I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and they said that you might be able to help me with a question about Million Bells Petunias. I collected some seeds from my plants last year and sowed them at the right time this spring but none came up, was this due to something I've done or can't you grow them from seed? I regularly have success growing Surfinia Petunias from my own seeds, so why not the Million Bells?

A Bradley REG SAYS: First of all you cannot grow proper (or as gardeners say "true") surfinia or million bells petunias from seed as they are varieties created by plant breeders and they must be increased by cuttings in order to get a replica of the parent plant. Surfinias are, I believe, male sterile, so yours would have been fertilised by pollen from some other petunia, growing either in your garden or from one nearby, carried by an insect.

The resulting plants will be some sort of trailing petunia granted, but real surfinias they are not.

Now, the million bells situation is a whole new can of worms. For a start they are not really petunias at all, but hybrids of a closely related plant called Calibrachoa and they were raised in Japan by the plant breeders Suntory.

I don't know if they are sterile but I doubt it because, although petunias and calibrachoa are both members of the solonaceae family, your million bells are unlikely to have been pollinated by nearby petunias.

The reason for that is the chromosome count; petunias have 14 while calibrachoa have 18 making a natural cross difficult.

However, as you collected some seeds something must have done the pollination, but I doubt that the seeds were viable meaning capable of growth.

Anyway, all the plants we are talking about are covered by Plant Breeders Rights, a sort of "plant patent" meaning that, strictly speaking, you are not allowed to propagate from them but I doubt if anyone will bother about a few for your own use.

The best way to increase them is by taking tip cuttings and rooting them in a heated propagator, or somewhere where the compost can be kept warm.

I would use very free draining compost, a 50/50 mix of multi-purpose compost and perlite will suffice, remembering to keep them well ventilated.

If the air is too humid or the compost too wet the cuttings will simply rot.

* Do you have a question for Reg? Write to Reg Moule Gardeners' Questions, Editorial, Worcester News, Hylton Road, Worcester WR2 5JX. No correspondence can be entered into. Reg Moule answers your questions courtesy of David's Nurseries, Martin Hussingtree.