I agree with oilpainter. Petunias do not wilt and then die in a day from lack of water, I believe yours got wilt disease. Once you see this happen you should pull it out of your container so it does not spread to your other healthy plants. Mine will wilt in the hot noon day sun, but I wait till the evening to check on their water needs. They will usually perk right back up when the sun starts to fade, it is natural and normal. You should let your soil dry out between watering, dry out about 2-6" deep depending on pot size. Try to only water the soil, so the foliage stays dry. I lose a few ever year to this and other plants in the same pots are not affected, it is a bummer becuase like you said, it is a fast disease! Keriann~

I think you're going to need a deer fence to keep them out of your orchard...but planting in front of the fence will look nice and help disguise the fence. From what I've read, you can either do an 8' deer fence, all the way around, or two fences (about 4' apart) that are 4' tall. I don't know if this will work, but it's supposed to, according to some other forums. I've also read that an electric wire or two will work, but not here. We have an electric fence around our horse pasture (seven wires, two hot ones) and the deer jump over, crawl under and even walk through...very carefully. As for the roses, my deer like to chew on the new growth, but I plant them against the house or fence...and I put lots of lavender, other herbs and deer resistant plants in front of them. They still reach though in the fall, and nibble, but an exposed bush will get eaten down, pretty fast. Butterfly bushes are not thorny, but the deer don't care much for the taste. They also ignore (for the most part...babies taste almost everything) coneflowers, cosmos, daisies, lilacs, bee balm, mint, lavender, alyssum, marigolds, pontilia, blueberries, stock, tomatoes, acorn squash, sunflowers, white petunias (don't know why) pansies, violas, columbine, sweet woodruff and the strawberries, if they're growing under other shrubs or herbs they don't like. All deer are probably different, but mine don't pay much attention to these plants...so except for my roses, that's pretty much what I plant, here :)

How weird. I was just looking up information about petunias in Florida, what seasons they're good for and such and then I come back to GW and find a topic on them. My experience with petunias is limited, but I had some in a terracotta pot last spring/summer that seemed to do okay. By July they were definitely showing signs of heat stress, but regular feedings of MG's All-Purpose Water-Soluble fertilizer kept them alive. At the time I was still very new to this whole gardening thing and so 'regular' for me was like every other day they were getting a dose. This constant feeding is probably what kept them from dying off and is probably why I did not see what you're describing. At the current time, I have about 6 petunias planted around the base of my Knock-Out Rose and they seem to be doing okay so far. They get a fair bit more sun than what you describe though. They get near constant sun from sunrise until 4 pm with a very short break around 10:30 as they fall into the shadow of a nearby bush for about 20-30 minutes,then they're back in the baking sun. My biggest problem with these things is the near-constant need to dead-head them. I like working in my yard, but I don't like having to constantly fawn over one particular plant to keep it going (which is why I'm also not all that keen on having roses [the Knock-Outs were a gift]). These don't get fed nearly as much as the potted ones from last year, just a dose of Fish Fertilizer every two weeks or so, which is more for the roses than the petunias, but the petunias get the benefit. Aside from that there's not much special about where they're planted. It's native soil (sand) mixed with a bag of Black Kow and topped off with Pine Fines as mulch. All that said, I will not be actively looking to purchase petunias again for myself. The ones I have now were actually given to me by my mother who had purchased too many for her planters. However, I do intend to purchase and sprout seeds since my mom is a pretty big fan of them. Hence my internet search, I was trying to figure out when to sow seeds to have them ready for her next planter arrangement. And here they are:

Love the look of your yard, especially the dry stream bed. Some other good low-growing plants to consider: Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum). Forms a ground cover, unique pink early spring flowers, about 6-12" tall. Wild Strawberry (Fragaria canadensis). Also a good ground cover, about 6" tall, white flowers in spring and tiny edible fruits (not worth eating though, I leave them for the birds). Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis). Lavender flowers in summer, about 12". All these are fairly drought tolerant. If this is a dryish site, you might want to reconsider the Canada Anemone - I think it prefers moist soil.