Tapla, thank you for trying to help me figure this out. Each of the four little plants were about 6 inches when I bought them and I wonder if they were just too delicate to survive repotting⦠The first one was Ellwoodii, then a rosemary, then two lavender plants in a row - all died a fast decline, as fast as when cut flowers take that final nosedive. Maybe a couple of days and then there was no saving them. I removed most of the original soil from each of them using my fingers and a chopstick. Maybe I didn't keep the roots moist enough⦠but I immediately put them in the sink and poured a bunch of water through until it stopped draining. Then I let them sit away from sun on the coffee table for a couple of days. I may have turned on the steam radiators or used the gas oven, but the apartment temperature tends to stay in the 60-75 degree range all year. Not too hot, not too cold, but fairly dry. It's been a warm winter here in San Francisco, with spring-like temps outside, about 55-75 degrees since January, actually. My plants can't go outside, so I keep them in my bay windows. (I don't have access to a yard or any outdoor space for plants to live, unless you count the back stairwell in the middle of my building's lightwell.) ~ Mary PS - I'm still sore, so I'm lugging those bags of ingredients through my building a few at a time every day. Next time, I'm hiring a beefy teenager to do the lifting!

Wayside gardens used to be really great. But they were bought by Park Seed and that was the end of customer service and quality for Wayside. They ship plants haphazardly and tiny plants in big quarts size pots and charge for quart size root balls. You can't get any one from customer service on the phone nor do they answer emails and the order takers can't help you solve a problem. Read the many negative reviews Wayside has now over in Garden watchdog. Out of 805 reviews, they have 372 negative, 125 neutral and 308 positive. I'd bet most of those positives are pretty old. What really cracks me up is that Wayside always answers every negative review with a "we couldn't find your order from this information, so please contact us with your order number, and we'll make this right." When they posted that on my two negative reviews, I pointed out that I had included my order number and email in the review because I had read their previous responses, so why were they still having trouble contacting me. Way, way on the other end of the spectrum, Santa Rosa, Annies Annuals, and Lazy S'S Farm, Plant Delight all provide great customer service, knowledgeable people if you call with questions, super well packed plants, and wide variety of plants that you won't find anywhere else. And Geraniaceae.com is the most incredible specialty nursery for hardy geraniums, erodiums and pelargonium.

Vitex grows well enough here in the SF Bay Area, but has never been all that popular of a shrub on the bay side of the hills. It tends to be a lot more popular where one gets hot summers and cold winters. In fact, I would say it is probably more popularly seen in places like Palm Springs or Arizona than here. There are a few wholesale nurseries that do grow Vitex, but not the cultivars you mention. Mail order will probably be the best source. Just as an aside, not all natives are deer proof, and alot of the Ceanothus in particular are deer food. You might also consider some of the South African succulents; both drought tolerant and often deer proof. Cotyledon orbiculata in particular, and also many of the Aloes, although they will sometimes eat the flowers off Aloes. You might get good information on most deer resistant and drought tolerant natives to select from at the natives nursery at Tilden Park. This is close enough to you that the deer resistance of particular plants would be meaningful...

daylily, no offense at all :-)) I completely understand where you are coming from and only wanted to point out that this is indeed a pretty common occurrence!! However, one of the major responsibilities of a skilled landscape designer is to guide their clients/homeowners towards good design choices. That is, after all, one of the primary reasons they have contracted with a designer in the first place! And one of those "proper" choices is to ensure that the garden is not overplanted from the beginning. IMO, designers that do overplant (or overdesign) - even at the client's wishes - are doing their clients a major disservice both in terms of economics and overall plant health. And appearance!! This is not always an easy concept to communicate, however. Most homeowners get any garden design exposure they have from TV landscaping shows and we all know how condensed and far from true life these really are. They are done entirely for show, not for practicality, so an overplanted landscape is pretty much par for the course. It has to look perfect, not spotty, for the reveal at the end of the show!! I sometimes wonder what these "perfectly filled-in" landscapes look like a year or two down the road........not very good, I bet. I just did a consult yesterday afternoon that mirrored this exact situation. The clients inherited a grossly overgrown garden when they moved in and have spent considerable time and effort in clearing out the excess. Now they want to replant and wanted my help in plant choices and placement. The wife totally got the need for restraint and allowing things to fill in over time. The husband however wanted to cram it full of plants right now - no bare soil showing - and it took both of us some doing to convince him otherwise!!