Expert: C.L. Fornari - 5/29/2004

Question
I live in NW Florida zone 8B. I purchased trailing double petunias two weeks ago. They hang in direct sunlight 12-16 hours daily. I water whenever the soil is dry when I spoke my finger in it. All the blooms have fallen off the plants and they look quite sickly. I have deadheaded but am wondering if I should prune and/or repot and/or fertilize. This is my first experience with petunias and I would appreciate your advice.  

Answer
Monica,
It's unusual for all the blooms to fall off so quickly - this is usually a sign of too much or too little water.  You might try lifting the pot to help determine if it's dry... a dry pot is very light, a wet one heavy.  At this point I'd do a couple of things:
1) cut about a quarter of the stems back by about half.  In 10 days to 2 weeks cut another quarter back, and 10 days later another quarter etc. This will stimulate the plant to branch out, and all of the new branches should develop flowers at the end.
2) If you haven't fertilized, fertilize with a liquid fertilizer such as Peters All Purpose Plant Food - or similar...   NEVER FERTILIZE A THIRSTY PLANT however - water first and then fertilize later.  In fact, you might consider using a time-release fertilizer such as Proven Winners or Osmocote Plus.  If you have already fertilized don't do it again for about 3 or 4 weeks.
3) If these aren't Super or Wave Petunias you'll need to deadhead them to keep them blooming.  The trimming I spoke of in #1 will help, but you also need to clip off the wilted flowers by snipping the stems below the flower.  This cuts off the developing seeds below where the flower was (the swollen part just below the flower) and stimulates the plant to make more flowers.

I hope this helps!
C.L. Fornari
www.gardenlady.com