I would wait until they are settled in a bit. After you move something it is usually a little wilted for a while. If the plants look perky you could fertilize. It depends on how much dirt you moved with them and how much their roots were disturbed. August is a tough month to move things.

I am a sad girl when the subject of Miracle Grow comes up. I guess I killed two beautiful petunia plants with the stuff last week. Either I didn't delute it correctly, or I mis-diagnoised the yellowing leaves as a lack of a mineral. Just be very careful would be my warning.

Daniel, I agree with Helen's recommendations. August is a really tough month for plants here in general most summers because it is so hot and dry. If your plants survive being moved in August, I'd just try to keep their soil evenly moist so they can settle in and recover from being moved. I normally would not move any plant in the summertime, but if I had to do it for some reason, I'd move as large of a rootball as possible with plenty of soil attached and I'd prune back the plant quite a bit to make up for the fact that the roots were disturbed.

If your plants wilted or drooped or even dropped leaves after being moved, I'd leave them alone and just keep them well-watered (but not soggy or sopping wet either) until they perked up. Feeding plants actually can stress them so you want to watch your recently-moved plants and give them time to recover from bring moved before you feed them. Once they stop wilting or drooping and start producing new foliage, then that would be a sign their root systems have recovered from being moved and then you could feed them.

Critchlow, The petunias likely were yellowing because of the hot August weather. Petunias often struggle in Oklahoma's typically hot July and August weather. Yellowing foliage is merely an indicator of stress---any kind of stress----and can indicate a plant is too dry, too wet, too hot, too cold, hungry, or even stressed by pests. So, I am not necessarily convinced your plants died because you fed them with Miracle Grow. It could be that the heat was just too much for them.

I love petunias but don't grow the standard bedding plant kind of petunias very much any more. Once the hot weather sets in, regular bedding plamt type petunias can really struggle and go downhill quickly in our climate. In recent years, I've switched to a petunia called "Laura Bush" because of its' heat tolerance. The Laura Bush petunias were developed from native petunias found in Texas and other areas with hot summers. Mine still were blooming and looking good after enduring high temperatures up to 110 degrees this summer. I just pruned them back by about 50% (a recommend method of pruning them hard in summer when they get too tall/long and lanky) on Sunday. Because LB petunias tolerate the heat and hard pruning so well, they will regrow and put out a new flush of flowers within a couple of weeks of being pruned so drastically.

I used to raise a lot of petunias, including Wave petunias, from seed in winter so they'd be blooming by April but once I started growing the LB petunias, I quit growing all the others because LB was just so much better-adapted to our summertime conditions.

For much of OK this year ( the areas with plentiful moisture and milder than usual summer temperatures), petunias likely were happier than usual for longer than usual since the weather was cooler and milder, but in far south central OK, I don't think I've seen any really happy petunias since June, other than the LB petunias. Back when I grew regular petunias, they usually were just burning up in the heat by early July and rather than deal with all the yellowing foliage and stressed-looking plants, I'd take them out and replace them with more heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants like periwinkles, gomphrena, dwarf zinnias or moss rose.

I don't even raise LB petunias from seed any longer, although of course that is how I planted them the first couple of years--from seeds sown indoors in flats under lights in mid-winter. They reseed themselves all over the place in our garden so now I just wait for them to sprout in spring. If there are too many of them in one area, I either transplant the extras while small or just yank them out and compost them.

I have used MG many times over the years and don't think it ever has killed any plants, although I am not saying it couldn't happen. I do think that a person could dilute it improperly or give a plant far too much of it or could use it too often and that they might kill a plant that way, but it is not a common occurrence, so don't be so quick to blame yourself or the MG for the death of the petunias. I think the August heat more likely is to blame.

Dawn

I don't know what kind of petunias I grow because an acquaintance gave me the seed over 20 years ago. They range in color from white to lavender to deep purple with an occasional bicolor occuring. I usually have young seedlings in Oct. I dig these up and pot them and enjoy the color and fragrance on the porch (In the greenhouse last year; that one was cut back hard in May and is still blooming in the garden.) I haven't cut back any of this spring's seedlings because our high temp for the year has only been 95 and we've had quite a bit of rain. When I was a kid in Washington state my mother had the loveliest petunias that grew 2-3 ft tall and made a continuous hedge around the back yard all summer. But I had about given up on them here until I received these seeds and like Dawn, I only planted them once. I LOVE stuff that selfseeds.

Do these look like your petunias? This mix should also include a darker purple but I lost that color. I got these from Glenda. They are sold as old fashioned vining petunias. I have them on the edge of my vegetable garden where it is OK to be a little wild looking. I have a Laura Bush petunia that I spied when I was fixing the dog radio fence. When I went back to dig it up to put it in the garden, I found a big copperhead. It is still in the weeds but I may get brave enough to look for seeds on it. The Laura Bush ones are a bright showy color but the vining ones smell better. I want them both.

I'm super jealous of all of your petunias! I was able to get a few to grow last year from Dawn's seedlings, but nothing self seeded.

Helen, Mine are a violet purple, a bright pink, and then there's some whites and some streaked pinks in the Laura Bush Formula Mix that includes whites and pinks with what I assume are various color mutations. The first year I grew Laura Bush Pink petunias, they reseeded and gave me a lot of color variations like you now can get in the Laura Bush Formula Mix, which they didn't even sell back then. I'll link the page at Wildseed Farms that shows the LB petunias. They are the toughest plants I've ever seen. They pop up in various places, and often are in bloom from March or April through December or even January. Sometimes they freeze back to the ground, but then almost immediately start regrowing.

Dorothy, I think that you and Helen both likely have the old-fashioned self-sowing petunias like our grannies grew decades ago before the nursery people started developing fancier hybrids that have more issues dealing with our weather. I grew some from seed sold by Select Seeds Antique Flowers one year and they looked a lot like Helen's, but didn't reseed well for me. (Granted, it was in our early years here, and I hadn't done much soil improvement yet, so maybe the self-sown seeds rotted in wet clay in winter.) Back then, they sold two kinds of old-fashioned petunias (Select Seeds might have more kinds available now than they had then)--the old-fashioned vining mix and one called Rainmaster that was supposed to tolerate a lot of rain on its petals.

Lisa, I can send you some LB petunia seed if you want some. It is several years old, but I imagine it would sprout. Let me know. There's a slim chance (ha ha---especially this summer) you get too much rain some years and your soil stays too wet in winter for them to reseed well. That heavy rain might wash away the seed or cause it to rot in cold winter weather. You could sow the petunia seeds about the time you sow poppy or larkspur seeds and I think they'd sprout and grow just fine for you.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: LB Petunia Seeds Are On This Page

Thanks everyone for the answers about my poor petunias. I think the heat is probably what happened, but they were doing so well and people would stop and ask me what I was doing to them to make them so full of flowers.

So, I will look for Laura Bush seeds. . . . . maybe in Burpee? I'm a beginner gardener you know, and everything is brand new to me.

Our tomatoes finally did get red, and the little yellow cherry tomatoes are growing like wildfire. Love those. You all are such a great resource, and I appreciate you.

Stephanie

Use Okiedawn's link and click the package size to get to the packet price which I think is $1.50. You don't want an ounce which is what shows on the link unless you click the box. Burpee is way too expensive and I doubt if they have this Texas petunia. The shipping cost is $2.50 if you just get a few packets. You may find some other seeds to try.

This post was edited by helenh on Sun, Sep 1, 13 at 12:24

I'm going to comment on the Miracle Gro question. I have used it before. I would still use it on seedlings if I felt a need for a quick burst and hadn't found the products I'm using currently. First I like to stay as organic as possible. I have found two good organic liquid feed products. One is produced by Fox Farm and other other is from Aggrand a division of Amsoil. I feel I get as good if not better results from both of them and they are organic. What I really like about the Aggrand products is I can mix them to reach the ratio of N-P-K I want at different stages and also on different plants. Miracle Gro is a cheap source and a good product. I learned to never use it at the suggested mixing rates. The last few times I used it I mixed it weaker than they suggest. It was at the suggested rate when I had issues with some plants I had applied it too. It was a combination of using it and the weather conditions. Although most of the plants grew out of it it set them back 10-14 days. Again each grower has different experiences and has to use what works best for them. Jay

As far as I know, Wildseed Farms is the only commercial source for seeds of the Laura Bush petunias. They specialize in wildflower seeds. I have used some of their mixes to try to restore our wildflower meadows following the awful drought years of 2003, 2005 and 2011 when wildflowers died from heat and lack of moisture before they could bloom and set seed for the next year's flowers, and I have been very happy with the results. I've also bought some of their cosmos seeds and those performed well.

I don't know how well the Laura Bush petunias have caught on in other parts of the country where the weather is milder and gardeners can grow any petunia they want all summer long, but the people I know who grow them both in Texas and in Oklahoma love them because of their heat tolerance. I have a great appreciation for any flower that will tolerate our heat and reseed itself every year.

I no longer buy much from Burpee, which once was one of my favorite seed companies, because their prices have gotten ridiculous and so has their shipping and handling. It also seems like their seed counts have gotten ridiculously small in some cases. About the only things I buy from them now are certain varieties for whom they are the sole source.