Petunias are my latest love.  Believe it or not, in my 85 years of gardening I have never had a petunia. They never interested me because they were so omni-present – in every hanging basket on every light pole, on the greens, in the parks.  They thrive and bloom and look lovely but they are everywhere!   However, when I was given some wooden hand-painted flower boxes I decided – well,  petunias might look nice in them.   I looked for petunia seeds in four stores that sell flower seeds. No petunias.  Of course the harder they were to find the more I wanted them.  In desperation I bought a flowering plant for $2.50 and put it in one box.  My daughter-in-law invited me to take some of the young petunia plants that spring up in her yard each spring so I put several of them in the other box.  Only a few weeks later, I had petunias in abundance  blooming in both boxes, mostly purple in one box, mostly red in the other. Read the rest of this entry »