Pacific Northwest Gardening: What MONEY WASTERS would you recommend others avoid?, 1 by

wrote:
I just buy coleus as an annual now. Last year I spent some money on some beautiful varieties from a place in the southern US where they grow like weeds. It was just so worth it to me! I'm going to do the same this year. I took cuttings from all the plants and they rooted beautifully. Then after potting them up, I lost almost all of them when the greenhouse got too cool for their liking, even though it stayed well above freezing. I simply cannot keep the greenhouse warm enough to please them without wasting too much energy just for them. So they are going to be annuals for me. Oh well... that means I get new varieties every year!

In terms of the artemsia, that's a very broad category of plants we're talking about here. As a rule, I lime the soil around them because I tend to have soil on the acid side. They also require good drainage and don't like the soil to be too rich. That, evidently, is not as much of a problem for me as I thought. The one I have trouble growing is the annual kind that seems to take over everyone else's garden. Likely that's because I'm trying to grow it under the birch tree.
I love the one called 'silver mound', such a nice little edging plant, all silvery bun shaped softness!

Julie, thanks for the info on the mock oranges. I have several, which I will keep my eye on. Any idea of lack of bloom and out they will go! Likewise for the scent. Some are better than others. Why grow a mock orange if it is not going to intoxicate with fragrance?

Here's another 'money waster' in my book: Endless Summer hydrangea. I our zone, almost all of our hydrangeas bloom during a long period because we don't really lose them to long hard freezes like they do on the east coast and in the midwest. If that were to change, then maybe I'd need to pay more for 'endless summer', but I never did see the benefit to that,, frankly. All of my hyrangeas, once they start blooming, keep going and many of them put on a second flush of blooms.