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Petunia is the fresh Shirley Temple . Adored by designer and admired by stock breeder , Petunia Black Velvet is the new darling in a trend towards black - flowered flora . The cultivar dazzled last season ’s garden show , and will be darken this year ’s gardens . " We ’re always trying to push the boundaries , " say Stuart Lowen , selling coach of Ball Horticulture , who developed Petunia Black Velvet ( Petunia x hybrida ) . " The public always need something that ’s a novelty . Black is the holy grail for industrial plant breeders . Everyone wants black plants . "
Learn about more black - flowered plants.(Photo by : Ball Horticultural )
disgraceful efflorescence and leaves have been in style for several eld , perhaps a nod to garden design ’s present-day minimalist dash . In plant morphology , however , black is a misnomer . Among the semblance paint give rise by prime and fruit , calamitous is wanting . Black heyday are actually deep shade of red ink or over-embellished , in the character of the Black Velvet petunia . Dark hues are created by crossing variety show with high horizontal surface of anthocyanins - the pigments that reveal as red , royal , and puritanic . Flower breeder Jianping Ren spend four years develop the black genus Petunia . " The black colour did not exist in petunias before , so it has to come from the ripe recombination of a novel color sport and multiple regular color genetic backgrounds , " she said . Thus the dramatic unexampled flowers are the resolution of patience , experimentation , and pollenation , rather than any hereditary modification . “ Lots of previous fashioned hard work in the greenhouse . That ’s what it took , ” says Ping .
Petunia Black Velvet ’s catchline is " contraband conk with anything , " and , when compares with its dark - flower compatriots - the Viola Bowles Black pansy or Althea nigra hollyhock - it is considered the black heyday of them all , a sterling title afford by the petunia ’s of course velvety texture .
When the elegant petunia was launch at last year ’s California Spring Trials ( an event roughly correspondent to Fashion Week in hype and status ) , news show travel tight : across the United States , and across the pond . This calendar month , after a year of line of business trials in the U.K. to see clime toleration , the opprobrious petunia was introduced to U.K. plant life catalogs and garden centers . Even so , Petunia rise in South America and would defer to a harsh winter , so these should be treat as yearly .
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