Do you fertilize them?

Mine are in noon day sun for 7 hours and then filtered sun. I fertilize them once a week and they do great for me.

I also only water the soil, not the foliage. What size pot d you have them in?

Keriann~

Petunias prefer part shade but will tolerate sun as long as it's not too hot. They will droop a bit in the noonday sun though. The secret to keeping them lush is to cut back the branches when they get too long and to deadhead. When you dead head don't just pull off the blossom but pinch off thr ball behind the blossom. That's the seed head..

If you'll notice Petunias bloom at the ends of the branches Then it grows and sends out another flower. Before long you have long branches with nothing on them and a flower on the end. If you keep the seed pods off of it and cut back the branch it will send out another shoot on that branch.

Hey, between the two of you, you've identified everything I'm doing wrong =:)

I only fertilize every two weeks, and they're usually in hot beating down sun for up to 10 hours per day. I also didn't know that when deadheading, to take off the whole thing. I always wondered about that.

If I have them in a 10 or 12 inch pot, should I water when the soil is only damp on the top inch, or drier than that? I'm not too careful when I water. If I water on the foliage, is that what makes them so sticky, or is there another reason?

I would move them up into a large pot. I only use 2 plants in a 30" whiskey barrel!

Watering... watering does not make them sticky, they are sticky by nature. I do not water the foliage because blight is rally hard to fight once you get it, so I avoid it at all costs. Blight looks like the plant needs more water and then slowly dies. I water in the morning only when the top third of the container is dry. As oilpainter said, they may droop in the hot day sun but then they perk back up in the evening. Underwating is far better than overwatering if I had to pick bewteen the two.

I hope you have beautiful petunias this year!

Keriann~

I agree with kerrianne. Treat your plants outside the same way you do inside. Let them dry out before watering and they are sticky by nature. You'll see when you pinch the seed heads off. Your hands will be sticky.

I agree about not getting the plant wet, too. Besides wasting water you invite disease. Water in early morning or early evening. Wet plants burn in the hot sun and wet plants at night--again the disease problem.

I have a nozzle with a long neck and a soaker setting. The water comes in a stream just like the hose without a nozzle, only gentler. It allows me to get under the plants and put down a lot of water in a short time, where it needs to be in the soil not the plant.

Wet plants don't burn in the sunlight....that's an old husband's tale, lol. Water droplets lay flat against the surface of foliage, thus DISPERSING and scattering the light waves, rather than focusing them as a magnifying glass would.

I, too, have found that petunias seem to need very frequent fertilization in order to stay productive. Haircuts are a must, too.

Well rhizo.
If that's the case then explain to me why it is easier to get a sunburn when you are swimming. It seems to me that if it works that way for plants it should work that way for people. If you look closely water droplets don't lay flat but are small half bubbles.

What you say goes against what scientists say--check out the link below

You can water in the sun if you want,not me

Here is a link that might be useful: sunburn and water

I bought a petunia about a month ago, it was really starting to look bad and I was going to trash it when I remembered about fertilizing which I forgot to do with it, I got my "miracle-gro" out, this morning it seems to have perked up and so now it will stay for another week or two, maybe for the whole summer! fertilizing and dead-heading is your answer,give it a try,,you will be pleased with results.

I only fertilize every two weeks, and they're usually in hot beating down sun for up to 10 hours per day.

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two thoughts ...

that is a lot of fert.. depending on how much you apply .... and what plant you have ....

you can fert with every watering IF!!!! you mix it at about 1/4 strength ... just fill a gal milk jug.. and use it ...

but if you are going full strength .. it MIGHT be too much ... so dont go whole hog on ferting ....

you kinda have to figure it all out ...

now ... plants have ONLY ONE GOAL IN LIFE .... to procreate ... to go to seed ... once they have SET the seed ... they have no real need to keep flowering.. they put the power into maturing the seed ...

so to keep them blooming.. we keep cutting ... PINCHING off.. the seed ... so it keeps flowering ...

but then they get all leggy and ugly .... so you CUT THEM BACK ....

on most plants trace down a stem... and where the leaf is attached.. you will see .. if you adjust your bifocals [lol] ... little buds in there..

YOU CAN CUT A STEM ABOVE A BUD ANYWHERE ... and once snipped that new bud will become the dominant leader ....

so can you pinch back by just truncating the whole stem .. sure... if there are buds there ... and more than likely more than one will trigger growth .... ergo .. lushness ...

make sense??

ken

ps: if you have 3 plants.. experiment... leave one be .... on the next.. every time its grow 6 more inches.. cut it back 3 inches .... that is how you make mums bushy ... and it will work for MOST plants. ...

and the third ... let it grow 9 inches.. snip it back 3 .... and compare your results .... i found that the best way to learn ....

I should say that water droplets lay with a flat SIDE against the foliage. If, by some miracle of physics, they could land with a rounded side on the foliage, the drops could cause burns.

It's not 'easier' to get a sunburn when swimming. (Never heard that one.) It's just as easy, though. The burning rays do go through the water to our swimming bodies. And I suspect that many people go swimming during the hours of the day when sunburn is most likely...between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Sun screen is washed off and not reapplied, the sun continues to beat down, and voila...a miserable sunburn. But the water had nothing to do with it.

I WILL give you this, however. Hairy or fuzzy plants are more prone to droplet burn. The hairs elevate the drops from the plant surface. I'd guess that the same would follow for a hairy or fuzzy person!

Did you know that golf course superintendents all over the world syringe their ridiculously pampered greens in the middle of the day in the summer? To cool them. If such a practice burned the grass, it would never be done.

And what about summer showers?

But it should be emphasized that over-head watering in the middle of the day is highly inefficient. So much of the water is lost to evaporation. The best time is in the morning hours, when the soil and the plants are still cool. Plants can take up all of the soil borne water they need, in order to face another hot and sunny day.

Here is a link that might be useful: Click here for information

Help! My petunias are not growing and they are not flowering, however they are still alive. I have given them miracle grow and still no change.

I'll back Rhizo up. You water a plant when it needs it, sun or not. I water g'houses in mid-day sun.......you bet I do. The main reason to time your watering in the mornings before the sun is high is to allow them to soak up the moisture and become turgid before the high transpirational load begins.

I also do not spare the foliage on most plants unless I know they will not dry out before night. It is a good way to discourage spider mites and in hot, dry, long summers they can go rampant on plant foliage, even outside.

The caveat is just like she said.....plants with long hairs on their leaves. I never water things like gloxes or African violets to get their foliage wet in sunny conditions. I have had damage from that.

Petunias in pots, back to the subject. They are heavy feeders, especially wave petunias. Let dry between waterings. Water until you see it coming out the bottom of the pot, as this allows excess salts to leach from the pot. If you are using wave petunias, you can handle four per twelve in pot, because that's the standard number for hanging baskets, but really three is kinder to the plant and would even be sufficient for an eighteen inch pot. And whack them babies off occasionally to allow them to bush out instead of becoming stringy.

Pat: I think you should start a new thread with more details on your problem so we can help you.

Keriann~