"Spring fever" - literally

I've been reminded of Murphy's law again. I took some vacation days and woke up with the telltale signs of an impending bronchitis attack. I spent every night of my vacation struggling to breathe and the days feeling restless, tired and just not in the mood for anything, including gardening. Today (5 days later) I discovered that some of the new plants in my front garden has died due to neglect and not being watered. So I guess I'll have to revisit my plan and rethink the design, seems the pentas weren't able to withstand the intense afternoon sun (the front garden faces due west, plus it gets the reflected heat of a large cul-de-sac) without being watered for 5 days, even though we had 5 inches of rain over the course of 3 days last week (Wed - Fri) - our soil (sand) doesn't hold water and since I wasn't feeling well and forgot to water the plants, it seems some of the pentas succumbed to the afternoon sun, luckily they were only $2 a piece, so I can either replace the couple of dead ones, or rip out all of the remaining ones and plant them elsewhere. I'll check the remaining ones to see if they recover well enough over the course of the next couple of days and make my decision by the weekend.