Do petunias have roots in the stems?

Question

I have Wave petunias in a hanging basket. One of the Wave characteristics is that they have long trailing stems with many flowers, which either hang from a pot or lie on the ground, as opposed to some other varieties which stand taller and more upright.

They do tend to get leggy, so I prune them back to encourage fullness. I recently clipped off a few flowering stems and just threw them. They landed a few feet away. Two weeks later, I went to clean up that area, and found that some of the pieces had rooted and were growing. The interesting thing is that the roots had sprouted along the stems between the flowers, but not at either end. I covered the freshly-rooted areas with some dirt, and they're sending healthy new shoots in all directions.

I've transplanted petunias before, but only by moving the actual roots. I've never seen this. Is it a trait of all petunias, just Wave petunias, or was this more of an anomaly than the norm? It would be fun to just prune, scatter, and grow!

Answer 1

Lucky fluke I think - many plants can be propagated by layering, when they will form rootlets from the stems, but usually, a shoot is layered while its still attached to the mother plant, until it forms roots of its own, at which point it's severed and grown on. Plants like ivy (Hedera), Jasmine and many others commonly produce roots along their stems if they're in contact with the soil all the time, and they do this without any help. Conditions must have been perfect for this to occur, but had you trimmed them back in, say, July, or if the moisture/warmth levels were different, this probably wouldn't have occurred. Worth a try though, even just as an experiment!