I have lost many a petunia seedlings due to ignorance on how to handle them. The most important thing to know is that they are fragile when young - more fragile than almost any other seedlings. The key is to have a really porous seed starting mix made up of vermiculite, sphagnum moss, perlite etc. Also important is to feed them every week and provide good sunlight. I have experimented with covering the seed with 1/8 to 1/4 starting mix. They seem to germinate just as fine and I think they had better strength than those grown on soil. If you need 12 plants for your garden, sow at least 24 to 30 seeds to be on the safe side.

ahhh ... the reason i quit growing from seed .. lol ... i could never get the timing right .... you get that spring itch way to early .. and before you know it.. the plants have to go out ... and its 45 to 60 days before you can do such ... aka last frost .... increase light as noted.. and try pinching back some of them.. and see how they respond ... both types should be able to handle that ... you will have much bushier plants .. if they make it ... experiment .... also ... if you saved any seeds... just plant another batch .. so if these become a lost cause.. you will have another batch on the way .... one thing i did learn .... plant 1/4 of your seeds... once every other week or so ... one out of the 4 will be timed properly ... lol we can all get the seeds to sprout ... its all the other million variables that are hard to time perfectly .... it soon becomes apparent.. or it did to me ... that by the time i bought the lights.. the medium.. the pots.. etc .. that those 6 packs for a buck or two ... were quite a bargain ... lol ... unless you need a thousand of something .... but it was fun to dabble in the house in the dead of winter .... good luck ken

Michelle65, sorry, but I have to dispute most of your claims. First of all, Wave petunias are spreading petunias, not the other way around. Spreading (Supertunia series, Surfinia series, etc.) petunias grown from cuttings have been around for decades. The Wave series (introduced in 1995) was the first commercially successful spreading petunia that was propagated from seed. Your statement that "the ones that say spreading petunia is the exact same this without the pink pot" is entirely erroneous, as is your statement "greenhouse have only been able to buy Wave seeds for the past couple of years". You should also know that there are FOUR separate divisions of Wave petunias. Actually 5 if you include the vegetatively propagated DOUBLE Waves. Wave, Easy Wave, Tidal Wave and Shock Wave all have very distinctly different growth habits. Are you paying extra for the pink pot? Absolutely. If it is in the pink pot and says Wave on it, it is required to be a Wave petunia, however that is entirely up to the distributor if they want them in a POP (point of purchase) pot or not. Waves can be planted in any color of pot, and there is no law saying that they have to be identified as a Wave. However, if it is NOT a Wave, and the signage identifies it as a Wave, THAT is illegal. The difference you see in price at retail is a factor of a number of things. If it is a spreading petunia grown from a cutting, it will always be more expensive than one grown from seed. But....if is a seed grown spreading petunia (Wave, Avalanche, Ramblin', Plush, Opera, Explorer, Trilogy) and it has all of the marketing POP items associated with it, it drives the price up. All Kleenex are tissues, but not all tissues are Kleenex. All Waves are spreading petunias, but not all spreading petunias are Waves. And for the record, there are no "generic" spreading petunias. Everything has a specific variety name, you just don't always see it at retail.

If you are planning to use them as potted plants they would definitly need more space. If you are planning on planting them outside, I think they would be fine in a 1204 flat or larger. I have had much sucess with starting them in 1204 flats and transplanting them outside after about 8 - 10 weeks. However, if you are starting wave petunia's I have read that they need more room because of their spreading habit.Hope this helps.