Harvesting Seed - Will I Get the Same Next Year ?

edit: Inspired by @lowrider69 recent post.

I've been searching UK seed suppliers for seed for next year.

We use a lot of Petunia Banoffee Pie as bedding so I thought I really should sow my own for next year rather than pay £1.25 / plant.

I cant find the seed available in the UK so my next thought was to let one plant go to seed without dead-heading and harvest the seed.

We have no other petunia varieties in the garden but local gardens may have other varieties planted.

What are the chances of the plant remaining true to variety next year ?

Is it worth a try or should I stop being tight and put my hand in my pocket and buy new plants next year ?

 

If that's a trailing petunia, they cant be propagated from seed, only cuttings.

I've successfully taken cuttings from trailing petunias in the days when I could afford to keep greenhouses heated overwinter.

I found cuttings needed to be taken before stems went 'blind' to be successful.

 

Yeah, not familiar with banoffee pie petunia, but it sounds like one of those that flower like crazy and are sold in separate pots in spring.

In my bedding plant days I used to buy a plant, of this kind of thing, as soon as they became avilible and take a couple of cuttings off each while they were still in the vegetative stage.

I think you might find they are sterile, which is why they flower so well.

Of course I could be totally wrong.

 

It's Surfinia trailing Petunias that are sterile and could only be propagated from cuttings.

Around the time I stopped planting up 4 hanging baskets, 9 window boxes and numerous tubs and othet containers every year with my own plants from seeds and cuttings, seeds for 'trailing petunias' started appearing for sale, but I recall these were more like floppy petunias and nowhere near as good a surfinias.

Looking at images of what's available now, things have moved on and the latest trailing petunias from seed seem very good (if you believe seed suppliers catalogue images!), but they all seem to be F1s. So if Banoffee Pie is a Surfinia type it would require cuttings to propagate, and if not then it's probably an F1 and seeds may not come true.

 

Thanks for the replies. Every day's a school day.

This will explain why I could only find plug plants and potted plants.

I'll probably go down the plug plant route early in the season and then bring them on in the tunnel