On Sat, 9 Jul 2011 14:50:44 -0700 (PDT), Dave Hill
wrote:

On Jul 9, 9:08*pm, rbel wrote:
On Sat, 9 Jul 2011 20:41:03 +0100, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:





"rbel" wrote
Our two large hanging baskets have been a bit of a failure this year.
Planted with two types of white Surfina petunias, one of the types (a
Tumbelina) have not flowered.

The garden centre have offered a refund and we are thinking of
replanting with something else that will give a good display through
until late autumn. *The colour scheme needs to be either white or red.
I imagine that trailing geraniums are still available. *Can anyone
suggest alternatives (other than begonias which we are not keen on).

If you can't grow those well and get lots of flowers you probably have a
problem. The first thing is to find out what and cure that before spending
more money.
What compost did you use?
What type of basket is it? (Plastic with a water reservoir or if wire or
wicker, is it lined, did you use the water retaining granules?)
How often did you water and when?
Did you water enough, did the water get down into the basket and not just
run off?
How often did you feed?
Full sun or shade?
Where in the UK are you?
Answer all those and we will have a better idea of what caused you to fail
and then can suggest other plants to try.

Each basket contains the two types of petunia. *The basic Surfina have
all flowered without problem but the Tumbelina type have not (a total
of 3 flowers from 24 plants) which would seem to indicate a problem of
some sort with the plants. *The readiness of the supplier to offer a
refund suggested that we are perhaps not the only one to experience
this problem.

As background the baskets are 16" wrought iron with coir liners,
filled with JI 3 and including water retaining granules. *They are
watered well every day unless we get significant rain and are fed
every 2 weeks. *They receive sun for 9-10 hours per day. *The location
is south Devon.

I do think that the problem is unlikely to be associated with the
growing conditions as the other petunias in the same baskets have not
exhibited similar problems.

rbel- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Sounds to me as if you had over planted, and the surfinia were
swamping the Tumbelina, You don't say how many Surfinia you had in
each basket, but with 12 Tumbelina in each basket as well as
Surfinia...............

Interesting. The Tumbelina have produced a similar amount of foliage
as the Surfina (perhaps slightly more), just little or nothing in the
flower department.

A few years ago we planted just Surfina, again just over 20 plants per
16" basket and the result was very spectacular. The only difference
this year is the use of the Tumbelina.

rbel