The Black Magic Petunia of the Solanaceae family is a hybrid variety that blooms some of the truest-to-black flowers on the market.
Adding Black Magic Petunia plants to your garden helps to create drama and depth. The bright green foliage and deep black flowers make other, bright color flowers pop. It’s also an ideal container petunia genus plant and can grow on the patio or in your home.
You can create a beautiful garden by combining a black petunia plant with striped varieties of petunia.
This guide will show you everything you need to know to have success growing Black Magic Petunias. Keep in mind that Petunias come in various colors.
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What is Black Magic Petunia?
The Black Magic Petunia is a hybrid variety developed in 2013 from “Black Velvet,” a type that has grown in prominence since its debut in 2010 or 2011. Several varieties develop black flowers with or without yellow or white striping.
The Black Magic Petunia plant was developed to produce a black petunia plant that reliably stays all black. Like other petunia plants, you’ll need to provide the appropriate care for Black Magic Petunia plants to get showy, mysterious, and striking black petunia flowers.
How to Care for Black Magic Petunia Plants
Black Magic Petunia plants are reasonably easy to grow. The average gardener can have great success when following the simple steps we will show you.
You’ll learn about the best type of soil, when and how to repot Black Magic Petunia plants, and what to look for when your black petunia plant is struggling.
This guide will ensure you get the deep jet black blossoms you want from a Black Magic Petunia plant.
Where to Get Seeds
You may find black magic petunia in your local nursery or garden center. Still, the best way to get true black magic petunia plants is from seeds.
You can get authentic Black Magic Petunia seeds from a reputable online seed company. Growing black petunia flowers from seeds is the best way to grow enough Black Magic Petunia plants for landscaping.
– Tips for Starting from Seeds
Petunia seeds are tiny, so the best way to start them is in a seed starter tray with special soil. Sprinkle the seeds gently onto the soil’s surface, then lightly cover the seeds with more soil. Mist with water until damp, then loosely cover with plastic wrap to hold the moisture in the tray.
Black Magic Petunia plants are warm weather-loving, so put the seed tray in a warm, bright location out of direct sun. When seeds sprout, remove the plastic and mist regularly until the seedlings are a few inches tall. You’ll probably need to thin by removing the smallest plants.
Planting Instructions
You’ll want to decide if you are growing in a pot, container or if you are planting your Black Magic Petunia in the garden.
The Black Magic Petunia variety is a trailing and mounding variety that typically grows to a height of one foot and is about as big. Its size makes for an excellent hanging plant, houseplant, or patio plant on a stand. It grows well in the ground and is a natural addition to a flower bed with other petunia varieties.
Soil
If you are planting Black Magic Petunia flowers in the garden, make sure you work good-quality organic material into your soil. Petunia plants prefer loose, well-draining soil that is slightly acidic. You can turn the soil several inches deep before planting Black Magic Petunia plants or seeds.
If you plan to grow plants in containers or pots, you should select a high-quality Black Magic Petunia soil mix that drains well. Adding sphagnum or peat moss will help retain water while providing good drainage.
Light Requirements
The Black Magic Petunia plant prefers bright light. You can plant these flowers in a place where the plant will get up to 6 hours of direct sun and about 4 hours of indirect sunlight each day.
Black Magic Petunia plants will tolerate some shade but will produce fewer black petunia flowers.
Water Requirements
Most varieties of petunia are drought-tolerant, and this is also true of the Black Magic Petunia plant. The variety is also heat-tolerant, making for an ideal garden flower in many regions. Not properly watering your Petunia will invite pests such as aphids to your plant.
The Black Magic Petunia plant should be watered weekly. The best way to water a Black Magic Petunia plant is by slowly allowing water to drain through the roots. It would help if you avoided shallow watering because the Black Magic Petunia will grow shallow roots.
You may need to water Black Magic Petunia growing in pots or containers more frequently. The soil should be slightly dry in between waterings. Make sure your pots or containers have drainage holes to prevent root rot. If you under or overwater your Petunia, the leaves might start turning yellow.
Fertilizer Recommendations
You can encourage a Black Magic Petunia flower by regularly providing fertilizer. We suggest you get a fertilizer with balanced macronutrients, such as an 8-8-8 or 10-10-10.
Your Black Magic Petunia plants can benefit from using a slow-release fertilizer. You can apply in the spring to encourage growth and again in early July to encourage blooms.
Liquid fertilizers can be fed to your plants every week to two weeks throughout spring and summer.
Organic fertilizers are always a better choice, but keep in mind that you must correctly apply these products. Usually, surface scattering of organic fertilizer isn’t effective. You can use fertilizers formulated for increasing blooms in the early summer and then throughout the blooming season.
You will fertilize more often when growing Black Magic Petunia plants in pots or containers. Be careful not to burn the plants or overload the soil with salts by over-fertilizing.
How to Propagate Black Magic Petunia
You can easily collect seeds from your petunias, but being a hybrid variety, the seeds from Black Magic Petunia plants may not come up true in the next season. The way to harvest seeds from your petunia plant is simple. When the seed head is nearing ripeness, wrap the head in a plastic bag and tie it off. This prevents the tiny seeds from scattering. When the seed head is dry, clip it off inside the bag and shake to loosen the seeds.
A better way to propagate a Black Magic Petunia flower to ensure correct, true color is to grow from a stem-tip cutting you collect in the spring. To take a stem cutting, you will need a sharp, sterile knife or scissors, a pot for each cutting with a mixture of perlite and sphagnum moss well-wetted and drained, and liquid rooting hormone. You can get cuttings to root without the hormone, but you’ll have far more success when propagating Black Magic Petunias.
– Stem-Tip Cutting Method
To take a stem-tip cutting, select a stem that is three to five inches tall and has a good crown of leaves. Don’t use a flowering stem or one that shows signs of disease. Cut the stem about ⅛-inch below a leaf stem, then remove the bottom one-third of leaf stems.
Immediately treat the cutting with rooting hormone to apply it where leaf stems were removed and particularly where the stem was cut. Press the cutting into the potting medium.
Place the cuttings in a warm, bright, indirect spot in your garden and cover with a plastic bag using wooden props to prevent the bag from laying on the cutting. Mist the cuttings daily and add water to the soilless mixture only when it feels relatively dry. Roots should develop in two to three weeks. Gently tug on the plant feeling for resistance to determine if roots have formed.
Check for rot at four weeks and discard any cuttings that haven’t rooted yet or have rotted.
When to Repot
At some point, the cute little petunia you grew in a pot will have gotten too big, and you’ll need to repot the black petunia plant.
You can select a pot two or three sizes larger, but make sure it has plenty of drainages. It would help if you repotted in the spring each year. It isn’t necessary to break up the root ball a whole bunch when you move the plant into a new pot.
Black Magic Petunia Problems
Lots of people who grow Black Magic Petunias want their plants to bloom all summer long.
You’ll need to take some time to encourage your plant to bloom. In summer, your petunia may begin stretching out, and it may not flower much once that happens.
To avoid problems with Black Magic Petunia plants flowering, you will need to prune your plant regularly. Start pruning when the stems are more than eight inches long. Every day, remove a handful of longer stems by cutting below the stalk of the flowers. This will cut the plant seeds, and it will respond by growing more black petunia flowers.