Wild Petunia can reach heights to 24 inches, but usually stays about 12 inches in height; it can have an erect or sprawling habit. The stems and leaves are soft and hairy and the flowers resemble small Petunias, varying in color from pale lavender-blue to a medium purple shade with darker purple lines radiating from the center.

I've grown this plant in both full sun and dappled shade, and in my opinion it looks prettier and performs better in partial shade locations. It blooms in my area from early April through October and into November.

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This Hairy or Fringeleaf Wild-Petunia is an easy, reliable perennial for sunny and dry to well-drained soils and makes a good garden plant and should become more well-know and used more. It is not a true Petunia, but a member of the Acanthus Family. It is native to much of the eastern and central US. It has grayish-green, opposite leaves and white hairy stems. Its purple, trumpet-shaped flowers get to 2.5 inches wide and bloom from sunrise into the afternoon, but then flowers fall off before sunset, each flower lasting less than a day. The flowers don't really have a scent and they bloom about 2 months long in summer. It produces some fairly large dark seeds that get around so that it self-sows a good amount. I planted three plants in my garage bed of low plants and the species is spreading throughout the bed by self-sowing a lot, and I've found some coming up in the front and back yards by seed also somehow. It does not compete well with taller plants. It is deer and rabbit resistant. I've seen some in native meadow and prairie restorations, and the Lurie Garden in Chicago has a number placed around their site. The species is sold by a good number of native plant nurseries. I'm probably the only one in my little town that has some.

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Lovely wide light purple flowers that open in the heat of summer. Does very well in dry soil.

Not quite native to Minnesota, but I grow it in my native garden anyway. Emerges very late, when other plants are already up. I guess it waits for warm soil temperatures. It grows from some tiny upright stems (caudices?) several inches underground, with many fleshy fibrous roots radiating a little outwards and down deep into the soil.

It can be very prolific. Despite what some sources say, the seed is not simply dropped, but thrown from the parent plant by the pod. So babies will pop up as many as 10 feet away. They are pretty tough, and can grow in regularly mown lawns.

If you want to get rid of them, you've got to dig a few inches down and take out the part of the plant that the stems grow out of. Just pulling the stems usually does not do the job. The roots are numerous and they solidly anchor the growing points underground.

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