You can purchase wave petunia seeds from many online and paper catalogs. I've not seen the sweet potato vines from seeds, don't think you can get it "that way" as they are tubers. I love them too and here is my stategy: Early in the Spring I buy one of each color I want at the garden center. I try to find really robust, full ones, but still in small pots so they are cheaper (even these go for $4 a pot here). Then I take them home and make cuttings, dipping the cut ends in rooting hormone. These cuttings are placed in a homemade propagation box. Just a clear sweater box, filled with damp promix with a porous clay pot full of water in the middle. This pot then keeps the soil moist. I bury the cut, hormone dipped end in the soil and a leaf or two sticks out above. I place the box in an indirect light (sunny but not hot)on a table near a window in my den. In a week or so roots start to form, in 2 weeks they are ready to pot up as small plants and grow on (inside, till its warm enough to go out). I can't remember exactly WHEN I do this, but it's not till at least Mothers day I don't think!

If a rose has smaller leaves than you expect, and smaller blooms than you expect, which fry immediately, I would suggest it is getting too much hot sun. Of course, we still don't know which of the 6 Rubens the OP was talking about, because that question was never answered. However, if I take a guess that it was the old tea rose, it could be too much hot sun. I just moved a tea rose whose blooms were 1/2 to 1/3rd the size they "should be", and which fried fairly fast. Also the leaves were extra small. I have another bush of the same rose which is growing in full shade. It has amazingly lovely huge full blooms, which change color & last a long time. However, in full shade it is a once bloomer. The one which was in full sun was a repeat bloomer. So, we moved that one into where it gets morning sun until about noon, and then afternoon high shade from a tree. I am hoping that that combination of sun and shade will result in a repeat blooming bush with large blooms. Will let you know how that works out. Jackie

I agree, not everything we want, will survive here. For various reasons. But..You can grow more, than you may have thought. I am retired, and there is no HOA. My goal has been to amend my environment to take the heat off during the summer. To cool my yard and plants and home. So far, the more shade I create; by tree or structure, the more survives and thrives and the more pleasant outside is during the summer. My husband shrink wraps my patio in the winter, lol, and hangs a heat lamp on a timer; instant greenhouse. Tomato's and peppers thrived and bloomed and set fruit very early. Right now, I have hung sheets along with the other shade cloth over my veggies, and I am picking peppers and cherry tomato's daily. Almost total shade and new blooms daily. I think summer shade, over everything, makes a huge difference for most things here. Even the desert plants, the ones that grow in full sun here, look lusher and happier under summer shade..Just my personal views. And yes, my backyard does resemble a Bedouin camp right now, lol, but the neighbors haven't complained and enjoy the baskets of produce we give them.

How nice this thread got bumped! I enjoyed re-reading it and thinking about how much the yard has changed in a year. My bird-friendly yard is evolving. Have made great progress removing invasives, particularly Bittersweet, Buckthorn, and Norway Maples (treework cost me $2000 last year and there's still one GINORMOUS Norway maple left). There was a lot of brush created by all this tree/shrub work. Some was burned this Spring, right smack in the middle of the Oriental bittersweet patch, but the rest is in piles. The brush piles attract a lot of birds, particularly Sparrows, Cardinals, Juncos, and Wrens. The birds also love the back half-acre, which is wild and full of Crabapples, Choke Cherries, White Pine, and still some invasives like Honeysuckle and Autumn olive. Also making great progress on growing bird-friendly natives. Purchased another 50 native tree/shrub seedlings from the NH Nursery. That makes 130 total between this year and last - all of which ultimately make berries/nuts for the birds and wildlife. Most of them are in holding beds and haven't flowered yet, too little, but I've given away some and started to plant out a few. I winter-sowed many native species of perennials, annuals, and vines. Exactly where all this stuff is going, is not completely clear at this point, but I'm creating lasagne beds like crazy! The birds are always flitting around the yard and it's only going to get more interesting and fruitful for them (hopefully). It's great!