I like the Surfinia range of petunia look-alikes. I find the impressiveness of the basket depends on feeding and watering. Make sure you mix slow release fertilizer granules and water retaining gel crystals into the compost before you plant your plants. Adding some soluble plant feed such as Miracle-Gro to the water when watering helps too. And all petunias like a sunny spot. I find they're miserable failures in shade.

I've always found Surfina varieties are good either on their own or in a mixed basket where they tend to take over!

Yes Surfinia so many colours now and never fail

I grow 4 plants in a 16 inch baskets couple of trailing geraniums and a bushey one to fill the top out otherwise they go a bit flat onthe top of the basket plus keep well fed and they will bloom all summer long

Gg

Thankyou so much for your replies. My first day with you and I now know that Surfina will be the best petunia for my baskets. Thankyou. xx

If you are a Royalist you might like the red white and blue ones being sold this year (-:

Hi mrs pie, welcome to Goy.....last year I had trailing fuschia and a couple of impatiens ( which being out of the rain suprisingly didn,t get the virus) and a couple of double petunias which were lovely, big and blowsy,with a perfume.....It was a year that I was really pleased with the effect, all pink &white with cerise from the fuschia

You won't get the impatiens this year though Pamg - all the growers have switched to the New Guinea impatiens instead this year.
I'd recommend surfinia petunias too - with something upright in the top though, and maybe some half plugs of lobelia to give an airy effect. Water every day, MORNING and EVENING in hot weather, feed twice or three times a week once its got going - everyone always says things like use high potash feed, or use tomato feed, but to be honest, the year I got the best results, I'd used a feed which had an NPK of 6.6.6 plus trace elements,a liquid mixed in water and applied - the 14" basket ended up being 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, ridiculous, could barely get in the front door by September.

I,m going to get the new guinea one Bamboo but I have seen impatiens for sale.....just hope that no-one buys them.......

To feed I mix a few slow release granules in with the compost when planting up

Ah yes, but you don't get the same results as the feeding regime I mention above, Pamg. I'm also wondering where you saw Impatiens walleriana for sale - I've not seen any anywhere at all...