I live south of Houston in Zone 9. Gumbo dirt...very heavy in clay content in some parts.

I am beginning to HATE gardening here. Everything I had succumbed to fungus or rot by August last year....Everything but thyme and chives, which were planted late...some basil in the same pot got the fungus and bit the big one, so I'm guessing they just happen to be more resistant. For a while, I had time to spray organic stuff every week, but I just can't do that for all the plants I own. Plus at once a week it was only enough to keep it at bay (not eradicated or anything) until it started raining a lot (which is when I lost some plants to what I think was root rot).

I have a border planting on the side of my house....it was ajuga, which did very well, until it started to rain a lot...I pulled up some of the half dead ones....it seems a combo of a fungus and some kind of root rot did them in...I did add a layer of compost and some mulch there, which is all I do--I can't raise or lower grade next to my foundation the way the lot is sloped. I also had some salvia on the other side of that strip in more sun...they did well until it started to rain for the same reasons. Lantana has also croaked in that spot.

I have killed lantana in pots, too...to be more precise I think lantana lacewings helped. As the summer wore on it was a constant struggle between some fungus...something that made the leaves of all the verbena brown and crispy...mealybugs on my rudbeckia (then mold...actual mold....it is in a raised bed but it just rained too much). The only thing succesfully growing anywhere are the ferns in the far corner under the tree...which I neglect until they turn slightly grey and then I know to water...and some pothos I leave as a ground cover which has grown under the fence from the neighbor's lawn.

So if you have recommendations for anything to help me out at all....as well as something borderlike (low and hardy) that doesn't hate clay soil and can take part sun, let me hear them. I can't move, but I sure would like to at this point, especially when I seem my mom's butterfly plants in her garden in College Station.