PlantSowGrow
How to plant and care for Million Bells (Calibrachoa)
Calibrachoa
🌸 Flower
🌱 Grown each year
Hundreds of little petunia-like bells cascading from baskets and window boxes all summer, with no deadheading needed.
When to plant and care for it
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Plant
Flowers
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Million Bells (Calibrachoa): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water daily in summer; baskets twice in heat
- Soil
- Multipurpose compost or fertile soil
- Spacing
- 25 cm
- Height
- 20 cm, trailing 40 cm
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- High-potash liquid feed weekly
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 9–11
Step by step
- Mid March – early April · 5 weeks before the last spring frost
Pot Up Plug Plants
Pot plugs into 9 cm pots of multipurpose compost as soon as they arrive and grow them on somewhere bright and frost-free.
- Mid April · 4 days after the last spring frost
Harden Off
Stand plants outside by day for 7–10 days before planting out.
- Late April – mid May · 2 weeks after the last spring frost
Plant Out
Plant into pots, baskets or borders 25 cm apart once frosts are over. Water in well.
- 21–42 days after “Plant Out” · Mid May – early June
First Flowers — Keep Feeding
Feed weekly with a high-potash feed and snip off faded flowers to keep them coming. Take a photo for your journal!
- Mid October – early November · around the first autumn frost
End of Season
When frost blackens the plants, pull them up for the compost heap.
