget to cut off the lower leaves that come into contact with water to prevent the plant from rotting. Only the top few leaves remain on the cutting.

When young roots form, you can carefully plant the petunia in a container with light fertile soil. If you took cuttings from a hybrid seedling, a new specimen grown from the cutting will fully retain its characteristics and appearance original, which is impossible when propagating from personally collected seeds.

To form a highly decorative plant, pinching alone is not enough. If you do not take care of an adult annual, then no matter what capabilities the breeders put into it, it will not show what it is capable of.

It is worth remembering the main points of qualified care.

1. Regular root and foliar feeding with microelements and minerals to increase vegetative mass.
2. Careful selection of nutritious soil for pots and balcony boxes– it should be light and fertile.
3. Adding iron to the fertilizer mixture to prevent chlorosis.
4. Regular abundant watering (up to 6 liters of water per balcony box).
5. Removing faded buds to stimulate lush flowering.
6. Treatment against aphids with a strong stream of water or pesticides, although pests do not settle on healthy, well-groomed plants.
7. Treatment with sulfur preparations in rainy weather to prevent powdery mildew.

If you carry out the correct pinching and follow the rules of care, you will admire the long-lasting flowering of this amazingly beautiful plant for a long time.

Petunias are amazingly colorful flowers that will make any flower bed bright and unusual. Today they decorate gardens and personal plots many housewives. Thanks to their rich color spectrum, these plants allow gardeners to create rich compositions. Despite the fact that petunias are quite common and serve as decoration for flower beds throughout the summer, they are rather fragile plants that require special care.

How to pinch petunia: video

Despite the fact that petunia comes from South America, this flower takes root quite well in our weather conditions, and it can be grown not only in open ground, but also in pots and containers. This is a perennial plant, but it does not survive in harsh winters and does not germinate well if the seeds are planted immediately in open ground.

Therefore, if you want to decorate your flower beds with petunias, sow seedlings first. Sprouts should be planted in the 2nd half of May or early June, when the night frosts have passed and the ground has warmed up sufficiently. In order to get lush bushes of flowers, petunia must be pinched. This must be done while observing the basic rules.

Pinching should be done in a timely manner. This is done after transplanting into open warm ground. Make sure the plant is healthy and well established in its new location. In order for it to get stronger after transplantation, it should be watered and sprayed about 3 times a day. Once a week, apply fertilizer at the root and spray with fertilizer.

You can pinch petunia with your hands without using any equipment.

• Before pinching the plant, make sure that the flower stem begins to grow rapidly and stretches up to 3 or 5 leaves.
• Count 3-5 leaves and carefully pinch off the top shoot. This will slightly slow down flowering, but soon new shoots will appear at the site of separation and the stem will begin to grow in width. Soon, instead of just 1, 3 or 5 large buds (maybe more) will appear on the bush. The branched structure will help the plant become much more resistant to mechanical damage.
• Don't throw away old shoots. They can be placed in water, and soon they will sprout roots, thereby giving you new sprouts. Plant them in small containers with soil, after removing all the leaves except the top 2.
• Usually the 2nd pinching is done about a month after the 1st. Before pinching the petunia for the second time, you need to make sure that the bush has grown sufficiently. To make it even thicker, trim some of the side stems.

Caring for petunias does not end with pinching. To prevent the bushes from losing their decorative value, you need to constantly monitor the flowers, removing dried petals and inflorescences along with the seed pods. They should be removed so that the plant does not waste nutrients on setting seeds. All this will contribute to the rapid growth of new, larger buds. In addition, dry parts of the plant greatly spoil the appearance of the entire bush.

Do I need to pinch petunias?

Why should you pinch petunia? This is done so that the stem does not become too elongated and does not distort the appearance of the plant. Also, if the stem is too long, the flower usually falls or bends under its own weight. After removing excess shoots, new shoots appear at the cut site, on which buds grow, thereby making the bush thicker and brighter.

The process of removing excess shoots is quite painstaking, but it bears fruit. In just 2 weeks you will see the first result.

It should be noted that not all varieties of petunias need to be pinched. Mandatory elaboration is required only simple varieties. It is not necessary to do this with plants from professional seeds, since breeders make sure that such flowers acquire their optimal appearance as quickly as possible.

Some gardeners recommend removing excess shoots from professional varieties of petunias, since breeding plants produce new shoots faster and allow you to quickly achieve the desired result. This is also done to save space in the seedlings so that the stems do not stretch upward.

If you see that the bush is growing evenly without any intervention, then the plant does not need to be pinched.

The great advantage of petunia among other flowers is that the shoots can be preserved in winter until next year, if you place them in the fall in a bright room with a temperature no higher than 10 degrees. If the plant is stored at room temperature, leaf discoloration may appear. spider mite, and it will die.

It’s not so difficult to give a luxurious look to your flowerbed - plant petunias. Of course, growing these flowers requires certain skills, for example, in pinching technology. But the result will exceed all your expectations - colorful caps of flowers will decorate your garden until autumn.

Pinching petunias: why do it and when...

Volumetric multi-colored bushes of double, ampelous, two-color and single-color petunias won the hearts of experienced gardeners and newcomers. From mid-spring until the first frost, flowers, amazing in their diversity and decorativeness, decorate not only summer cottages, but also balconies of multi-storey buildings, verandas of cottages, city flower beds, cafes and restaurants. The flowers are unpretentious, do not require professional maintenance and special conditions, but respond favorably to the care of the flower growers.

Necessary conditions for pinching petunia
How to pinch petunia
Useful tips

Necessary conditions for pinching petunia

Proper cultivation and formation is an important condition to get a beautiful and healthy bush. In addition to timely sowing and picking, it is necessary to properly pinch the petunia. This means that at a certain stage of growth it needs to remove the top shoots. This procedure will ensure branching of the stems and the formation of many buds on bushy crowns.

To carry out this manipulation you will need the following:

convenient scissors or pruning shears;
strong seedlings with 4 - 5 large leaves at the top;
container for collecting removed cuttings.

How to pinch petunia

Before pinching petunia, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the basic requirements for this procedure.

When observing the growth of seedlings, it is necessary to choose a period when they have become a little stronger and began to quickly grow upward. It can have up to 5 - 6 leaves, but no more. If you miss this moment, the seedlings will stretch out. Actually pinching the petunias will not take much time. It is necessary to trim the stem above 5-6 leaves using your fingers or pruning shears.
This creates a new point of growth, from which different sides Several shoots will begin to grow simultaneously. During this period, the seedlings may slow down their development, but at the same time they will become a little stronger. When side shoots begin to appear, the bush will take on a more rounded appearance.
If you plan to plant seedlings in open ground, then it is better to pinch them after rooting. The sprout will need several days to adapt. During this period, you need to try to create favorable conditions for plants to take root:

seedlings must be planted loosely, observing the conditions of agricultural technology;
monitor the frequency of watering and spraying;
Apply a specialized strengthening fertilizer to the roots.

If development occurs in a greenhouse, you can pinch the petunia after picking.

If the cut shoots are not very small size, they can be used as cuttings. To the cutting rooted, it is placed in a container of water. First you need to remove excess leaves, leaving a few at the top. When the roots appear, they are transplanted into the soil. This way you can get additional young seedlings.

Useful tips

when pinching, try to injure the sprout as little as possible, use clean tools;
a month after the event and the appearance of strong side branches, pinching the tops of the petunias can be repeated;
to plant large buds on new stepsons, use suitable fertilizers, they will make the flowers brighter and larger.

In order for a formed ornamental bush to please with its beautiful appearance for as long as possible, it will need constant care. From the moment of sowing, no replanting, pinching, or spraying of sprouts will be required. Do not forget to water and feed well, remove dried flowers and shoots. In place of the cut old flowers, new branches with buds will appear. Well-groomed colorful petunias will undoubtedly delight you with abundant and long flowering.

How to properly pinch petunia (video)

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What housewife doesn’t dream of a well-groomed, admirable, and even enviable flower garden next to her house? In our climate, petunia is one of the most best options how to decorate local area, because the number of its varieties and colors is very large, and it does not need special care. Petunia is native to Montevideo and belongs to the nightshade family. Although petunia is perennial plant, but during our winters in open ground it dies, so it is grown as an annual. This plant is very heat-loving, tolerates heat well, but requires constant watering. In cold weather, petunia stops blooming. There are a huge number of petunia species (several hundred varieties), but they are all divided into four groups: ampelous, large-flowered, multi-flowered and floribunda. Large-flowered varieties of petunias look the most impressive, but they are also the most capricious, suffering most from changes in temperature, wind and rain. Multi-flowered varieties and floribunda are used for planting in flower beds and on. And the ampelous petunia will delight the owners with a whole cascade bright colors. Petunias come in almost every color of the rainbow: white and lilac, yellow, blue, red and pink, bicolor and striped.

In order for petunia bushes to become a real decoration and delight their owners with long flowering, it is very important to pinch them in time. How to properly pinch petunia and when to do it will be discussed in our article.

Do I need to pinch petunia seedlings?

Petunia, like any other plant, strives, first of all, to grow upward. If the top shoots are not removed in time, the petunia will stretch upward, forming a long, ugly stem that will collapse under its own weight - and there will be no talk of a beautiful flower garden. Pinching petunias will allow you to form a beautiful lush bush that will actively produce new side shoots, each of which will have new buds. As a result, the petunia bush will bloom more luxuriantly and actively. Pinching will also have a beneficial effect on the duration of petunia flowering, and the pinched shoots will grow again, forming new bushes. Therefore, to the question “Is it possible to pinch petunia?” There is only one answer - it is possible and even necessary. This is especially true for plants grown independently from purchased seeds. The fact is that pinching plants is a very labor-intensive process and breeders are working hard to create varieties that would grow and develop normally without it. Naturally, varietal petunia seeds are expensive and are sold in special nurseries. Cheap types of petunias, available for free sale, must be pinched.

When to pinch petunia seedlings?

To achieve maximum effect pinching petunia seedlings is done twice: the first time in the four-leaf phase, and the second - a month after the first. The first pinching is usually done after the petunia is planted in open ground (usually in the second decade of May), giving the plant time to get stronger and acclimatize. With the help nail scissors cut out the upper bud to the maximum depth, leaving only 3-4 bottom sheets so that it turns out like in the photo. You can also pinch petunia simply with your hands, without any equipment. Plucked off parts of the stem can be used to propagate petunia. To do this, just put them in a jar of water, where the petunia will quickly sprout roots. After this, the petunia can be replanted in the ground, having first cut off all the leaves from the cuttings, except for one or two of the top ones.

Petunia is a perennial highly ornamental plant, in conditions middle zone grown as an annual. The culture is loved by flower growers for long flowering accompanied by education large quantity bright colorful buds, a variety of species and varieties that can satisfy the most demanding taste.

Petunia is grown from seeds. In the southern regions, sowing is carried out immediately in open ground. In medium - using seedlings. The growing process is characterized by the need to care for young plants, including pinching. Without this procedure, it is impossible to achieve long and abundant flowering.

How is pinching done?

In plant growing, pinching refers to the removal of the upper part of a shoot with several leaves. Manipulation is carried out by hand or using sharp instruments, including tweezers. For this reason, the procedure received another name - pinching.

Pinching is carried out in the early stages of plant development, during active growth. Shoots that are prone to stretching are pinched repeatedly.

The step-by-step process of pinching consists of performing 2 simple steps:

• choosing a shoot for pinching;
• removing its top part by hand or using a tool.

Why do you need to pinch petunias?

It is necessary to pinch petunia, regardless of its variety (bush, hanging, cascading). The shoots of this flower tend to elongate. The consequence of this is their weakening, leading to the loss of the overall decorative effect of the plant, an unattractively formed crown in the form of long poorly branched shoots and weak flowering. Pinching will help avoid this.

This is what young petunias look like when grown without pinching.

After removing the top part, the shoot stops growing upward and, thanks to the influx nutrients thickens. The plant becomes stronger. New leaves appear on it and existing leaves grow stronger.

Petunia after correctly performed first tweezing

Buds emerge in the axils, from which lateral shoots develop, contributing to increased bushiness. The more such branches are formed, the more buds there will be. Abundant and long-lasting flowering is another advantage of tweezing.

Pinching result

Are all varieties of petunias subject to pinching?

Long-existing or simple varieties (cheap, sold in amateur packaging) must be pinched. New professional hybrids with high bushiness have been obtained through selection. Their crown need not be formed.

When purchasing new varieties, pay attention to the instructions on the packaging.

Features of the procedure

Despite the simplicity of pinching petunias, there are several important rules:

1. 1. Only young specimens that have reached a height of more than 5 cm and have 6-8 leaves are pinched.
2. 2. The first pinching is carried out after rooting of young plants when they are transplanted into open ground. In the case of growing seedlings at home - a few days after the first picking. Plants weakened by transplantation, as well as overgrown ones, painfully endure this procedure.
3. 3. It is important not to miss the timing of pinching. Delaying has a negative impact on further development plants. Adult petunias are not pinched; only faded buds must be removed.
4. 4. Repeated pinching is carried out no earlier than a month after the first, when the shoots reach a length of 10-15 cm. During it, only the very tips of the shoots are removed.
5. 5. Most varieties are pinched 2 times. Ampelous petunias require regular adjustment of the shape of the bush. Therefore, they are pinched more often - once a month.
6. 6. After the procedure, petunia needs good care:

• regular soil moisture;
• repeated (2-3 times a day) spraying of shoots with settled water at room temperature;
• Constant, 1-2 times a week, feeding with specialized fertilizers for flowering plants.

You should not overuse pinching: each procedure delays the start of flowering by 2-3 weeks.