Gardens
No error of taste
Ursula Buchan
Ifirst came across petunias in the garden of the British Residence in Budapest in July 1973. (Don't ask.) I was very young and had only recently become interested in flowers and gardens, but I was charmed by the delicacy and symmetry of their single, pastel-coloured trumpet flowers, and the generosity with which they flowered. My hostess explained why she liked them so much: because they could stand the heat of a Continental summer and would flower for months on end. I, who had been brought up on old-fashioned roses, `syringa' and delphiniums, none of which flowered for more than a few brief weeks, was intrigued by the idea that a flower might go on all summer long. (In fact, this was shorthand for a succession of flowers, but I didn't find that out until later, by which time my attachment to petunias was strong enough to withstand the shock of revelation.) Ever since I acquired my first garden, I have grown them in prodigious quantities, as ground-cover fillers in bor- ders and in June-planted pots.
These days, it is not uncommon to hear them referred to as 'vulgar', but how could `This new symphony's three movements are called "News", "Sports" and "Weather".' I possibly agree when my earliest memories of them are of flowering madly, whole- heartedly, in the garden of Her Majesty's Ambassador to Hungary? No error of taste was committed — that was left to me and my weakness that summer for wearing (the memory is painful) a brown T-shirt, with my childhood nickname emblazoned in red on the chest.
Attentive readers may perhaps remem- ber that, when striving to din some small nugget of illuminating botany into my hus- band's overcrowded head, I describe a plant by reference to its botanical family, for example, saying that cyclamen is a kind of primrose. Well, a petunia is a kind of potato, although its closest relative is, in fact, tobacco. Tetun' means 'tobacco' in a South American Indian dialect. As one encyclopaedia primly puts it: 'their leaves have a similar narcotic effect [to tobacco] on humans'. As another one of my youthful errors of taste was to smoke roll-ups, it is a good thing I did not know that then, or the diplomatic petunias might not have been safe with me.
The ancestors of our modem garden petunias are three species: P. axillaris, vio- lacea and integrifolia. They are short-lived perennials with a spreading, straggly habit, up to 2-ft tall, with elliptic, sticky-haired leaves and solitary, single trumpet flowers, in a limited range of colours of white, pink or violet. P. axillaris gives off a sweet, heavy scent at night. They are plainly the ances- tors of modem hybrids, but their descen- dants have larger flowers, with petals often puckered as if made of tissue paper which has been wetted and allowed to dry, in a greater range of colours from white through yellow and crimson to purple, and with either a compact and bushy or a trail- ing habit.
There have been times in the last 15 years when my attachment to petunias has been sorely tested, thanks to the perversity of plant breeders. They have concentrated on developing floppy-headed, double, frilly varieties, as well as singles which are either striped or bi-coloured `picotees', or come in electrifying colours, often with central, darker veining. Not all, by any means, are scented, even at night. These are not vul- gar, but they certainly try the devotion of petunia lovers. Moreover, this concentra- tion on developing larger and double flow- ers means that many are scarcely equipped to deal with damp, cold weather, the petals turning the consistency of wet loo roll and becoming prey to fungal root rot.
Nevertheless, many of the newer vari- eties are definitely worth growing: the sin- gle-flowered trailing varieties, such as the famous Surfinias as well as 'Trailblazer' and 'Wave' series, and the small but gener- ous 'Trailing Million Bells', have an obvi- ous place in pots and other containers. Although I am not wild about those with darker veins in their centres, the delicious scent of the pale blue 'Blue Vein' is a com- pelling reason for growing it. Unlike a number of other highly bred 'bedding' annuals, the seed of petunias is available in single colours, so it is possible to devise planting schemes that work, without being lumbered with a weird mix of carmines and orange-reds, as happens with most Busy Lizzies. In fact, I also grow Suttons's 'Trail- blazer Mixed' because the colours har- monise.
This summer is proving a testing time for petunias, it having been both wet and unseasonably cold. So far, the best doers are proving to be, as you might expect, the `Storm' series (which has now superseded the old `Resisto' varieties as one of the most resilient of the large `grandiflora' types) together with the Surfinias and Trailblazers. But I still have to deadhead bedraggled, washed-out flowers regularly, for the look of it. The task is not made lighter by the knowledge that, whilst it is 17°C (62°F) and cloudy here today, it is sunny and 33°C (91°F) in Budapest. Oops — definitely an error of taste to mention that.
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