You're right about plants down south having different needs than further north. It's been almost twenty years since I left Alabama, but thinking back, I definitely remember that if the plant tag said "full sun" the growers were thinking of, like, Ohio full sun and not 'Bama full sun. :P~ I learned to treat "full sun" as "partial to full shade" and if said it it was a shade plant to start...probably best to just keep the damn thing in a sunny window indoors and only put it outside (if at all) in the early hours before it got too hot out, haha.
Now that you mention your petunias not liking the Florida summer, I'm recalling how our petunias always ended up being early spring plants. They could stay out in the sun until the temps started creeping up about April, May? Then they would start to wilt and would get moved to the full-shade porch. Then THAT would get too hot by late spring, and they'd have to come inside. They were always among the more delicate of my flowers. :) The only flowers I had worse luck with were blue butterfly delphinium, but I'm pretty sure those were novice mistakes on my end because I really did not know what I was doing back then.
Exactly. I received the petunia in mid-July, which is WAY too hot for most cultivated plants down here in Florida. Humidity in the upper 90s or sometimes even over 100% (yep that's possible, you may have even experienced that in Alabama), temperatures in the mid and upper 90s, and a heat index from 100-112 every single day this summer is just too damn much for most ornamentals.
So I bought it a grow light based on recommendations from a petunia-specific group on facebook. Then posted a photo of the plant with said light, and got chewed out for not buying a strong enough light. A bunch of grow light snobs came and were like, "You need at LEAST xxx ppfd, and if you're not spending $80 at least it's a waste of time," etc etc. And I'm over here like....YOU PEOPLE are the ones who told me to get this specific grow light.....
Then I posted a picture of my healthy and green plant, and several people told me that I "should" acclimate it outdoors. I kind of looked at the weather and the heat index was below 100 for the whole week, so even though it was still hot I thought, well, other people are having success and recommending that I do this. Though a part of me was like, but are those people considering FLORIDA though??
Needless to say my plant wilted like mad any time I left it out past noon, and on the third-or-so day of trying to acclimate it started to yellow and stay wilted so I just brought it back inside. Posted pictures and sarcastically thanked people for the shite advice...and was told that "clearly" it needed MORE light intensity and MORE humidity! Someone even suggested that I mist the plant!!!
TL;DR people were giving advice thinking only of themselves, their climate, and their needs. It was stupid of me to follow advice from people living anywhere but Florida (or maybe LA or TX.) People in other states cannot even wrap their heads around the fact that the gardening season in Florida STARTS in October, because that's the only time it's temperate enough to grow fruits and vegetables!! Or that maybe, just maybe, you don't need to mist a plant in a climate that has 100% humidity in the air!! Meanwhile the rest of the country is overwintering their plants during this same time period.
Anyway, thanks for confirming what I knew in my heart and should have gone with in the first place!!
Now that you mention your petunias not liking the Florida summer, I'm recalling how our petunias always ended up being early spring plants. They could stay out in the sun until the temps started creeping up about April, May? Then they would start to wilt and would get moved to the full-shade porch. Then THAT would get too hot by late spring, and they'd have to come inside. They were always among the more delicate of my flowers. :) The only flowers I had worse luck with were blue butterfly delphinium, but I'm pretty sure those were novice mistakes on my end because I really did not know what I was doing back then.
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So I bought it a grow light based on recommendations from a petunia-specific group on facebook.
Then posted a photo of the plant with said light, and got chewed out for not buying a strong enough light. A bunch of grow light snobs came and were like, "You need at LEAST xxx ppfd, and if you're not spending $80 at least it's a waste of time," etc etc. And I'm over here like....YOU PEOPLE are the ones who told me to get this specific grow light.....
Then I posted a picture of my healthy and green plant, and several people told me that I "should" acclimate it outdoors. I kind of looked at the weather and the heat index was below 100 for the whole week, so even though it was still hot I thought, well, other people are having success and recommending that I do this. Though a part of me was like, but are those people considering FLORIDA though??
Needless to say my plant wilted like mad any time I left it out past noon, and on the third-or-so day of trying to acclimate it started to yellow and stay wilted so I just brought it back inside. Posted pictures and sarcastically thanked people for the shite advice...and was told that "clearly" it needed MORE light intensity and MORE humidity! Someone even suggested that I mist the plant!!!
TL;DR people were giving advice thinking only of themselves, their climate, and their needs. It was stupid of me to follow advice from people living anywhere but Florida (or maybe LA or TX.) People in other states cannot even wrap their heads around the fact that the gardening season in Florida STARTS in October, because that's the only time it's temperate enough to grow fruits and vegetables!! Or that maybe, just maybe, you don't need to mist a plant in a climate that has 100% humidity in the air!! Meanwhile the rest of the country is overwintering their plants during this same time period.
Anyway, thanks for confirming what I knew in my heart and should have gone with in the first place!!
Reply
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