I've given up on the varieties you mentioned, and anything closely related. The best substitute i've had for delph's is the larkspur previously mentioned. you can buy varieties with double flowers, and thru judicious thinning of singles, each year, can enjoy really beautiful delph-like displays in purple, pink, mauve, lavender, white and picotees. Zero maintenence, reseeds nicely. I have a delph. cardinalis from annies annuals i'm trying, so far it's looking good, and is putting up a flower stalk. the next test will be if it survives to next year. The only lupines i've had flower succussfully are lupinus succulentus, l. palaestinus and l.hirsutissimus. They are all very modest flowers, but the native bees love them, and the honey bees, and i don't have to go thru the pain anymore of watching something die slowly before my eyes, as i did with the showy hybrids. they all reliably reseed and require less water. Mo

I also have them return most years. They bloom all summer without any care or deadheading, so worth having IMO. I can get a 4-pack of seedlings locally for $3 or so. I usually get something like 3 years from a plant, but they also self-seed well and so continue in the same spot. I like them well enough that I've given them protection in the form of a mesh ring sunk about 6" and sticking up about 2" after the voles twice ate every root on a plant in full bloom - a sad sight. At least some of the seedlings end up in the ring. Mine are in more than half day sun (probably 10 hours midsummer) and in well-drained moist soil that is a combo of my native acid fine sandy loam with aged horse manure and well mulched to reduce weed seeds from the manure and the surrounding field. I find that they are such a mass of flowers that they pack a good punch even though they aren't particularly large plants, and the hummingbirds enjoy them.

I didn't plant many seeds this winter in pots but had mostly no-shows with the ones I tried. I tried re-sowing Big Red Sage 4 times. Maybe my seed is too old but its not all that old ---Fall 2017---and I sowed a lot of them. The look is still too dense for my taste currently out there anyway and I'm still thinning plants to create a more open look so its not a big deal. The two packs I ordered from NativeSeedSEARCH and those tourist postcard/seed-packets of native Grand Canyon natives I found in the junk drawer that I direct sowed a few weeks ago are coming up nicely. Those Grand Canyon seeds were old--- 2013.

Rick, I've actually had pretty good luck with the New Millenium's in gardens in MN, IN and IA, where we get summer humidity. All were planted where they got morning sun and afternoon shade and had some wind protection (house or fence). I started some from seed ordered from NZ last year but didn't have very good germination. The couple that made it were a little puny but are coming back and should be bigger this year. In the past I have ordered starts from Graceful Gardens (highly recomend) and got great plants that grew well. I also used seeds from Jung's, mixed colors, but they haven't offered them for several years. I got some great plants from those seeds at very modest cost. The New Milleniums have performed way better than other varieties that I tried. I just wish I hadn't left most of them behind when I moved.