Why I Oughta...

Last year, I planted a new (to me) annual bedding plant in our front porch beds:  Madagascar Vinca.  64 plugs .  They worked really well and filled in the front of the border with a carpet of pink color by the end of July .  I mentioned in that post that ten-or-so died immediately, so the total was closer to 54 plants that filled-in the bed.  They were pink - which was a result of just *having* to choose something.   This year, I found flats of purple Vinca at Wannemakers.  Titan Lavender Blue Halo.  Here, below, is a photo of the plant tag and one of the flats: Here's what Ball Seed says about Titan Lavender Blue Halo Vinca : Big, bold and better branching vincas! Titan is up to 2 weeks faster to flower than open-pollinated vincas, with superior branching and big flowers in all the top-selling colours. The most uniform F1 vinca series on the market shows off flowers that are up to 50% larger than O.P. types in cooler temperatures. Faster to...

About five weeks (or so) ago - in Mid-June - I planted 64 plugs of annual Vinca.  Or, some call it Madigascar Periwinkle .   These were in the newly (as of last Fall) expanded front bed that I call our 'front porch bed'.  I've grown various flowering annuals up there.  To varying degrees of success.  Marigolds have worked .  Dusty Millers went nuts (and came back partially a second season).  One year, I did begonias and sedum.  The sedum looked great, but wasn't hardy .  Petunias failed .  Sun Patients didn't work, either .   I'm NOT EXACTLY sure how I ended up with pink (light purple?) annual vinca, but in one of those garden-center-induced hazes, I found myself sitting in the driveway with a couple of flats of these annuals.  I planted them and hoped for the best.  At first, they were stinkers.  A number of them (maybe 10?) up-and-died.  The rest just sort of were blah.   But then...time wo...