Testing 5 Petunias So You DON’T Waste Your Money

Welcome to Battle of the Petunias. I am so excited to put this video together. This is a video that I'm going to start filming. You get instant results. I do not get instant results. We're going to test today five different types of petunias just to see which ones are worth it. So I went ahead and I bought five petunias. Three of them are name brand, one of them's in a six-pack, one's in a single cell. I bought five of the exact same size terracotta containers. I have some fertilizer for these guys and they're all going in the exact same soil and they're all going to be getting the exact same amount of water, fertilizer. This is going to be 100% controlled. Each of these petunias are going to be getting a one gallon per hour emitter while they're hooked up to irrigation in their terracotta pots. They're going to be in full sun. They're going to be getting a weekly spray of BT because we do deal with caterpillars that eat all of the buds off of our petunias and if we don't spray for BT, none of these would have any blooms. And then they are each going to be getting weekly water soluble fertilizer and they're going to be getting the exact same amount. I'm going to be giving them each one full cup of water with water soluble fertilizer. It's all going to be weighed. That way we can see who performs the best and which petunias are worth the money. So let's go over each petunia that we've got. First one, this is the one that I'm the most hopeful for if we're being completely honest. I am rooting hard for this. This is a six pack of petunias. This was $4.19 and this is the clear mix madness petunias and I am just going to be taking one single one of these petunias out and only one of these is going to get planted in this container making them just over 69 cents per petunia. That's a good deal. The next ones are petunias that I have grown in my garden before and I didn't have the best luck with them. These are the wave petunias. I don't know which variety of wave petunias they are. It just says wave. I know that wave has different versions of the wave petunia. I know there's like tidal wave, tsunami, and all these other ones. This is just a simple four pack of wave petunias and these were originally $11.98 for the four of them which is a really great price for four petunias but when I bought them they were on sale for $8.88 making them $2.22 per petunia which is a really great price too. Next is this little guy. So I picked this one up and this is a no-name petunia. It's just your normal what I would assume you would normally find in a six pack but it's grown on into a single pack which I have never seen at big box stores. These types of petunias grown in single packs like this and this was $2.98 which did not feel good to buy an off-brand petunia for three dollars a petunia. It felt like a jab to the heart and I will say this is the prettiest petunia. This is out of all of these this is probably one of my favorite petunias but it's still three dollars so I'm hoping that this one does perform really really well also. Next is probably the most recognized type of petunia out there on the market and a that is the Proven Winners petunia. This one here is called Supertunia Bermuda Beach. I paid over $11 for this single petunia. That did not feel good at all and my goal is because I do buy all of my own annuals usually in my own garden. My goal is to not have to spend more than a few dollars per petunia so this is where this experiment is coming from. It's because I'm sick and tired of paying this price for petunias. It does not feel good. So like I said this is probably the most recognized petunia because this is what a lot of YouTube influencers and Instagram influencers are using because so many of them get them for free. I have never gotten them for free. This year I was reimbursed $1,500 worth of my annual order of annuals from Proven Winners and I think I've spent over $4,000. I spent well over $4,000 actually this year on annuals and so with that being said I would love to cut that price down a lot. And with this one I will say the Proven Winners brand also has Supertunia Vista series which is their most vigorous series. I did not want to bring that into this category because I know the vigor of Supertunia Vistas. So this is a Supertunia which still has to have vigor but it doesn't make it into the Vista category which is their like creme de la creme of petunias. And I will still probably continue to buy some of them. I would just love to scale down the number that I have in my garden because it is a hefty price to pay. So this one is just a Supertunia. It should perform hopefully about the same as these ones. The next one that we're going to grow is one that I have also grown in my garden before and I had good luck with them and they performed really really well. They bloomed. They just didn't have a lot of vigor on them. This right here is a Supercal Petunia which is actually a cross between a Calibrachoa and a petunia. So it's supposed to take the best effects of both those plants cross them into this one. This one is really pretty. I like the yellow throat on this one and I paid $6.98 for one single petunia. One annual. No name so I couldn't even tell you the variety of color it is. And the soil that I'm going in with is this one right here. This is the Near Source Natural Indoor and Outdoor Potting Mix. All organic and it is peat free. I am trying very hard to be peat free in my garden. If you want to know more about why you shouldn't use peat, I would google it. It's a long, it's a long rant. It's not great for the environment. Anyways, this is what I'm going to be using and everybody is going to be getting the same amount of soil and everybody is going to be getting this potting soil in their terracotta pot. So let's get these potted up really quickly. And as far as fertilizer goes, everyone's going to be getting a little bit of a jump start. They're going to be getting four of these which is a half a tablespoon. So they're going to be getting two tablespoons of Espoma Biotone Slow Release Fertilizer. This just helps them throughout the season. So everybody's going to get four of these to help just for a little start at the beginning. Normally I like to run my irrigation tubing through the bottom of my containers. I think that aesthetically it looks better, but these are just going to be sitting in my driveway. So they're just going to get drip tubing once they're in place for the summer. That is one bag down and I'm going to try to fill these so they're about the same level each container. My soil is really wet. I like to pre- this soil has been sitting out and we did have some rain not too long ago. So it is very, very wet, which is really important to make sure that you set your plants up for the best success possible. Okay, four scoops of fertilizer per container. Just like that. Everybody will be well fed. So I'm going to mix the Slow Release Fertilizer in just lightly and I'm not going to water these guys in because this soil is so incredibly wet. It really doesn't need it. If this soil had been just slightly drier, I would have given everybody a drink once I got them in their place, but these are really, really soaking wet. I'm also going to make sure that everybody is very, very clearly labeled on who is who. I don't want there to be any mix-up. They all look pretty different to me and I should be able to tell the difference anyways, but I'm going to go in with a very clear label just to make sure that there is no confusion on this test at all. Pachoa is planted, which is kind of I feel like maybe the cheater plant, but pachoas are so readily available. We'll see what happens. I do have high hopes for this one right here. I really would love if petunias were just a couple dollars per petunia. If you can get them in a four pack, I will say it sucks when you see the $11.99 price tag, but if at $11.98, my bad, if at $11.98 it brings the price down per petunia and these perform, even at half the size of the Morton name brand, the one that I have all throughout my entire garden, I would be ecstatic. This one here I am going to root for, but I'm not going to hold my breath on. We'll see what happens with this one. It would be nice if it, it'll be nice if they all do something. This is the one that I want to succeed the absolute most. This six pack of petunias, them coming in at just over 50 cents a petunia, what was it? 69 cents a petunia. If these ones do even a quarter the amount that some of these other petunias do, this one might be the winner just because of the sheer fact that at 69 cents, I mean, I could go in with this entire thing and if I get this to be double the amount, it would just be amazing. Okay, I will say I haven't dealt with a six pack of annuals in a really long time and these guys are very, very rooted in. I am also not teasing the roots on any of these. So this one has some spiraling on it. The rest of them had like light spiraling and I typically only mess with the roots on plants if I need to. This one's gonna look so pitiful. Good luck, little guy. And then this one here. This one is probably, this one's probably gonna be the most root bound. This one is the biggest one, which is another reason I think that you pay for the price that you get because of the size of plant that you typically get. So it's actually not root bound at all. This is very, very beautiful in here. Get this last one in here and then we can move everything out to the driveway. Well, in terms of Instant Impact, I've gotta hand it to two plants. Instant Impact, it goes to the Supertunia Bermuda Beach and it goes to the Pachoa over here. These two, Instant Impact, these two are the most expensive petunia though. So I would expect Instant Impact. Next would be the Wave and then the $3 petunia. And then last place of Instant Impact is our 69-cent petunia, which, rooting for you, little guy. Anyways, I'm gonna get labels on these and put all these in the driveway. And then I will see you guys in probably a month with a one-month update. And then we'll be back at the end of the season to see how everybody's doing. Here we are a couple weeks into the experiment now and just kind of want to give my thoughts on where things are sitting at this very moment. First one right here, this is the Supercal Pachoa. Obviously, these are all very different colors. We're focusing mostly on size and the floriferous of these plants. So these are the Supercal Pachoas at 698. I'm like pretty impressed at how well they're doing. They're doing great. This is probably the one that I'm the most impressed with. This is the Wave Petunia at $2.22. I'm very impressed with it. It's staying nice and low to the ground. So this is a really good one for the ground where this one kind of has like a reaching habit and you can see it's kind of bald back here. The Wave Petunia is growing in very evenly, very nicely. This is the No Name from Lowe's and it's doing fine. It's staying very small, so this might be a good one if you need to just tuck into a space. The $0.69 one, I was the most hopeful for and as of this moment, I'm the least impressed by. It's only giving, you know, a couple blooms here and there and it's staying very, very small, but it was also the smallest. The one that looks the best right now is the Proven Winners one, but this was $11.99. As of this moment, my brain is telling me that is your best bang for your buck at $2.22 versus $11.99. That one looks great and it's got like some height to it and it is filling out the container beautifully, but I think for $2.22, you know, you can buy five of these plants and so if you had five of these plants versus one of these plants, as of this moment, you're at $2.22, but that would put you at a little over $11 for five plants and I mean, think what five of those could do compared to $11.99 so far on that, so we'll continue to keep an eye on it and see how everybody performs, but as of right now, for me, this one is in the lead and then the growth of this one, the Pachoa is kind of next and then No Name Lowe's and then the $0.69 No Name also is dead last for me as of this moment, but that's not to say that anybody couldn't take the lead. We're still pretty early into this experiment, so anyone could take the lead on this. We will see what happens. I'm gonna remain hopeful that all of these continue to just grow like crazy as everything like these two right here are starting to touch just a little bit. I'm going to be making sure that everybody starts getting more and more space around so nobody is competing with each other at all. I don't want them to touch, so everyone's gonna be getting space. Anybody could take the lead and this also isn't to say, you know, who's growing the biggest and the best petunia. This is just kind of to see there's so many different petunias out there and to see what your specific needs are, so there are some spots that this year I kind of wish that I had bought some really small petunias to tuck in. Like honestly, I probably would have gone with the no name now that I'm looking at it, and there's a couple containers that would have just been so nice to just tuck in one petunia that's not going to have the vigor of some of the other petunias that I have growing in my garden. So this is just kind of a little experiment to see different needs and different plants and how these things perform. So so far, the battle of the petunia is going pretty well. Well, it's been almost two months since we started this project, and the project is coming to an end a little bit earlier than I would have liked, but we have some very exciting things happening that I can't tell you about. So this project either has to end right now or just not happen at all, so we'll just end it right now. So let's get into these petunias. So this is the first petunia. This is the Super Cal Petroa. Just as a reminder, this petunia cost $6.98, so it has some pretty good growth to it. A lot of the blooms are on one side of this petunia, but overall not bad, but also not the best petunia. So I will say this one has bloomed pretty continuously and has nice even blooms and good coloration on the blooms throughout the entire plant. My only issue is this side of her. The next petunia is the Wave Petunia, and as a reminder, this one was $2.22, and this one has nice even growth all the way around the plant. So this one has very uniform habit. I will say it's a little empty in the middle with blooms, but overall there are there are blooms. Overall there are blooms everywhere. There are some blooms in the middle, but the middle is where it is the most empty. But I will say this one probably is this one is definitely the biggest of the petunias. This one has produced the largest blooms also. So this one here is pretty good in my book. This one here is definitely one of the smallest petunias. This is the No Name Petunia. This one was $2.98 for the petunia, and I will say this is about what it's looked like this entire time. And the blooms, not great. It does kind of have like a weird growth habit, so it's like long and skinny on this one. For this price, I would probably pass on this petunia. The blooms are beautiful, but you can get the same look and much larger with a different one. Okay, this one's just not my favorite. This next one here is from a mix called Clear Mix, and this one was $0.69 for this petunia. It hasn't had the most blooms, but it has offered blooms this entire time. It's constantly been blooming. It drops its dead, meaning that it doesn't really hold on to the blooms, and I will say that the color is fine. So for a $0.69 petunia, I have zero complaints about this one. It actually performed way better than I thought it would have, so this one ranks pretty high in my book. And I will say that this is the least sticky of the petunias. I think petunias are a very, very sticky plant. This one has like no stick to it at all. There's other petunias that are out there that we touch, and you immediately just feel sticky. This one, no stick to it. This one here is the proven winner's one, and this one is called Bermuda Beach. So overall, really good growth habit. So blooms all the way around this petunia. Not mad at this at all. It's full in the center also. Lots of bloom coverage on it. I will say this one is the most sticky of all of the petunias, but the show that you get is quite nice. So I'm not mad at this petunia. The price just is a lot for the size petunia that you get. I do want to show you one other petunia that was not part of this control, but the one that at the same price point will give you a better show. Can you see me? Can you see me at all? Okay, so this petunia was also $11.99, and this was not part of the control at all. This is one that I had in a different area of my garden, and this is one single petunia, one pot. And the pot is almost the same size as the other pots, so it is a pretty good control. This one has also been potted for a little bit longer than these ones. I think this one's probably been potted for maybe three or four weeks longer, and you can see the difference in this. So this is the Supertunia Vista bubblegum, and I am a very big advocate for the bubblegum petunias. I think for the price, you get an incredible show. So this one was also $11.99, so $12 for a petunia, which feels very expensive, and it does hurt the heart a little bit. This one also was grown flat up against a wall, so she is bald in the back. She's got nothing going on the back, but where she was being grown, there was another plant that was right here, so there was no way for her to even get any light. I got some other petunias on the property that are the bubblegum that are full and voluptuous all the way around. In my opinion, this is what an $11.99 petunia should look like. This is incredible. So you can see the size difference. $11.99, $11.99 Bermuda Beach, Supertunia Vista bubblegum. So the Vista series of Proven Winners, they have vigor, they have growth, and this is not what all of the Vista series do. This is only specifically what the bubblegum petunia does. There's other Vista series that do really well and they get to a really good size, but they don't get to bubblegum size. If I'm willing to pay $11.99 for a petunia, and I need something that is big and huge and showy, I would pick this one. If I needed a petunia that stayed a little bit smaller and was more well-behaved, like this petunia is well-behaved, let me show you what I would pick. If I needed a petunia that was a little bit more behaved but still had a lot to offer, I would pick the Wave petunia at $2.22. I feel like this is a really good middle ground between that bubblegum and this petunia, and for the price point, I just feel like this one is worth the money. $2.22 for a petunia is honestly incredible. Now if I needed a small petunia, so I just want something that has a very small accent, let me show you which one I would pick. So say I needed a petunia that was well-behaved, stayed small, and I just needed it as a small little accent piece, I would go with the $0.69 petunia. There's not a whole lot of difference between these two, if we're being honest. This one has, I think, a little bit less growth size-wise. This one still has good size. I would choose this one in a heartbeat. This one being almost $3, and this one being $0.69, I would choose this one for the size and blooms and what you're going to get out of it. They're very comparable, but this one on my left, being $0.69, saves you a ton of money and gives you a pretty good show. And as far as the petunia that wowed me the least, surprisingly is this one. And it only wowed me the least because of the price. This one, I feel like, was competing a lot with the one that was $2.22. For $6.98, this is just not the one that I would choose. I just don't think that this has that wow factor to it for a $7 price point. So let's go ahead and rank them, my least favorite to my favorite. So if we had to rank these least favorite to favorite, this comes in last place. For the price point and the size of petunia that you get, it just doesn't really do it for me. The fact that it is a little bald on one side, it doesn't have good even growth, it's got kind of a valley right here. I think that the Super Cow Pachola is a no for me and my garden. In fourth place on my list would probably be this one at $2.98. I feel like there's better options out there. This is the no-name one that I just picked up from Lowe's for almost $3. You're not doing anything for me. So this would be the next on my list. I'm also noticing that this one has aphids. None of the other ones have aphids. So this one is definitely number four on my list. Number three on my list, and this might be surprising to some because this is petunia that I do have in my garden, and it is a beautiful petunia. But for the price point, the approval winner is Bermuda Beach. This comes in third place, which is not bad to place. It does well. It has beautiful blooms. I have nothing bad really to say about the plant itself. I just have something bad to say about the price point. So for $11.99, I feel like it should give a ton of wow factor, and this gives... that's an impressive petunia. Not a wow factor. In second place is the one that I honestly was rooting for a little bit, and I'm very happy to say the $0.69 petunia came in second place. What you get from a $0.69 petunia is good growth. You get a decent amount of blooms. You get a well-maintained plant, something that you can just tuck into the landscape, and it's just going to do its thing. You don't get the most blooms from it, but at $0.69, you can plant a ton of them, and you will get a bunch of blooms. Plant them extremely close together, and they should be happy. So the $0.69 clear mix petunia that I picked up from Grocery Outlet, second place for me. At $0.69, you can buy 17 of these, or you can buy one of these $11.99 petunias. So that's why this is in second place. And in first place, because $2.22 for a petunia is a great price, especially for one that gives you this show. So this is a petunia that I will probably pick up next year. I will definitely be looking into adding wave petunias at that price point into my garden next year. You get good show, you get good-sized flowers. These are actually the biggest flowers out of all these petunias. So biggest flowers, you get a good-sized plant. And I think in the landscape, all of these would probably perform even better. And I think that this one might not even have this slightly empty spot right here in the middle. But I mean, overall, it's got good, even growth. $2.22, this is the one that I'm going to go with. I feel like gardening should be accessible, and $2.22, I feel like it's pretty accessible for most people. Now, of course, if you feel like splurging on a petunia, splurge on the Supertunia Vista Bubblegum. $11.99, you're gonna get a big show. You get kind of a bang for your buck. Well, you don't really get a bang for your buck, because you could still buy a ton more of the other petunias. But one plant, you gotta dig one hole, and you get a huge show. This thing has the most blooms and the least foliar growth that you see. So I really do think that the $11.99 for a Supertunia Vista Bubblegum does honestly give you the best bang for your buck. So if you need a good-sized petunia, I would go with the Wave Petunia. If you need something that is maybe a little bit psychotic, I would specifically spend $11.99 on the Supertunia Vista Bubblegum. So if this wasn't the mix, this would probably be my winner, just based on what it can do for the price. But it is not, and I did not include it because I knew that this petunia kind of is a hands-down winner for me compared to any petunia. I have yet to find a petunia that does anything like this. So that is why I did not really leave this one in the mix, and this is why I didn't plant one of these from the beginning. It's an amazing petunia, but this is also an amazing petunia. So that is our test of petunias. It was about two months of growth on these guys. Everybody got the exact same amount of water every single day. They were hooked up to irrigation, and they got water twice a day. On some days, they got water once a day. Everybody just got the exact same amount of water every single day. Our irrigation is set to just go off as we see fit for these plants. And then I will say, everybody did get weekly water-soluble fertilizer. So every single Friday, these did get fed. And then these also did get sprayed with BT, because we do deal with caterpillars that eat our buds off of our petunias. And if none of these had gotten sprayed, there wouldn't be a flower to show you. So petunias are a high maintenance plant. They're a beautiful plant. They give you flowers from the time you plant them to the time a frost takes them. And petunias are probably a plant that I'll always have in my garden. So I'm excited to be able to find something that is a more affordable option, a more reasonable option. I do believe gardening should be more accessible. I feel like in recent years, gardening has become more of a luxury, and it has pushed people out of being able to garden, because it is no longer at accessible prices. While this one did come in a four-pack, and it was like almost $12 for four petunias, four petunias, this times four, you would get an amazing show of petunias in your garden. So that's why this one's a winner. I hope gardening can be more accessible to more people in the future, and I do honestly hope that pricing comes down, because gardening should be for everyone, not just for people who can afford it. So that is the end of our petunia journey. I hope that you enjoyed it. I hope you found a petunia that maybe you'll add into your garden. I'm gonna clean up these petunias. I'm probably gonna go get some of these planted in the landscape. Thank you so much for visiting our garden. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button so we can continue to do videos like this. We have some very exciting things in the works. Thank you so much for visiting our garden. We'll see you in the next one!