Blue lobelia- the low-growing, annual kind (Croakus automaticus).I keep falling for the blue flowers in the garden center, but it doesn't take our humidity. Same with Convolvulus- Bush Morning Glory.

Another is Heliotrope 'Marine'- not only is it not fragrant, it always suffers some fungal leaf disease, rendering it very homely. I promise I will not grow it this year! (And I will wrap Christmas presents as I get them instead of in a panic at the last minute- riiight!)

Any species or cultivar of campanula will not grow for me. My thumb is green for every other plant, it appears. But no matter what I do with the soil and light, campanula croaks.

Instant Campanula Karma got me.

Mich,
I grew 'Purple Majesty' Pennisetum two years ago and was also disappointed. Then I began removing all the blossom heads before they went to seed and standing them in a vase to dry. As I picked the flower heads they grew smaller and smaller throughout the growing season. Found that these blossoms worked well in dried arrangements and Christmas wreaths. For the wreaths I lightly sprayed the smaller blooms with gold paint and wired them in clusters around the frame. Very attractive worked around greenery. So, now I grow just one plant of it each year for the dried flowers.

I grew both "Purple Majesty" millet and annual blue lobelia from seed this past year. The millet was underwhelming, to say the least, and looked more like a grassey weed than an ornamental plant in my front beds. The lobelia did better in pots on the deck, but it quit blooming altogether once the heat of summer got here.

Neither one of them are in my seed order for this year.

Michelle, an ornamental foilage plant that did do quite well from seed this past year was Alternanthera 'Purple Knight'.
It stood up well to our heat and summer drought and was very easy to grow from seed.

.......Jan

Here is a link that might be useful: Alternanthera 'Purple Knight'

My proven losers so far:

blue Lobelia - Like Cretrix, I just cannot make it happy

ANY Rhododendron - Must be the soil.. No matter how healthy when planted and how well I amend the soil, they just waste away in a slow and miserable death. Bout my Azaleas do GREAT!

Buddlias - any cultivar - Again, Must be the soil.. lost one each season two years running.

everything else I plant does just fine..

-about this 'Purple Majesty Millet thing' - remember millet is a GRASS and requires a fairly healthy well drained soil with a good amount of nitrogen to get it going. Sun all day if possible and the stuff will grow like a uh, weed that it is!
If millet looked puny in your garden try fertilizing it - the plants grow like a thick hedge around here, and oh yeah, the seed produced comes fairly true if you bother to collect it. Beats the overpricing of this seed found in catalogs! Try it again - it is a good grower and seller at the markets.

Jeff

I agree with the Buddlia! It blooms in my garden for two weeks and then it's just an ugly ol' looser of a plant. The 'Black Night' smells like the city dump and the butterflies arn't even attracted to it.

I dug it out last spring and donated it to the Master Gardener plant sale (tee-hee).

The 'Light O' Day' Hydrangea has proven itself to be a dud in my garden. Too bad.... I was so looking forward to it brightening a corner of my garden, but alas.. it was not to be. Tried to move it after a month of babying it in its origional location.........may yet come back this spring but.......sad me.

NWnatural, I wouldn't be overly concerned about the buddleia not thriving for you......it is about to be added to the state's noxious weed listing, so not a plant I'd recommend you run right out and replace:-) I am a bit surprised it did so poorly - one of the reasons buddleia is hitting this list is its ability to grow and thrive in very inhospitable environments, like freeway verges and disused parking lots, etc. But maybe you were too nice to it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Butterfly bush, noxious weed

gardengal48, Buddleia already is a noxious weed in Pierce County. The class C I think, or what ever is the least offensive of the grades. Only one variety, that pink/lavendar one you see all over. The reason why it's listed... not because it's taking over the world, but because it's hard for the road crews to mow it.

I did give it a very ugly spot in the yard. Sandy, silt with burning all day sun. The Grosso Lavendar I planted in it's place is much more rewarding.

The first year I grew 'Purple Majesty' it did pretty well. The following year, plants grown from both commercial seed and seed saved from the previous year's crop were shorter and spindlier. I have not grown it since.

There is a new form of ornamental millet on the market that is supposed to be more compact and denser in form.

When it comes to annuals, recent proven losers for me have included 'Dreamland' zinnia (euthanized by mid-season) and so-called red French marigolds which look orange if you're more than a foot away. Whoever named an ageratum 'Blue Hawaii' when the flowers are actually a washed-out purple, as well as any hybridizer who calls his offerings 'carmine' when they are really hot pink should be disappeared by the Color Police.

Oh so tempting Eric !!

I am reminded of the Christmas cards that I sent out this season.

The cartoon on the card depicted a rather rotund -a- butt Santa bending over a chimney with two cynical reindeer staring at his plump rump roast butt contemplating out loud to themselves : " Oh so tempting ! "

When I see such seed catalogs with tant mieux pictures of full figured Rubenesque flowers and panicles I feel like I am walking around with a big red and white target pasted on my head ( and wallet )
It is sooooooo tempting.
Maybe when I have one of those rare events called 'a momentary lack of cynacism' I will break down and send in my 5 bucks for a package of horticultural hope.

Annual cultivars depend on reselection to be kept going. Apparently it doesn't always work. The purple millet is about the ugliest garden plant I have ever seen, so no great loss if it is fizzling already. Looks sorta like dead rats mounted at the tops of frosted corn stalks. The way the seeds appear to be popping out of a hide is downright unsettling.

Sounds like you should have added that purple millet to the Plants for Hortoween list BBoy.

My proven loser in the shrub category is Gardenia jasminoides. In Kihei we have the exact opposite conditions of what they need but trying to convince people of that is impossible. They are also bug candy, worse than roses. One cultivar "vetchii" I think, a dwarf variety can last for about 5 years and do reasonably well before it croaks.

ilima

On the other hand there are Gardenias native to Hawaii. These grow in certain areas, of course, where the foreign species might also do better.

i am congenitally unable to grow moonflower. i try every couple of years but they will. not. grow.
can't bake a decent loaf of bread to save my life, either, but that's a whole 'nother bitÄh for a whole 'nother thread.