Sad Plant Test and Deciding What to Plant

My American Beautyberry test plant is not doing well. It is droopy and it is easy to tell even though it is really short. It turns out that it actually needs slightly acidic soil. I have super alkaline soil. The American Beautyberry also needs quite a bit of water (of course, any water is quite a bit to me). I have been watering it, but apparently either not enough or the soil is killing it. I'm really glad I planted it. I'm starting to reconsider some of the other plants I like that I was thinking about planting with it.

It is really hard to resist wanting to plant pretty plants. I made a list of low to medium water plants from the Austin Native and Adapted plants booklet. I wanted to plant Skyflower Duranta (S&C have a really fab one in their yard), Esperanza/Yellow Bells, Pumbago, Black-eyed Susans, Indigo Spires Salvia, Coreopsis, Society Garlic, and Liriope with the American Beautyberry. I'm starting to rethink planting any of those plants and just enjoying them when I see them. They require water every 2 to 4 wks.

I'm starting to also wonder about low-water plants that require watering every 3 to 4 weeks. It is just that if I stick to very low water plants that only need supplemental watering when it is very dry, I won't have all that many choices and that is not even considering what kind of soil requirements they have. At the same time, I need to keep in mind self-knowledge. I really liked the description of one plant at one of the nurseries that said appreciates benign neglect. I'm having a hard enough time keeping up with the watering requirements for my veggie garden and that is with using ollas.

I'm feeling really lucky that desert willows like high alkaline soil and very low water (I just looked it up.) because I've bought a 2nd one to plant today after work. Along with some calylophus (which looks much better in person than any picture I've seen of it). It likes slighlty alkaline soil. Lucky again.