Consumers typically purchase warm-season bedding plants from late March to May for planting in commercial and home landscapes. The majority of bedding plants are purchased in plastic market packs from garden centers, grocery stores, mass market outlets, and home centers. These retail outlets maintain large displays containing a wide selection of bedding plants in a variety of types, plant sizes, and flower colors. Many petunia cultivars, for example, develop unattractive elongated, spindly growth and sustain damage to delicate flower petals from strong wind and rain later in the season. Older cultivars of zinnia contract foliar diseases, such as powdery mildew, during humid weather causing lower leaf loss.
Most bedding plants require at least some supplemental water during periods of extended drought.
AAES researchers conducted a trial of 323 cultivars from 23 different bedding plant species at the E.V. Smith Research Center in Shorter, during the summer of 1997. Seeds for the trial entries were donated by companies and plants were grown by a nearby commercial transplant producer. Every effort was made to grow the plants using cultural practices that the typical homeowner might use. After transplanting, the flower beds were mulched with pine bark. No additional fertilizer and no fungicides or insecticides were applied during the season.