If it doesn't make it thru the winter, you might want to try thunbergia gregorii, which looks very similar (doesn't have the dark blotch in the throat), but is root hardy in USDA zone 9. It is a bigger plant, but should be restrained in a pot. I have mine planted on a west wall under the eve of my house, and it has survived ten years, and I'm in a colder sunset zone than you. Here is a link that might be useful: thunbergia gregorii

Congrats on growing beautiful children! Don't feel guilty about allocating some $$ of the budget to keep your home happy and functioning. When I had my son the Csection went badly and I couldn't function in the yard for almost a year. The only plus side was that house was on a in-town lot and a half with sand-based soil. It wasn't so horrible to get going again as the soil was so loose and the property was small. But, it did break my heart to look out and see weeds, weeds, weeds. When we moved to our current property it was is sorry shape. Nothing had been done with the 2-acre property other than cut the open lawn areas for at least a 4 year period! (When I say "cut the open areas" I mean the cutting a riding mower can do around trees, ditches, etc). The original owner had circled the house with plantings of green hosta, forsythia, and purple iris, with double white peonies alongside the steps. The forsythia had overgrown the windows of the house, the gutter had come off the high end of the house and allowed erosion along the steps (there were no peonies to see at the time...only a waist-deep gully), and knee high grass was present from the landscape timber edger across the 3' "bed" to the house. An orchard of over 20 fruit trees that had not been pruned, maintained (or even mowed) for 4 years. No sidewalks. Just a vast green weed expanse of 2 acres with an orchard of fruit "bushes" inside a meadow and a house with basically no windows as the forsythia covered them. I hired a guy to pull out all of the forsythia, repair the deck, put in a gravel sidewalk, spray-kill the grass in my intended new flower bed, and bring in two tandem truck loads of mulch. I put my efforts into terrace gardening along the steps to get rid of the gully and reclaiming the hostas, irises, and fruit trees. Imagine my surprise when beautiful, fragrant peonies came up in my new terraced rock garden. Apparently peony roots will withstand a lot of abuse as there didn't seem to be anything but brick-solid eroded gully there before! The point of this long story: if its a big project you have to budget between your time, your priorities, and your $$$. We are ALL doing that on a regular basis. Who are we trying to impress??? OURSELVES!!! Feel good at the end of the day! Have time for your babies! Create a beautiful and peaceful haven for your family. Some people can put more of their own time and muscle behind it; others will need to put more of their $$ into a project because its beyond their physical abilities. Its all good if you can enjoy the results at the end of the day...and don't forget to sit down in that nice yard with your loved ones and ENJOY IT (there's where I miss a priority from time to time). A "before" shot, sort of, I had trimmed the forsythia off the windows, put the gutter up, and shoveled the gully wash out dirt off the driveway. An "after" shot:

Yes you should do one coat of primer and 2 of paint. Post pics when done!

I'm going to give the 1-2 week wait before using the 3-1-1 to check the pH, since I added about 1/4-1/3 cup more lime than I should've. Two days since I put a sample 3 gallon outside, and it is dry about half way into the pot already (daytime temp has been a little warmer than usual at about 80F, we're going through a mild heat wave here in so cal). That's a bit quick, hmm. Back to gritty. My kitchen strainer was too fine after further reading, so I found extra window screen material in the garage. The holes measure just about 2mm using my calipers. Neat. I'm now beyond confused after completing the sifting of my cheap bag of dirt and about 1/3 way through turface (holy crap this takes FOREVER!). Confusion because of this recent thread: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/3323530/al-s-gritty-mix-screening-and-particulate-size#n=35 Not to mention discouraged, because I thought I had a good amount at ~60% extraction, and now with more careful screening, the 25lb bag leaves me with only about 1.5 gallon of useable sand. Ugh. The following picture shows the sand sorted to 1. >1/4" 2. 1/4"<>1/8" 3. 1/8"<>2mm, and 4. <2mm Screen turface in the middle of course :) Do I just use #3, or can I mix up #2 and #3, since the bark will be about the same? A lot of #3 actually looks like it would fit into 3/8" mesh, which I couldn't find anywhere. I do have a hard time believing #4 won't work as it does seem to drain water well :( And screening turface is annoying as heck.. it just keeps going and going, at some point I stop trying to screen and call it "good enough" (it doesn't pour through the window screen, just kind of rain drops through, I use my hand and it helps it rain a bit more, squeezing the smaller pieces through the aluminum mesh). Given how long it took to separate the inorganic sand, it'd probably be better to drive out 80 miles and pick up a few bags of the chicken grit *if* this gritty mix works out for me. *shrug* On the bright side, my hands are super smooth.. that gives me an idea :D