Petunia 'Surprise Moonlight Bay'

A blend of the dark of night, deep purple with a moonlit sparkle around the edge, this is a beauty. It grows up, then out so makes an amazing choice for pots or hanging baskets.

SuperCal Petchoas are so wonderfully versatile with a semi trailing to trailing habit, they can be grown in gardens, containers, window boxes, hanging baskets, as ground covers, garden edging or as filler plants in your borders. In the garden, place them around 40cm apart. In pots, chose ones that are around 30cm so that the foliage can spill from the sides. The plants have a naturally rounded, well branched habit so there is no need to pinch out the foliage.

SuperCal Petchoas are a hybrid of Petunias and Calibrachoas and give you the best of both worlds. You get the big flowers and easy growing nature of the Petunias and the colour, trailing habit and flower power of the Calibrachoa. The blooms open across three seasons and are fantastic no matter the weather; the flowers remaining open, even after rainfall. Plus, the plants are self cleaning, so you don’t have the hassle of sticky flowers as you do with Petunias.

SuperCal Petchoas will soon be one of your favourite plants. They are frost tolerant and don’t mind the heat - in fact they are more tolerant than either Petunias or Calibrachoas.

Grow your SuperCal Petchoas in a sunny spot with well drained soil. You can add a liquid fertiliser every other week to keep them blooming at their best, or use a slow release fertiliser spring and summer – remember they flower a lot so need a good supply of nutrients. Water to establish and then keep moist in active growth. Prune back as flowering starts to wane in winter and await their reshoot in early spring, you will have years of love from these plants.

As you can imagine it is a difficult breeding program to merge two plants and to do it so successfully is a testament to the advancement of the nursery industry. SuperCal Petchoas even have superior mildew resistance. They have a super strong root system so will cope well in stressful situations. You can enjoy a continuous procession of flowers from spring to frost without a lot of effort. They remain evergreen perennials throughout most of Australia but in areas of hard frost should be treated as annuals.