No need to freak out kim.....you can cut back just about anything.....it is a good practice once your plants have outgrown their planters and are drying out too fast.....my impatiens are becoming little trees and are drinking alot and may start to seperate in cooler months ahead...I will post a photo after I hack the hell out of them and the after they recover....I will be away for a week at the end of the month and everything would be dead when I come back if i didn't reduce them....regular petunias planted on the ground really benefit from heavy cutting back the last of july to avoid getting leggy......I think you should try the flowering kale at this late date for planting in your zone.......and a trailer like creeping jenny or vinca.....if you can find something small in flower like begonias or lobelia at this time of year and you can stuff it in there, do it...........this time of year you can get away with cramming in some plants because they will not have enough season left to be overplanted.......your kale and trailer planted so close to your house should get you to christmas.......another option would be geraniums or marigolds(or both) if you think you need a flowering plant......you could buy some kale put it in the ground, plant geraniums or marigolds for now with a trailer.....and swap them in november.....Kale will look nice to minus 20.......as long as snow does not lay on it you could have it well into january that close to the house, when choosing Kale, try to find some that the stems are not too tall, if they are a little leggy, plant them deep..........I don't believe you posted your supertunia photo kim......lets see what your other containers are doing

Grooming ought to be an ongoing thing. I find that I do a small amount of cutting/heading back on a regular basis. Thinning is important, too, as plants mature and begin to crowd each other for space. I don't what you fertilize with but I'd suggest something with lower Nitrogen than Phosphorus in the analysis and that you use it more frequently than once per month, if it is a soluble product. I fertilize the heck out of annual planters, though am stingy with that practice for any other kind of planting.

Wow twrosz, thanks for the pictures, the baskets are really beautiful! I'll have to keep that in mind. The front entrance to my house faces north but the front of my house faces east so I always have two 12" shade baskets with fuschia in them on the north side and a couple of 12" sun baskets on the east side. Those trailing begonias look beautiful. Sharon, I'm in Wainwright at least once a month in the summer cause that's where my boss lives so I've seen all your baskets in town and they do look lovely. Another town that does the same is Stetler. Jean, I'm pretty sure that I will plant the tidal wave petunias in my two 16" wire baskets which will go on the front east side of my house, just havn't decided on what color yet. Marg I know what you mean about climbers. One year, I had a couple of 12" hanging baskets with some geranium in the middle and three petunias around. I decided to put some canary vine seeds in the baskets and let them trail down however they kept climbing up the hangin basket wire and then back down and covered the geranium and petunias. Now I grow them in the ground or on a trellis. Stan

thanks for the feedback rain1950 ,I did find some 16 " at biglots for $5.98 afterall and all are doing nicely