Ride the (F2) Wave
The Wave Petunia seeds come pelleted by the manufacturer which means that the petunia seeds have been coated in small clay pellets.
Technically, this is done for professional growers using mechanical seeding equipment, but petunia seeds, due to their round ball bearing shape, have always worked fine with these anyway. Home growers may find it easier to handle the somewhat larger pellet size (see comparison in picture on the left), but even this I am not quite certain of either.
In my opinion it is easier to sow small seeds by transferring them with a moist toothpick, a technique which does not work with pelleted seeds, and the pellets are still a bit too small to sow comfortable by hand. In my opinion they did not have to pellet the seeds, and the seeds would have sold excellently anyway, but I guess the justification to charge a higher price for a small jar of 10 pelleted seeds is easier than an envelope with 10 loose seeds.
F2 hybrids from seeds and cuttings
If you, like me, have saved, bought, and grown Wave Petunias from seeds this winter relief could be in sight for the pocketbook.
Luckily, this petunia produces very nice F2 hybrid offspring from seed. As with any F2 hybrid, you can not be guaranteed that the color, hybrid vigor, and growth habit is exactly as the parent, as detailed in our 'Understanding Hybrids' article, but the traits of the F2 Wave Petunias we grew were certainly inherited very well from the parent plants.
Instead of breaking the bank buying 100 Wave petunia seeds next year, you may want to limit your purchase to just 10 new seeds of a different color, and then harvest the seeds from this year's plants. You can then grow your own F2 Hybrid Wave Petunias. In our experience, they did wonderful, and unless you are very conscious about specific color combinations, you should try them, too (and you can always dig up and move any plants which happened to flower in a different color).
Another nice feature about F2 Wave plants, grow from petunia Wave seeds, is that you can propagate the plants by cuttings to create many more. If you buy the F1 hybrid Wave seeds, you are not permitted to make vegetative cuttings as the plant is trade marked. However, your own F2 crosses can be propagated by cuttings, and if you produce
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