Wow, good job. I am good at cuttings but struggle with seeds. Just put out my heirloom tomatoes I grew form seed and someone ate the leaves off all 9. I think the volunteers from last year will have to carry the load. Petunias can get very big. I just got interested last year when a 22" pot with two Supertunias Raspberry Blast covered the pot and smothering the bed around with a mound of pink. They are big time feeders and the budworms love them. I spray regularly with Bt. Another pot of unknown petunias grew long as summer progressed and flowered on the ends. I trimmed a few stems each week when I fertilize. They stopped blooming because of the heat but the Supertunias kept on going. I am trying hanging baskets this year and my first one is so heavy I had trouble lifting it up. I guess I am going to down size baskets to see how small I can go and still survive. Good luck Nice izhar! Here is a link that might be useful: How to Pick the Perfect Petunia

Hi growitnow...most of those (and most of the verbenas sold on the market) are the trailing type...usually get a foot or so tall...and 2-3 feet spread. I love most of them, but if you are looking for something different, try verbena bonariensis...you've probably seen them all over, they have become more and more popular over the years. Also, not sure of your climate for sure, but threre is verbena lilacina, a california native that forms a small shrub (about 2x3 feet) of finely disected leaves and lovely lavender flowers off and on all summer...hardy to about 20°. Also, there is verbena ridiga...which is more upright, but a bit more open and sprawling. If you want a good spreader, though, homestead purple is great...although High Country Gardens introduced an heirloom verbena with better cold-tolerance this year called "Annie" i think...it looks just like the variety my gran used to grow back in Nebraska and was practically a weed...but i never saw that variety anywhere other than her farm...i always assumed it was some crazy chance hybrid...one thing is for sure, you can rarely go wrong with verbena...they practically thrive on neglect.

My Jude is definitely of a light if variable yellow color, occasionally perhaps with minor shades of light orange/apricot, but I wouldn't call this an apricot rose. It's yellow. My Austins are doing quite well here in the UK without spray, usually better than my HTs and even OGRs, but it really depends on the variety and climate/position, so any generalization has to be taken with several grains of salt. And as Jeri said, even within any given variety (and not just in roses), some plants are stronger than others. I may be wrong, but I don't think that it's necessarily a matter of minimal genetic variability (although this could conceivably also be the case, given the complexity of genetics), but rather how well they have been grafted (if grafted) and cultivated from the beginning. Budwood or cuttings, even if taken from the same mother plant, don't always take in the same way and some remain weaker than others. Some roses may also be more prone to decline with age than others, especially if not in a perfect position/care. So replacing a declining rose with a new one of the same variety can make a difference without the presence of any genetic difference. Generally, David Austin and many other breeders are now increasingly breeding for disease resistance and performance, not just looks. But even this does not always work, as you can see with Austin's fairly new rose Wisley - a most beautiful rose and great performer which is unfortunately extremely prone to BS and has now been replaced by DA with another variety (Wisley 20008). But generally speaking, the newer Austins are more disease resistant than (some of) the older ones, and most of them are better performers. Within other classes, HTs/floris/polys/OGRs I found that it really depends on the variety, although many HTs can be quite lousy in terms of disease resistance. At least in the wetter climates of the southeastern US, UK and northern Germany. Andrea

Joel, I slightly misread your post initially. Are you wanting to duplicate what you've seen, avoid it, or just know more about it? There are many many cultivars of both semi-red (dark pink to reddish purple) and white crapes. True reds are rarer. It would be hard to easily and positively identify many white or redish varieties. If the trees you are seeing are really red, they might be 'Arapaho' (usually upright), 'Cheyenne' (rounded), 'Whit II'/Dynamite (usually upright), 'Whit IV'/Red Rocket(usually upright), or 'Whit VII'/Siren Red. 'Whit V'/Tightwad is another true red selection, but has a dense half-circle dwarf mound habit. White crapes include 'Acoma', 'Alba', 'Whit VI'/Burgundy Cotton, 'Byer's Wonderful White', 'Dwarf Snow', 'Dwarf White', 'Glendora White', 'Natchez', 'New Snow', 'Petite Snow', 'Sarah's Favorite', etc. Here is a link that might be useful: Sample List of Many Crape Myrtle Varieties