Thinking these thoughts made me feel unworthy. Who would look a gift horse in the mouth that way? I’d wanted free plants; I’d gotten free plants. And if my calibrachoa weren’t as exciting as phlox, I could always just let them die.

Only I couldn’t, of course. Having accepted my free plants, I was now in thrall to them, doomed to water and weed and fertilize them, and fret over their survival. As a gardener, I tend to anthropomorphize. I talk to my azaleas and rose bushes. They don’t talk back. But even so, having a conversation with a plant, even a calibrachoa, is like giving a captured enemy soldier one of your cigarettes. It establishes a relationship. Afterward, you can’t just shoot him in the head.

That summer was a rough one. A lot of my Proven Winners didn’t make it. I was deeply ashamed as I filled out the final online survey: “Rotted in the ground.” “Browned out in July.” “Lost to aphids.” Proven Winners now knew I was a total loser, a confessed mass murderer. There would be no more freebies for me.

So come springtime, I stocked up early at The Home Depot again. My garden was overflowing by Memorial Day weekend. Which was when the huge box of brand-new Proven Winners arrived.

This spring is my fourth as a Trial Gardener. Despite the death count, there’s even less room in my garden. Ruth and Marcia are still happy to take the overflow. And while I’m still not getting enough phlox (Proven Winners, are you listening?), trial gardening has made me much less provincial. Without it, I’d never have known the delicate, long-stemmed beauty of gaura, or the flirtatious frillery of Cuphea llavea ‘Flamenco Rumba’ in bloom.

It’s not the giddy joyride I imagined. There’s a lot more responsibility, a lot more loss. The rewards are fewer. Somehow, though, that only makes them sweeter. I guess trial gardening is like life that way.