Hi Terrene: When I started WSing, I was fairly new to gardening and got quite impatient waiting until the second year to get lots of colour from my garden. During the second year, I found a document called 'First Year Blooming Perennials' and used that to select my perennials for last year. So I had lots of colour in my garden both from the second and first year bloomers. This year the only one I sowed was Heliopsis 'Summer Sun', but I don't have a pic. to share with you. You will find that the first year flowerers get larger and may produce bigger and more blooms the next year. For example my Heleniums which grew to 18 inches last year, were over 5 feet tall this year!! If you wish I could e-mail you that list. I still have it online. Northerner

Blue hardy ageratum can be a very vigorous grower but its lavender blue bloom comes as such a surprise in the late summer. Mine is one of about half a dozen different plants I have that are from my mother's garden. She passed away in 1990 and stopped gardening about 1985. The places it works best for me are the foot of a steep hill which gets about 4-5 hours of sun, front edging of a border in similar sun, and in a very shady area under overlapping coverage of two sugar maples. In the shady area it has less color, is shorter but brings a lavendar blue fluff when nothing else is blooming in a hosta,fern bed. Chris

Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis) is an introduced species native to Eurasia. It does best in moist, well drained soil. It does better in cooler climates and is considered invasive in Massachusetts, Conneticut, Tennessee, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin. It is often used in "wildflower" mixes because it grows so easily. It's prolific seed production is what makes it invasive. Texas heat limits flowering and seed production. Drought limits its germination and growth. As you noted, we had a lot of rain in November. If you lived in northeast Texas you might receive enough rain to allow this plant to spread. As you live in San Antonio it is likely to be too hot and/or dry for the plant to become invasive. As long as people keep this plant in their flower beds and borders it can be enjoyed without guilt. If you ever decide to use a wildflower mix I recommend Native American Seed Co. as their mixes contain only native species. They are also a great source of native grasses. I've had good results with their seed, but results are always better when we get fall rain as we did in 2015.

I do...in fact I grow quite a few US natives - I am mystified that so many little gems just have not caught on in the UK nursery trade - wild delphiniums, some astounding penstemons, humble but cheerful verbesina, ipomopsis, Texas flax (the SW and California have always offered decent choices here in the dryest part of the UK...but am trying boykinia, isopyrum, various talinums and purslanes, phacelia campanularia...oh, a lot. Partly it is also because they are new and exciting to me...and I have always loved those modest little plants like claytonia...so yeah, I probably grow more US natives than any other category (this forum, is of course, the major influence).