Several Lonely Little Petunias in an Onion Patch

Arthur Godfrey publicity still

Who remembers Arthur Godfrey singing "I'm a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch, ... and all I do is cry all day?"  (Click here to be taken to a link of this standard on You Tube).  I remember it.  Of course, that was several years ago.

I don't think that song was on my mind when I planted this pot, but then, one never knows for sure, huh?  When the weather started to turn from the coldness of winter to warm spring days, I was at the local nursery.  The first thing I picked up were beautiful white petunias.  You can't go wrong with petunias.  They are a classic.  They are showy and adaptable to most soils, so they are popular among gardeners.  They require dead-heading to keep the blooms coming all spring and summer.  That can be tedious but it is worth the effort.  They take full sun or some shade, so again, an easy plant with which to work.  Dead-heading, for our new gardeners, is the process of removing the dead blooms from the greenery.  This is easily done using the forefinger and thumb to just pull the dead bloom away.  It can be a little more difficult to do when the plant is wet, so wait until the flowers are dry before attempting.

On my rounds to the different nurseries and big box home improvement stores, I found this package of Red Baron onion bulbs.  I thought I would attempt to grow them in a large terracotta pot.

So, I cleaned up this pot.  I do not recall what was grown in this previously.  I amended the soil and cleaned out all of the leftover vestiges from the previous plants.

Then, in with the onion bulbs.  They do not require careful placement.  Just dig a little well in the soil with your hand and drop them in.

Cover with soil.  At this point you could cover the soil with mulch and water thoroughly and set the pot in a sunny location on your deck or patio.

I elected to plant white petunias on top of the bulbs.  First I removed them from the nursery pots and lined them up around the outside edge of the pot to see how many I needed to give the pot a nice full look.

Then I got started planting.  I went around the entire outside edge of the pot with the white petunias. I thought this was a great look.

Here, another view of the pot.  I have since added pink petunias to this pot.  It will be rather a dramatic sight when the onions set and send up their shoots in the middle of the arrangement.  Of course it will cause some disruption when we harvest the onions, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.  In the meantime, we will have a stunning planted pot of petunias all nestled on top of an onion patch.  Let's hope they don't cry all day!