April garden tour 2026 | Texas Gulf Coast Zone 9b

Good morning everyone and welcome to our backyard. It is the end of April and so it is time for me to do our backyard garden tour and I like to stand on the patio and just pan the backyard so I have the same starting point each month to compare with. Then I'll go to a certain section and we'll start there. The sun is peeking through so I'm going to start by looking at our patio containers and the reason I have containers on the patio is because one we like looking out at the vista and two it allows us to get the pollinators up close to not only let me pan this way our kitchen windows but also our patio our back door and so it's just wonderful to be able to see the pollinators like the hummingbirds and butterflies up close. So my name is Crystal and I garden in zone 9b south of Houston Texas close to the Texas Gulf Coast. So as we start I am going to show you I typically have not grown petunias but in the spring I have liked to get some Proven Winners Supertunia Vista petunias because they last for us for about four months and they really add a nice pop of color. Somebody might ask well why don't they last longer they just don't they hate the high humidity that we have in our high scorching heat in the summer and they pretty much just melt away in our midsummer. So I'll usually replace them with something else but it's so worth it to have this wonderful pop of color in the spring. And then as I come down I've got some containers I talked about this container in my previous video I like color I plant for pollinators so what you see in here the Kufia the pollinators love the salvia the native salvia bicolor salvia and on my coleus I won't let the coleus bloom until about September and so I'll pinch off the blooms. You'll know you'll know most gardeners pinch off blooms all the time I do not because the pollinators absolutely love the teeny tiny coleus blooms but once coleus starts to bloom then their foliage looks really straggly and so I don't let it bloom until late summer and then I let it bloom for the pollinators and then it looks like I'm gonna have some really pretty pink tropical hibiscus blooms here I got a leaf that's going there um I think I mentioned before on my tropical hibiscus you will have an issue and it's true with mealy bugs and mealy bugs will attack a lot of the tropical hibiscus and I don't know how to describe this but I don't have any problems with a certain type of hibiscus and mealy bugs and they just leave my hibiscus alone and these are all the pink and they're such a nice textured dark green the leaves are not glossy so it is just a nice leaf and I don't have any problems with any bugs at all but I can't buy all the beautiful colors because of course I would have problems with the mealy bugs so I oh I've got some of my salvia purple flowers that landed in there so anyway look for the non-glossy leaf because when you look at tropical hibiscus it won't give you you know they're all the same pretty much that's they won't give you additional typically information or at least in the nurseries that I'm at they don't so look for those leaves that are non-glossy the nice dark green and you won't have a problem I don't have a problem with bugs any other tropical hibiscus though I have problems with bugs and as I continue on I have a container of salvia I love mist expire salvia in containers I've got blue days vinca um I hate that when I have a brain fart and get over there and say it in just a second azinia but these are Wendy's Wish salvia from the Make-A-Wish foundation down in Australia love how I just I just think that color is so pretty and then on the end I have some zinnias in a container with my mist expires and then if you saw my post you'd laugh at me because I'm such a sucker for this delphinium oh my goodness our local Costco has gotten this the last few springs and I am you know it was six dollars and ninety sixteen dollars and ninety nine cents and I am such a sucker for this delphinium you typically don't grow to zone nine and they'd like it in the cooler weather but look at that and in the in our spring we've had a little bit of a it's just been an odd spring so I can enjoy this for a few months the only thing that I've learned is if it gets windy I have to protect it because they will flop over and then you miss these beautiful long look at that long spikes of color oh I just love that blue and lavender color okay as I turn over on this side I have a container that I protected through the winter and the vinca is still going strong this is called bubble gum salvia pink bubble gum I have a Texas rock rose in here it's been flowering um oh there's a flower over here it's been just starting to flower there we go such a pretty pretty flower and then I have a pink little skull cap that's native and it is not flowering yet but these containers are then having um a porterweed right under my kitchen window I see hummingbirds at this porterweed almost every day all right we're going to go over this way springtime is the time when we call this our tree bed because we used to have a maple tree here that we had to remove because of disease unfortunately it our arborist told us that with the increasing temperatures even only two degrees since the 40 years we've lived here even the two degrees is too much for the silver maple that we had here and so it had to be removed and in its place we put a raised garden bed had the stump ground down put in nice well draining soil there's wood chips at the bottom of it it just the the plants really thrive here and so in this garden bed I have a kufia in a container on the end a David Verity I have my lantana that you've seen that I've talked about in the last couple of videos these did freeze to the ground in this garden bed and so they're just starting to come back and flourish they're not blooming yet but they will soon I've got some pink butterfly pentas and then of course the star of the show is the Amistad Salvia and the pink that you see over there is the Ambante this Salvia is a Gerenitica type it grows taller than I am at five and a half feet tall and it flowers for me until frost it just is the workhorse in this garden bed I typically don't have any problems with it except if it gets over 100 degrees for weeks in a row like we had in the summer of 2023 then I did lose one and I replaced it but outside of that I just don't have any problems with pests it returns every year and I just love this plant let me go to the back side this is a large garden bed and when I originally planted I planted three Amistad which is the purple and I planted two pink Amante and I do believe over time it's just going to take over the bed which I am absolutely fine with because it is such a pollinator magnet as I continue looking we have the container of red porterweed and as we go over I'm going to go over to what we call our trellis bed and this is a bed of host plants and the host plants in the back you can see them starting to recover and grow up is the passion vine which I absolutely love it will completely cover the trellis to where you won't be able to see the trellis it will just be a green blanket up there and that is for the gulf fritillary and the variegated fritillary butterflies we don't I don't have zebra longwings here yet so they are supposed to be flying in this area when I look at my guides but I haven't seen one in my garden yet and then in front I have a native to Texas which is called our flame acanthus and flame acanthus is a wonderful nectar plant and a host plant and this is a host plant to the butterfly called the Texas crescent butterfly it's a really tiny small little butterfly and I have this all throughout this garden bed below it is just I mean it just flourishes here but down in the spring early spring I've got gabura daisies that bloom beautifully for me and so this whole garden bed is host plants and what a host plant means is that butterflies will come and lay their eggs on the plant the caterpillars will feed and grow they will make a chrysalis more than likely in your garden somewhere and then they will mature into a butterfly to have the butterflies in your garden you do need to have this full process otherwise if you just have nectar plants you'll have visitors here and there so having those host plants is really really important and then when I turn back around here and I look at this back side you can see that I do have a small area of salvia lucantha or the Mexican bush sage and I have a different varieties back here I've got the regular and then I've got the santa barbara which is a more of a dwarf variety and as you can see it gets taken over by this beautiful amante and amistad isn't that just gorgeous okay my south bed I'm going to show you briefly it is starting to return everything here froze to the ground or the soil level absolutely almost everything except my native coral honeysuckle and way in the corner way back there is it was protected by itself basically the higher areas that was the Mexican flame vine and so everything else here died to the ground and you can see that it's returning I do have the Mexican bird of paradise that's starting barely starting to come back and then I did lose my pink which is super tender I did lose my pink porterweed so I will need to replace that but as I look through here my giant milkweed has been returning gorgeously in here you'll see salvia farinacea it's just a smattering of plants it's just I just kind of let it go and it recedes and I just really love it and then of course I have my fire bush back here that is starting to come back and so I won't see flowers for a little bit because it does take it effort to get to come back from the soil level after a freeze but I'm really happy they return for me every year in my last video I shared with you the type of lantana that I absolutely love this is the bloomify series which is a sterile and mounding lantana and this also died it's in a container it died to the soil level and it's just starting starting to bloom as you can see here so this has been a workhorse the one that I was able to protect has just been flowering gorgeously and then I have a flameacanthus back here I've got some salvia lucantha and I do have my porterweed so that is a coral porterweed that is coming and is returning so I'm just really really happy to see how this has come back this will seem to be hit the hardest and it's taken it a while to return I have both the white and purple native salvia farinacea and it just recedes itself all in here and then I shared with you in the past I have my candlestick alata which is my candlestick tree and that has returned because it's receded itself and then you'll see a greg's mist flower back here it doesn't flourish and it doesn't take over the bed but it's just starting to bloom I don't know if I can get that oh it looks like it's not gonna there we go monarch butterflies and they just and queen butterflies love that flower especially the queens all right let's continue on so as I continue on I am going to look at what we call our center bed and we see this garden bed from our kitchen table from our kitchen sink when I look out onto the patio or when I'm on the patio and so this is a pretty important garden bed for us to look at vistas and I don't know if you can see I'm going to oh it's the thing that's so hard to film about butterflies is they fly all over and they're very quick and very fast but we have had a lot of pipeline swallowtail butterflies this spring and I've been so happy because we have the host plants for them let me zoom in it's such a beautiful butterfly I don't know if you saw on its abdomen but the pipeline swallowtail butterflies even have a blue abdomen so fun anyway that's the lantana that we were able to save and it's just been attracting the butterflies like crazy monarchs gulf fritillaries pipevine swallowtails and so in this garden bed I've shared with you a lot of this in the previous videos but the liatris that I planted from bulbs that I had gotten at Costco they're starting to create their liatris spikes and so I'm really happy to see this I have a porterweed it's called a dwarf porterweed it won't be dwarf by the end of the summer but that is in here and it will take over this garden bed the liatris does its thing in spring and early summer and then it will die back and then I'll have plants that will take over you'll notice I have my cardinal climber it's starting to actually climb our trellises it will be beautiful by mid-summer and look at that hot lip salvia in the center there isn't that beautiful you see I've got a couple of renegade passion vine I'm gonna have to pull pollinators love love love salvia my bat face kufia that I planted last fall that's kind of overtaking this area and I have a rose marvel salvia nemorosa and it's gonna be I think overtaken which I'm okay with because unfortunately salvia nemorosa does not like our massive humidity in the summer I have a yarrow plant that is blooming for me beautifully this spring coming around my stokesia I mentioned it's got it's starting to create its its buds and it will be blooming shortly and I can see back here it's starting and I love this oh my goodness I planted summer jewels salvia which is an annual and it's reseeded itself in through here I pretty much let it reseed wherever it wishes I've got coneflower and lyreleaf salvia pentas and then of course wonderful mystic spires and the lantana all right let us now take a look over here I have a mama swallowtail butterfly laying eggs as you can see she's flying around she is laying eggs on my host plant which is on that is a ground cover that is the white vein dutchman's pipe vine and you can tell I still don't have my three containers in the ground I need to plant them and through here I have had caterpillars so you can see let me get down here this is what their caterpillars look like and they will munch this down to the ground can you see that caterpillar there's another one right there there we go anyway absolutely love having this ground cover this area is new for me I have ground cover on the complete other side over there that's that's has many more plants but I wanted to start the plants over on this side also and I have a native pigeonberry it's been flowering this creates berries and flowers on the same at the same time which is fairly unusual and then I have my shrimp plant I used to have these shrimp plants in containers on the end here and the shrimp plant is a real unique plant it's fascinating to me it has this bract which looks like a shrimp and then the flower is underneath and hummingbirds will come under and under the flower and drink from it from underneath and so I used to have these on containers at the end here and I decided you know what I'm going to plant them in the ground and they've just gone bonkers I cut them about six inches above the ground and they are just growing and and going nuts and so I do love they are in my shade garden here so they do receive some morning sun and shade all right as I continue this way I do not have this garden bed finished I will be planting up my caladiums in these containers I just don't have the caladiums yet and so I need to be at the garden center sooner I will miss out but in this bed I have my coleus planted I did cut them back so they would branch better and not just grow to be a tall pencil and then new for me I planted last fall an American Beautyberry and so it has returned and come back nicely and then as I pan this way you know I'm a huge fan of this plant this is my selvia that blooms in the fall it's a butter yellow bloom and it thrives in the shade this is called forsythia sage or selvia madrensis its leaves are humongous look at that I love the texture I love the color I just love this plant and this has been growing so if you didn't want if you wanted it to stay in an area you'd probably have to pull the little starts that you see in the spring I haven't yet because it hasn't overtaken this garden bed I have the coleus in the front which I will I mentioned let flower oh September-ish and then over here is my white-veined Dutchman's Pipe I know it's looking a little bit straggly oh we see mama a mama butterfly in here she's probably wanting to lay eggs and I golly I have probably I don't know it's over 10 plants in here and they have eaten it down quite a bit already this spring but it's starting to come back you can see that they come back and they come back quickly which I love oh here this is cute I think I got one under here yep there's a group of little babies under there oh how cute so this ground cover eventually maybe I will have throughout this whole garden bed back here I don't know I just love love this plant and then of course I have the butterflies all summer long in my garden because having this host plant usually and typically this plant does not flower at all in the spring but it looks like I'm getting a couple of flowers here this is the salvia madrensis that's that butter yellow salvia really doesn't have many yellow colors so this is such a treat to have in the garden look at her she's trying to find the spot which is hard difficult because there's caterpillars here and so she certainly doesn't want the eggs to be eaten and I'm sure she's one of mine and then I do have another plant which is called the um aristolochia tomentosa this is the woolly leaf pipevine and this is native to Texas but it does not appreciate full sun and so I have it in morning sun and it I have planted it so it will grow all up into our red tip here and I've seen her lay eggs on this also they don't prefer this they actually prefer this ground cover which I find fascinating but I do have both all right and now for my last I'm going to look over this way to pull some weeds here I have what we call our north garden bed and this also is host plant and nectar plant for butterflies and hummingbirds well basically my whole garden is but as we look this way you'll notice my giant milkweed this one isn't returning as well as the one on the south end and I was so shocked but look at this my porterweed returned I didn't have many returned but this one is returning might have been a little bit more protected over here so when I look at my garden bed this way you see predominantly salvia and bronze fennel and that is by design because host plant and nectar plants and then they have places to hide in here my maraschino bush salvia is flowering it's really a pretty red bright red color Augusta dulberg is this white this is a native and then I have bronze fennel that receded itself in here oh goodness I'm surprised my cardinal hasn't found I'm glad he hasn't found my big caterpillar back here look at that isn't that gorgeous this is the host plant to the eastern black swallowtail and I've got coneflowers it's gonna start flowering soonish you'll see just bronze fennel I'm gonna go over on this other side this is a false nettle plant which is a host plant to the red admiral butterfly I don't really see a lot of red admirals and I need more than one host plant you can't just really have one plant and that's all I have for this one if you want the butterflies to lay eggs but I just don't really have any spots for it oh boy I think I see yes I do there is a monarch here and it's just emerging from its chrysalis let me zoom in that is so incredibly fun the reason we do is because I have milkweed on this end and they've eaten it down to nothing right this is a native milkweed it's starting to come back and I have my green milkweed that I want to plant over on this end also because I'm going to be planting it out this way so I don't have a lot of milkweed right now but I'm that's one of them that you see here that is from this area I'm sure just because that's where its chrysalis ended up it's good to see it the the thing with monarchs well with all butterflies is they need to hang and let their wings dry as they inflate them as they the blood courses through and they have to dry before they can fly so that takes a couple of hours isn't that fun I love it I just love I love the nature out here and that's one of the reasons why we planted our gardens I still have a couple of things to replace my diplodinia didn't make it which I didn't expect we did try covering them but it didn't it was just too cold during our winter freeze but most everything is coming back just beautifully I'm so happy with our spring gardens well thank you for joining me on the tour today taking a look at what we have I hope you have a wonderful day today and I hope to see you again soon