Michelle65, sorry, but I have to dispute most of your claims. First of all, Wave petunias are spreading petunias, not the other way around. Spreading (Supertunia series, Surfinia series, etc.) petunias grown from cuttings have been around for decades. The Wave series (introduced in 1995) was the first commercially successful spreading petunia that was propagated from seed. Your statement that "the ones that say spreading petunia is the exact same this without the pink pot" is entirely erroneous, as is your statement "greenhouse have only been able to buy Wave seeds for the past couple of years". You should also know that there are FOUR separate divisions of Wave petunias. Actually 5 if you include the vegetatively propagated DOUBLE Waves. Wave, Easy Wave, Tidal Wave and Shock Wave all have very distinctly different growth habits. Are you paying extra for the pink pot? Absolutely. If it is in the pink pot and says Wave on it, it is required to be a Wave petunia, however that is entirely up to the distributor if they want them in a POP (point of purchase) pot or not. Waves can be planted in any color of pot, and there is no law saying that they have to be identified as a Wave. However, if it is NOT a Wave, and the signage identifies it as a Wave, THAT is illegal. The difference you see in price at retail is a factor of a number of things. If it is a spreading petunia grown from a cutting, it will always be more expensive than one grown from seed. But....if is a seed grown spreading petunia (Wave, Avalanche, Ramblin', Plush, Opera, Explorer, Trilogy) and it has all of the marketing POP items associated with it, it drives the price up. All Kleenex are tissues, but not all tissues are Kleenex. All Waves are spreading petunias, but not all spreading petunias are Waves. And for the record, there are no "generic" spreading petunias. Everything has a specific variety name, you just don't always see it at retail.

Ken - I have no outside water faucet at this apartment, so everything gets watered by hand, with a watering can filled at the kitchen sink. I put time release in a few pots but not all of them. Sometimes I remember which ones already have the time-release and don't need extra food, and give them plain water. Sometimes I forget, and everybody gets the blue Kool-aid. The MG package has a dose listed for "feeding with every watering," 1/4 tsp per gallon. I'm using 1/4 tsp per 1.5 gallons (the size of my watering can). Not doing it at every watering, and sometimes the rain waters for me. Our average first fall frost is Oct 1. So there's still time to enjoy the garden. Purple - yes to the recessed drain, and I just checked and discovered I skipped this basket when I was drilling extra drainage holes. I'm going to get the drill out and remedy that right now. No saucers on outdoor plants at my house. I pry off all the attached ones and save them in a bin so I can find them when it's time to bring the houseplants in. The pot's dry at the moment. I'll try to keep it on the dry side. Thank you!

Another thought is to sow in succession for your waning beauties. If you just want to keep the show going, and not wait on regrowth, try sowing new ones about 2-3 weeks after your first batch (that's if you're growing from seed.) Join us on the Winter Sowing forum or the Growing from Seed forum (one is outside growing, one is inside...both in controlled container environments) and you'll have more petunias than you can imagine next season! (This is my plan...I didn't know about cutting them back until I just saw this thread today...and have since let all my Ps go to seed)

Last spring I put my 'Firefly' in full sun in this condition: and after a full growing season last year it was enough to make a grown man cry. The tops of every shoot were completely needleless with only the undersides carrying them through winter. I actually avoided looking at it this spring because I was afraid it was dead or dying. This spring it pushed like crazy and even though the previous years' growth is the worse for wear and maybe a half dozen shoots died back, almost every single bud pushed this spring and some of them looked doubtful. This was taken on May 27th, and it's even more filled out now nearly a month later with longer shoot growth. Anyway, jalcon, not the same situation at all, but hopefully yours pulls through and even if it looks rough it may well still be fine after next years' flush.