Ruellia was a new-to-me plant last year. I relocated it a couple times last year and almost tossed it in the late fall because it looked worse for wear after being fussed around with so much and I forgot I planted it there and mis-took it for a weed -- only thing that saved it is the fact I buried the plant tag next to it that I noticed after I dug it out to toss it. I was surprised it actually survived all that, especially since it was pretty small when I originally bought it -- a testament to its ability to withstand adversity. It ended up putting on pretty nice growth this year, was an attractive low-grower with flowers a lovely shade of light purple, I'm very glad it didn't accidentally end up in the trash!

I have grown various penstemon and the D. nudicale in a previous garden. The penstemons did great but the delph didn't like me. It only lasted a single season :-( Too bad, as I grew it specifically to entice more hummingbirds.

My current garden is too small and too shaded and I am getting too old to play around much and have no patience with any seeds (other than sweet peas) so I am heavier into shrubs and a select bunch of shade tolerant and mostly evergreen perennials and groundcovers. Except for my clematis....and I have more of them than I have room for!

Hey, me too, GG. Shrubs and evergreens. My god, the word 'low maintenance' might be spilling out of my mouth soon. Can't shake the seed habit though, as it keeps me sane over winter and is the only way to try out new plants.

Yep, I had d,nudicaule a couple of years ago but I had it crammed into a pot with an orange calceolaria, which turned out to be more vigorous and shrubby than I expected. This time, I am going to grow a bunch of them, with other small, but hopefully rugged flowers -tufted poppies, blazing star, eritrichium and callirhoe...but grief, the potential colour clashes in that lot!

You are an adventurous gardener, mxk3, and not above doing some radical zone-pushing, so I am always keen to hear from you. And GG cos she is the very definition of 'pro' of course. Thanks both. Ruellia has made it onto the seed list several times but usually falls after the first couple of budgetry winnowings, while I have, over the years, grown several pinkified, succulent-y small flowers - purslanes, calandrina, cistanthe. All do well...for a season, but often fail to survive over winter...but as I grow so many annuals anyway, I never minded the short-lived aspect.

Ruellia brittoniana is an interesting shrubby annual for colder climates (it's reliably hardy only to zone 8 and on south) and there's a shorter cultivar ("Katie") that's not available from seed as far as I know.

There are warnings about growing R. brittoniana in regions where it's perennial since it can spread aggressively and self-sow to nuisance proportions, but this isn't a problem where it's killed by cold winters. There are also newer, sterile cultivars. All in all it's a nice annual with a long blooming period, but rarely a ton of flowers open at any one time.