I often see beautiful pots of brightly colored flowers appearing outside my windows or on my balconies as summer approaches. After asking around among my friends who have summer cottages, I discovered that this flower is called petunia and blooms all summer long. I'm thrilled to grow some of these flowers on my balcony, too.
I put the idea aside for a while, and then one day, at the end of May, while standing in line at the post office, I saw packets of flower seeds. One of them looked very much like a petunia.
After checking with the operator whether it was really petunia and whether Mirabilis was just another name, I bought a packet of seeds.
After planting them in soil, the first sprouts emerged within a week. I was thrilled, as I'd heard many times that petunias germinate very slowly and that seedlings should be started as early as February. But I ignored this information and was delighted that the seeds sprouted immediately.
A week later there were already good little sprouts.
A month later, the bushes had grown nicely, but judging by the shape of the leaves, I guessed it wasn't petunias we were growing. After carefully reading the name online, I discovered that we were growing "Night beauty".
After two months, the flowers look like this.
The lower leaves are starting to turn yellow. If anyone has grown this flower on their balcony, could you tell me if our beauty needs more soil or is in a small pot? I'm also curious if it will bloom and when?
I promised to supplement my article, so here are our results.
Three months later, our "night beauty" has bloomed. All the bushes are yellow. The flowers look like oblong buds. Around 5-6 o'clock, a well-grown bud opens and closes by morning. They don't bloom again, but gradually begin to dry up and fall off. But there are many such buds on each bush. And they don't all grow at once, but gradually.
Yellow leaves are drying up.