It looks quite nice in the photo, I agree that more mild colors are easier to match with other plants.

Hi Pam - my Charles Rennie only went in last winter and has had a tough year, what with the drought and earthworks going on around the house. Charles Rennie is still only about 40 cm high, has languished all year and has managed, maybe, half a dozen unimpressive blooms in total. BUT...I have seen him in a NZ south island garden well over 2 metres tall and carrying a very respectable amount of big lilac bloom in April. So don't rely on my experience. I just love the colour and the shape of the blooms. Can't help you on the rest of your list as I only have Sharifa and Jude. Both seem quite happy with full summer sun in the NSW Blue Mountains.

Thank you, Josue Diaz... good info. I'm in CA just north of San Francisco. I thought my zone was 9b-10 but now I find out it is 10a. Anyway, the sun is very very hot in the summer but the nights can be foggy and cool. I decided to plant in a pot for now and move it around to see what it likes. I have mostly shade so I don't think I will have a problem. For some reason I thought Brugmansias need full sun in all cases. They are not sold around here but I saw one growing in my neighborhood, briefly, since it seemed to disappear after a short while. I hope mine lasts.... The leaves seems rather delicate.

OK, since you all said you enjoy photos - haha - I thought you might be interested to see the stages of how I transformed this garden bed. Here is what it looked like at the beginning of last year. The previous owners had planted 2 huge cycads, which were quite yellow & sickly - and also really prickly. I hated the look of them and as I said, I really HATED the gravel mulch as it absorbed heat like mad. This bed is next to my study, where I work, and the room has no air-conditioning, so it was unbearable sitting in there in the afternoons when the gravel would radiate all the heat it had absorbed from the midday sun... This was taken in May 2017... And here's the bed after the gravel had been removed in Aug 2017. That was our mid-winter and the section of the bed closest to the white wall was completely in shade all day... I wasn't sure what to plant in there - it was really difficult finding plants that would be happy to grow in mostly shade but could also cope with 2 hrs of very intense direct sunlight each day... You can see the gardenia "tree" in the left corner above - I originally planted that in the ground. And then I kept hearing people say gardenias don't do well in Perth's alkaline soil... so I decided to move it into a 1/2 wine barrel instead, with acidic potting mix. Also, it was raised up and closer to the light. And here's the bed in Oct 2017 when I finally found the stepping stones I liked. It took me ages as I didn't want the usual square or rectangular pavers - I wanted something that looked like irregular natural stone slabs. The ones I found are actually moulded from cement but they look "natural" ;-) I'd also started finalising what I wanted to plant in there. I put in 2 plectanthus "Velvet Elvis" in the far right corner, together with some cyclamen - and then the 3 gardenia radicans under the window, and then a polygala bush and a delphinium (out of the shot). On the left side, I had the gardenia tree in the wine barrel, with some bedding begonia and then I had a spot I was saving for a hydrangea bush - and then I planted a clematis (Proteus), a foxglove, an alstroemeria, a delphinium, some dianthus (pinks) and 2 hollyhock seedlings right by the wall (you can see they're still tiny in the picture above). And finally the star jasmine at the end of the row on the left. Here's a view of the bed from my study window, after I finally got the hydrangea! I had to wait ages to get it as nurseries don't stock them until summer arrives. This was in Nov 2017. You can see that the hollyhock seedlings had started growing and the clematis had 1 bloom! :-) I was saving that gap on the left for a rose, as that's the sunniest corner... And here's Charles Rennie Mackintosh joining the others at last... And here's a picture of the bed taken yesterday morning. It's frightening how fast things grow here - the hollyhocks shot up in Jan and you can see the gardenia tree has put on a lot of growth as well. I had to add a shade cloth above part of the bed to protect the hydrangea and some of the other plants as direct summer sun was too strong, even for just 2hrs, and they were burning really badly. Well, I hope you've enjoyed seeing the transformation! ~ HY