Perennials: What are you sorry you planted......Part 2, 1 by sylguy

sylguy wrote:
jamiew: I have Ruellia, both the dwarf and the standard that grows to 2'. It is horribly invasive and I wish I'd known. The dwarf not so much, but the tall standard hopped from one pot to maaaaany! I wish I could propagate other plants like it moves. Once in a pot it has huge runners that go dormant in winter and sprout in spring. I had it only in one pot and it must seed around or something because it's in over a dozen pots and in the ground. I have it around roses and every couple of years when I re-pot I pull a strangling amount of it's roots from around my rose, and can't completely eradicate so they come back slowly. I have two huge pots with trees in them that with help, I will tip and dump and try to pull out of all the dratted invaders. One tree is a crape myrtle and is 9' tall and the other is a rose of sharon about the same size. Big job!
Around here, every year I buy a petunia labeled "mexican" which has much more eliptical almost pointed leaves than my regular petunias which are oval and rounded. The "mex" has blooms half the size of standards and blooms more prolifically and longer than the standard. My standards are already leggy, even pinched and slowing down their blooming, the "mex" in fushias and purples, stays in full bloom around here in Austin well into late Aug and beyond draping out of pots and baskets. See pic above in purple, and this one of my white standard petunias. Wish they were side by side. The white are twice the size blooms than the purple "mex".