I’m going to experiment with some new (to me) petunias this year. The Shock Wave series is supposed to flower earlier in the season, bloom heavily and quickly rebound from rain and bad weather. I’ve had my eye on ‘Shockwave Denim’ since I saw it thriving in a test garden in 2009. The flowers are a gorgeous shade of purple:
The day before I visited the test garden the area had received almost four inches of rain. Many of the petunia cultivars presented flowers that were wilted or ripped. The tougher ones were flowering freely but the petals were all stained and blotchy:
You couldn’t tell that the Shock Wave plants had just endured thunderstorms and an excessive amount of rain. They looked fantastic:
Shock Wave petunias grow 10 to 15 inches tall on mounded plants that have a spread of 30 to 36 inches.