Phosphorus deficiency?

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masciam Santos, Brazil(Zone 11) Sep 17, 2007

Two months ago I started several wave petunias by seed and after 1 month I had to travel for a couple of weeks, so my brother watered them while I was out. When I came back most of them had purplish leaves and stems and relatively small leaves. After some research I'm pretty sure it's phosphorus deficiency, because they were planted in a peat-based medium (which doesn't have much nutrients to offer to the plants) and never were fertilized.

Las week I fed them with 15-30-15 and they seem to be recovering (the new growth looks good) very slowly. All the growing guides for spreading petunias says they must be fed every week, but they still look stunted and I'm not sure if I should fertilize them again right now. I'm afraid to overfeed them!

BTW, will they ever look good again?

Thanks!

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Post #3986004
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twohawk Blanco, TX(Zone 9a) Sep 17, 2007

Give them a weak weekly fertilizer. They'll be ok. Days are shorter
now, they may need longer sun to bloom. Add amendments to the peat,
some average soil with the weekly fertizer should help.

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masciam Santos, Brazil(Zone 11) Sep 17, 2007

Thanks for replying.
I'll feed them, then! But is there any point in what I said? Since the plants are growing really slow, wouldn't the nutrients from last week still be available to them?

And I'm in the southern hemisphere, so days are getting LONGER.. spring's comming!

masciam

Post #3986557
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masciam Santos, Brazil(Zone 11) Sep 24, 2007

If someone have the same problem, I just want to let you know that I fertilized them twice a week with 1/2 strength 10-10-10 and 4-14-8 for 3 weeks. Now the purple stems are turning green and the plants are growing strong again.

Post #4012768
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WeeNel Ayrshire Scotland, United Kingdom Sep 27, 2007

Jusdt thought I would add my penny worth here, peat soil is really very acidic and more suitable to ericaceous plants where as, your Petunia's require a richer sweeter soil and you need to add the right nutrients to the peat soil to give the plants the food they need to flourish and grow for the rest of the season, I would add a liquid plant food once per week at one of the many watering sessions they will also need as peaty soil in your temp, will dry out very fast and is very difficult to get moist again without soaking for hours in pots inserted into bucket that holds enough water so the soil can soak up the moisture needed, it becomes very crumbly when parched dry, hope this helps a bit. Weenel.

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