Gardening experiments 2016

This won't be the sexiest post, but I thought it might be helpful (to me) to catalog all the things I'm trialing in my garden right now.

"Trial" makes it sound really scientific, but it mostly amounts to planting stuff that likely won't survive, either in this climate or by my hands (or the unfortunate combination of both).

Additions this Spring:

• Hybrid tea rose 'Mr. Lincoln'
• Psoralea fleta 'Weeping Blue Broom'
• Lychnis coronaria 'Rose campion'
• Dicliptera suberecta 'Uruguayan Firecracker Plant'
• Iochroma 'Princess':

• Senecio stellata 'Giovanna's Select':

Ongoing from 2015:

• Hosta 'Sum and Substance'
• Acanthus mollis 'Hollard's Gold'
• Fatshedera lizei 'Annemeike'
• Justicia fulvicoma (surviving but not thriving)
• Rootbeer plant (we'll see how it does this Summer when it's 1 bazillion degrees)

I do have one low-risk experiment that seems to be paying off so far! The former owners nailed nails into the grout of the brick siding by the garage; I guess they were using it to help support the gawd-awful Holly Bushes that were leaning into the walkway. 

When I took the shrubs out I left the nails in (didn't know what else to do with them), and earlier this year I wrapped some wire around them to see if I could get a Passion vine 'Incense' to climb up the wall. It looked like a drunk spider did it, but so far it's working!

I've really missed my old Passion vine (I see it every time I open this blog). I'm crossing my fingers that it will get big and overgrown with lots of blooms before the caterpillars decimate it later this year.