Cold Tolerant Petunias
Oh-oh. The breeders are starting to work on cold tolerant petunias.
It turns out that researchers at Michigan State (not being happy with having a great basketball team want a great petunia farm as well) are looking at different petunias species (P. exserta Stehmann, P. integrifolia, P. axillaris and P. hybrida ‘Mitchell’ ) to decide if there was a way to acclimatize these plants to increased freezing temperatures.
Turns out there were differences between them. So now they’re looking at how to breed these plants to introduce more cold tolerance into commercially available plants.
This means of course that we northern gardeners could have them blooming for an extended season and more southerly gardeners could have them actually survive the winter. Give them a quick pruning when light levels return and you’re off.
Is nothing sacred any more in the garden? 
Petunia ‘Lavender Wave’
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About Doug
Great idea about the petunias although I don’t grow them myself.
OT: I was thinking you said something about having an insect id “box” on your website. I can’t find it. I have a photo of a bug I can’t identify and need help. Can you help me?
@coneflower Insect id at http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/insect-identification.html
Thank you Doug. I looked through the photos on that site and found that my bug was a katydid! Cool!
Does the pic of the petunia “Lavender Wave” after your comments about cold-tolerant petunias mean that “Lavender Wave” is one of the cold-tolerant ones? What others?
@Elmer – no, wave petunias are not hardy. There are no hardy petunias on the market