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Landscaping With Petunias – 13 Eye-Catching Ideas

Petunias are such great flowers for landscaping! Brimming with brilliant colors and a delicate smell, petunia flowers are great for adding a splash of color to your gardens. Landscaping with petunias is as easy as it gets, as long as you plant them in a sunny spot and give them water and well-fertilized soil.

Petunias spread quickly, and the show of color they present is breathtaking. They come in so many colors! From pink to red, white, blue, and purple; some are pink with a white border, and others are dark purple with spots. And, of course, the candy-striped petunias and even yellow ones.

Here are a few ideas to help you incorporate petunias into your yard’s landscape.

bright pink petunias with white speckles.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

1. Grow Petunias in Containers

Gold speckled burgundy petunia in a pot with small white flowers.
Image credit: Backyard Garden Lover

One of the easiest ways to add color to your landscape is to create gorgeous containers filled with a mix of cascading petunia flowers. You can mix contrasting colors or add a selection of similar shades depending on the effect you’re looking for.

2. Petunia Hanging Baskets

Scarlet red petunia hanging basket.
Image credit: Depositphotos

What an amazing show of beauty! These red and white petunias will make your day, every day! Adding petunias to hanging baskets will give you a show of color throughout the summer.

Pair your petunias with geraniums, periwinkle, lobelia, and bright yellow African daisies for a dramatic look.

Place these potted petunias in places you’ll enjoy them daily: by your front door, back porch, or even your mailbox 😉

3. Fill a Window Box

pink petunias in a window box.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Have you ever seen those gorgeous explosions of color in window boxes? You can plant the same color, like the ones above, or plant a variety of contrasting colors, like red and white, or pink and purple. A real show-stopper!

See what other flowers look great in window boxes.

4. Include Them in Your Moon Garden

white petunia flowers.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Are you familiar with night gardens? I remember visiting my grandparents in my early years and being greeted by these tiny white flowers that smelled amazing! They were Nicotiana, also known as tobacco plants.

Many petunias have this same property: their smell accentuates in the evening. You can create a night garden by your window or door and enjoy the incredible fragrance in the evening. One of the most fragrant petunias is the Thumbelina: they create double blooms in many colors.

5. Create a Border

pink and white petunias behind a cement border.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Create a garden edge to your backyard filled with petunias. They’ll keep blooming without much intervention from you: a very low-maintenance landscaping idea for busy people who love a well-maintained landscape without too much work.

Of course, it helps if you take an hour or so every week to deadhead: this will boost production and pay dividends for you.

6. Plant a Flower Bed

a round flower bed made of rocks, petunias and marigolds.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Tuck a few petunia plants between the perennials already in your flower beds. They’ll add a pop of color and bloom profusely throughout summer.

The exciting flower bed above is made from large rocks and planted with layers of colorful flowers, including marigolds and petunias.

7. Create a Front Yard Centerpiece

a large mass of violet petunias in a cement planter in the front yard.
Image credit: Depositphotos

I love this splash of hot pink and violet petunias on the front yard landscape. Makes for a very inviting front lawn.

8. Wooden Cart Filled With Colorful Petunias

Image credit: Depositphotos

What a nice way to add a show of color to your yard! This cart is filled with lots of colorful petunias, marigolds, cosmos, and other flowers.

9. Fill a Tree Stump With Petunias

Fuchsia colored petunias planted in the tree stump and surrounded by low growing plants.
Image credit: Depositphotos

If you have an old tree stump in your yard, you may want to use it to plant some wave petunias on top of it and let them cascade down the sides.

10. Fill An Old Baby Stroller With

Image credit: Depositphotos

Get an old baby stroller from a yard sale and fill it with your favorite color of petunia flowers. This one has pink and candy stripe petunias. A yellow rose planted next to the stroller gives a nice contrast.

I hope you’ve been inspired to landscape with petunias: they are gorgeous and don’t require too much work.

11. Petunia Color Combinations Used in Landscaping

striped petunia flowers: red and yellow, and purple and yellow.
Image credit: Depositphotos

With the endless colors in which petunias bloom, there’s no shortage of color combinations for landscaping with petunias. From mixing red, white, and blue petunias in a hanging basket to adding two-tone colored flowers and spotlighting petunia flowers that are edged by a white border, you’ll be surprised at how many color patterns you’ll find you can use in your landscape.

If you like contrast, you’ll love mixing bright red and pure white petunias: such a beautiful combination! If you’d rather stay with one color, you can try to mix flowers in the same hues.

12. Special Petunias You Must Try

pink passion wave petunias.
Image credit: Depositphotos

Now that you’re planning to use lots of petunias in your landscape, there are a few petunia types you absolutely must try! Here are just a few:

  • wave petunias (the ones in this picture are called pink passion wave petunias)
  • petunia bravo
  • crazytunia
  •  littletunia
  • evening scentsation
  • night skies petunias

13. What to Plant With Petunias

pink petunias, bright blue lobelias and  a spray of tiny white flowers.
Image credit: Depositphotos

While petunias are great on their own, they also love companionship;)

Since petunias are low-growing, they’ll look good with taller plants as a backdrop. Plants to put behind petunias include:

  • Snapdragons
  • Delphiniums
  • Alliums
  • Lupines
  • Black-eyed Susans
  • Daisies
  • Iris

See my list of 11 companions to plant with petunias.

Petunias in the landscape

 

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Adriana Copaceanu is a passionate nature lover living in the country on her dream property where she grows vegetables, lavender, and wildflowers that she shares with the wildlife they attract. When she's not in the garden, she loves spending time with her chickens and planning her next nature project. Check out her books below:

How to Grow Lavender for Fun and Profit: Lessons Learned from Planting Three Hundred Lavender Plants

How to Raise Chickens for Eggs: A Guide to Raising Happy, Healthy Chickens for Nutritious, Organic Eggs at Home

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Darlene

Tuesday 11th of April 2023

So pretty but so expensive to buy so many. Haven’t had luck with starting from seeds

PHYLLIS

Friday 21st of April 2023

@Darlene, I find them very easy to grow from seed. I have 1,000 ready to set out

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Will deer or slugs eat them? That is a problem here inMassachusetts

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Sunday 26th of March 2023

Sadly, deer will eat them. As for slugs, you can sprinkle some crushed eggshell around the base of the plant and the slugs will stay away.

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