Bubblegum

Inspirational song: Sugar, Sugar (The Archies)

You know I am not sponsored. Never have been. Nobody pays me to write this stuff. So hopefully you know it's unlikely that I will contrive a way to discuss a specific product unless it actually feels relevant to my life. To that end, I am embarking on an extended experiment to see whether a particular branded product lives up to its hype, and I plan on periodically providing updates on that experiment in this space. Do with that what you will. No expectations here for you to spend money on the same thing I bought.

In all those gardening videos I have been gorging on lately, one annual plant keeps coming up: Proven Winners Supertunia Vista Bubblegum. Yes, the people are very specific when they show themselves growing it. At first I ignored the specificity. But either Proven Winners does a hell of a sponsorship campaign, or this might do what these people claim it will. What they claim is that it will get large. I mean large. Like one plant in a landscape spreading to three feet wide. Taking over hanging baskets large. Are they for real?

I had an extra coconut liner and an extra wire hanging pot. They weren't the same size, but I don't care. If it really starts to take off, I can buy a bigger coco liner and just slide it under the other one, and add a little more potting soil. I went to Home Depot, the one garden center I hadn't been to already today (don't ask--you know the answer). I wanted to find Supertunia Vista Jazzberry. It's a new color for this year, that is more of a purply-pink. Did not find. I got the one everyone talks about in those videos, the Bubblegum. Classic pink. I knew the wire basket I was using was 16 inches, although my liner was 14. I may end up regretting this, but I bought three of them to put in the basket. (Maybe if I come across a Jazzberry, I can buy a single one and run a concurrent experiment for size.) I don't have a spot to hang this, so eventually I'll figure out a pedestal for it. It's planted and watered in now, so all I can do is wait and watch. More later.