They bloomed today, and . . . you're both right! The particular foliage I was referring to is Collinsia heterophylla, which is now blooming, but there's some Erysimum capitatum blooming in there too, within inches of the Collinsia heterophylla.

As a compromise, you can choose to leave a few plants (at least 2 or 3) until the seeds ripen. Even one plant can produce a lot of seeds, but the more plants you can leave, the better genetic diversity you'll get. Think about it as a birdseed garden. I have calif. poppies and globe gilia and a few clarkias. I pull up the poppies when I need the garden space to put something else in, because I know there are enough seeds in the soil already. I mulch my garden, and the tiny globe gilia seeds reseed themselves prolifically anyway. I collect a huge amount of seeds each year, let the birds have as many as they want, and pull out the globe gilia plants when they're crowding other plants, and they're slowly taking over and spreading from one corner of the garden. I've found I can replant the pulled-up plants easily, and I've given away a lot of plants. They're in bloom much of the year because I water other plants in that part of the garden. The clarkias are not as prolific, but they come up in the garlic patch and I disturb the soil a lot in that part of the garden, adding compost and mulch throughout the year, so it's surprising they manage to come up at all! I pull up the garlic as I need it, and by the time the clarkias are big enough to bloom, I will have harvested most of the garlic. Most years I think about saving some seed, but I'm busy in other parts of the garden by the time the clarkia seeds drop, so I haven't saved any yet. I also have some of the delicate ground-hugging Clarkia davyi, which reseeded itself in a few containers from the one plant I had last year, so I'm planning to move some of the containers to another part of the garden when they start going to seed. By the way, that's the easiest way I know to grow wildflowers: put a container of the flowers in the spot where you want them to grow the next year, let them go to seed, and they'll reseed themselves there. I've found that I mostly give away any seeds I collect, since so many of these reseed themselves. I don't know if the phacelia tolerates transplanting, but if you were going to pull them out anyway, you could try transplanting a few to the area where you want a meadow and let them go to seed there. Just be sure to water them and keep an eye on them for a few days so they don't die before ripening the seed. The most important thing about planting a meadow is to make sure the area is as weed-free as you can get it before starting, so that weeds won't outcompete the wildflowers. Or, if you've learned to recognize young wildflower seedlings, you can carefully weed out anything else while all the plants are small.

Sorry if I came off as so negative with my advice, certainly you have gained a wealth of personal experience that has now elevated you from a "newbie" gardenener to one more experienced with the trials and tribulations of invasive weeds, and poor winter drainage. A bit more about using Roundup in case you didn't know: 1. Works best when bermuda grass has not been cut back, but is full and lots of surface foliage 2. Apply when bermuda grass is in active growth(usually once it has hit 75F temps for a couple of weeks 3. Roundup works best when you have consistent warm weather so that it actively gets translocated to the roots 4. When bermuda grass is invading from the neighbors gardens, you need to do regular weed patrol to keep on top of runners that spring up from under the fence, probably at least every couple of weeks About the annual bluegrass: 1. If you are planting out small seedlings that can't effectively compete with weeds, try cutting an 18 square of weed fabric and pinning down at the edges around any new seedlings, this is what is typically done with revegeatation seedlings/trees planted out in grasslands, they need help creating a clear zone so that they can get large enough to compete with the weeds/grasses 2. Mulching deeply to keep bare soil from being exposed greatly helps with inhibiting weed seeds that need light to germinate, such as the annual blue grass 3. If you are trying to reseed poppies and other wildflowers, you can keep smaller areas weedfree and scatter saved seed, but will need to be vigilant about weeding seedlings of weeds as they come up Watering new plantings; 1. Standing with the hose and giving things a splash of water just isn't enough with valley heat and small seedlings with their limited roots 2. Better to give things a really good soak twice a day if starting seedlings when the weather is still hot, and use mulch to minimize soil evaporation 3. You might consider creating temporary shade structures using bamboo stakes and shade cloth if you can't resist starting seedlings outside the ideal fall planting window 4. Ideal time to plant out small sized native species is in the fall, once it starts to cool off enough in your area that you won't be getting any more 75F and above days, this makes a huge difference in heat and water stress for small plants Drainage issues 1. You are absolutely right that if you didn't know how poorly drained your intended garden was going to be, you wouldn't have known that it would be a problem. 2. You now know that it may be worth investigating first before you start planting; ie, look to see if there are rain gutters or downspouts off the roof, where they drain, if there is enough slope to the ground that water can drain away, etc. It may also be helpful to ask the neighbors, landlord, former tenants, when you have a chance to do so, if there are any drainage problems with the site Weeds; 1. You now have the experience to be a better judge of whether your intended garden area is surrounded by weeds, and if so, you now also know that it is always a good idea to try and get rid of the stored seed bank before you start planting 2. Getting rid of entrenched weeds may mean using Roundup at the right time of year to effectively kill them(and use the full strength applications and repeat usage after clearing away killed weeds, watering for at least a couple of weeks to initiate new growth, wait until weed regrowth is at least a couple of inches and spray again. You may need to do this 3 or 4 times over 3 to 4 months to get rid of all the weeds. 3. It may be useful to cultivate/disturb the soil several times to expose weed seeds to light, hoe them off or spray with herbicide, and repeat several times if you suspect you have a real weed problem. This could even mean that you don't plant your garden until 3 to 4 months of weed treatment. Dogs and new plants 1. it may be preaching to the choir, but small plants and dogs who aren't trained to be careful around small plants, or don't get enough walks/excercise to keep from being bored when left alone all day, are not a good mix with new plantings, especially at small vulnerable sizes. It only makes sense to give the plants some protection from dogs if you can't mitigate their behavior, dogs will do what dogs want to do without work on your part. Maybe I have just been lucky with the dogs I have owned, but I started training them very young to be careful around the garden, and not destroy young or old plants. I also had the time to take them on long walks every day, and burn off all that excess energy, which is important when you have a labrador retriever. Now if I could just train the raccoons not to damage plants in my garden.. You have gotten some valuable experience in gardening by the "trial by fire" method, but it can also be useful to ask questions when you aren't clear on the methods, take classes, and keep reading up. Obviously there isn't just one way to garden, and I certainly don't claim to know all the answers, but over 40 years of gardening, over 30 years of them professionally, mean that I do have a very good handle on how to handle weeds, drainage, soil amendmending, etc to fit within the budgets and efforts of my clients, and can tailor solutions that will work within different circumstances. It is always about tradeoffs, and I am not against using weedcloth as a first line of defense to be set underneath deep mulch when I can't eliminate the weeds in the first place, it has been my only workable method to minimize bermuda grass and Oxalis pes-capri infestations when I didn't have the time or budgets necessary to really control them before new landscape plantings.

Holly, are you looking for photos of species or hybrids? Mauro has just about every species on his site. I guess that number is around 20 species, more or less. Then there are about 30+ hybrids out there. Its not a huge list, and the potential in nematanthus is tremendous. In the early 90's the AGGS seed fund had lots of fresh seed of species, thanks to Mauro. That seed is mostly gone now, and we all need to replenish this seed. I should listen to myself.... But, when the seed was available I grew on a number of species. Fresh seed germinated well. At that time the seed of N. fritchii was older and I only got one seedling. So, seed of nematanthus is not as long lived as other gesneriad seed. The rule of thumb is that seed from juicy berries or capsules such as nematanthus, codonanthe and columnea is shorter lived than seed from dry capsules such as sinningia, aeschynanthus etc. By the way, nematanthus have fleshy capsules, codonanthe have either fleshy capsules or berries, depending on species, and columneas have berries. At least, I think that's the rule. How do you grow nematanthus in N.O.? Do, the plants do well in all that heat and humidity? Here, they seem to enjoy our cool weather, but don't care so much for the low humidity of our summers. They do quite well right on the coast here, which in summer is humid and cool (San Francisco for example). Actually to be truthful, I think my plants don't flower in summer because I dry them out too much then--my summer humidity is much lower than San Francisco, which is 30 miles north. One cold winter I had N. wettsteinii flowering right through the coldest weather, with dips to the low 30's. I have most of my plants outside all year, in shade and under cover in an open air shade house. Jon