I grow one every year in Alabama and it lasts until the first hard frost. I feed my plant once every 10 days with liquid blue feed. They bloom so heavily it takes a lot out of the plant. Good luck.

I am still plundering along trying to get my juice jugs ready. It keeps snowing, the days pass by, and still nothing outside. Today, I declared I would prepare the jugs and get the bags of soil inside before they freeze again. Thing is, I can't get drainage holes cut in those heavy juice jugs. They are rectangular and I have saved them all year (we drink lots of grapefruit juice). It was hard to cut them but my kitchen shears did the trick. I am going to use pipe cleaners through holes punched to close them. But alas, I can't get a drainage hole or slit or anything cut. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have what looks like a garden store's inventory in seeds just waiting to get outside. I should have stuck to milk jugs.

By "Black Eyed Susan vine", I'm guessing you mean the annual Thunbergia alata. If the pods are fully developed (and not immature), you can leave them to dry out and plant next spring (or indoors a few weeks before the last frost). Once dry, they'll keep better under refrigeration. Lobelia can self-seed and you may well get plantlets next spring by sprinkling seed on the ground now. However, I think it's too late in the year to expect cuttings placed in the ground to take root and overwinter.

Great list of questions! Thanks for the general framework to think through my decisions here - super helpful. We have a very small backyard in which I am constantly tinkering - the back fence is a pretty prominent feature because of the size of the yard - and right now it's still dry dusty dirt mostly except for the two veggie beds, and the giant orange tree. So, to answer your questions: -I am very "into" gardening (borderline obsessed maybe?) though new to it, happy to trim a couple times a month; - I don't need flowers all the time - seasonal flowers I think are appreciated differently/more in fact, but either is fine; - flower debris is fine (I would probably just let it fall into the beds and become mulch around the other future-plants if possible? Also happy to sweep them - orange tree drops loads of debris it turns out); - our yard backs up to a concrete garage pad and concrete walkways at the backs of the other properties, so I don't think it could creep anywhere really - as long as it doesn't shoot vines 20 feet underground; - I am concerned about invasive plants generally and invested in native plants in our front yard - so don't want to plant anything that will get eaten by birds and dropped into Griffith Park (Pampas grass, tree of heaven, ice plant for instance are all terrible) - I am also somewhat impatient - less so in my front yard where I've planted for the long-term and happy to wait - backyard is like an extension of our living room.... in the pic you can see the fence and the orange tree and patio relationship - I also need to be mindful of orange tree roots too... you can just barely see the dichondra, salvia and penstemons I just bought and am trying to place in front of the fence....oh and the lovely view of the neighbor's garage...;)