This may not be the last petunia post but I promise they won’t be a weekly feature! But although I do not like all the new developments in petunias there are certainly some interesting things happening to these once humble bedding plants.

Commercial plant breeders the world over are introducing their own, cuttings-raised series, all with their own ‘special’ features and the ‘Crazytunias’ are produced by the German Westhoff company. I cannot quite see the link between the plants in the series except that they are all slightly odd and they include their own black petunia (‘Black Mamba’). The Twilight series includes three colours and I was attracted by and bought ‘Twilight Blue’. It was a brave decision to introduce a flower the same colour as a week-old bruise but then someone will buy it I suppose, as I proved! It is very well branched, has a compact habit and is bushy rather than trailing.

The plants are compact and the flowers are rather small. I cannot see any seed pods forming so that should mean it won’t need too much deadheading – useful since the flowers are rather small.

There is a little fragrance but nothing special – it is the colour that matters here. Finding a companion might be tricky though I think the similarly odd new, ‘blue’ diascias might work.

After a few weeks in a pot I have concluded that this is one of the many plants that looks best on the garden centre bench than in a garden. It IS upright and bushy but doesn’t have the wow factor I want from my petunias, hence the lowish marks below.

Geoff’s rating 7/10

Garden rating  6/10