your gardening experiences?

Since I am new to both seed trading and growing from seed, I am coming across many seed varieties that I have no experience with.

I try to do as much research as I can on my own, but I think we all know that zone hardiness ratings are not all that reliable, to say the least, lol.

Will it bloom first year? WS or indoor sow? Need winter protection?

So, to avoid having a bunch of separate threads about each unknown seed I get, I was hoping to put them all together here and we can all post our "new to me" seeds and let the experts chime in when they can.

Okay, here are my first three to get us all started:

Crape Myrtle (don't think so, but they're soooo purdy, lol)

Rose of Sharon

Lantana camara (maybe as an annual here?)

Thanks in advance for your input. You guys are awesome and I've learned so much from all of you already.

Cindy