Garden Tour Part 6 2026

Hello, everybody. This is my front yard at the end of May, start of June. And let me just go through this yard and show you everything that's blooming around it. The focal point is, of course, this big bougainvillea. I think I've had it maybe three years, and bougainvillea is a very, very vigorous and wonderful summer bloomer in milder climates. This sage that I think pairs very well with it. They're both very cool colored. This is mystic spires, and this pretty much blooms from spring to fall as well. Here I've got double easy orange as a tree, and this was sent to me by Jackson and Perkins, I think, two years ago. It was sent as a bare root in July, so I really had to just baby it to make sure it would survive. I do think double easy orange is an excellent variety. The rebloom is very, very consistent, and the petal count is good. The form, almost like an old garden rose sort of look, and it maintains a size and maintains color far better than other of these. I have these two ground covers that I use extensively in the garden. This first one is called Bidens, like the former president, and this is a ground cover that is a perennial here and blooms pretty much 365 days a year. This is lobelia arenis. It comes in mostly varied shades of blue, and it's also a year-round bloomer here. The plant maybe just lives for about three years, so what I've been doing is I keep taking cuttings and perpetually growing this plant because the bloom quality is so good, and a nice blue flower is hard to find. Here's some more Bidens, and then here we go up the bougainvillea onto Pope John Paul II. He's pretty much in full blush. You see he wants to take over the sidewalk as well, and I do think overall, among all the white hybrid teas, this one is the best. The bloom is tremendously generous, and the quality is always there. The fragrance is always a strong citrus. I'll show you the close-up what a nice bloom looks like. Here you go. The stems are not like super thick, but they still manage to hold the plant aloft. What I find is this variety is especially efficient. It produces so much bloom relative to the heft of the plant. When I come to prune it, I see, oh, it wasn't really that huge, but when I look at the flower production, it really is as good as any other variety. And here I've got a Flambego starting to mix and bloom with the bougainvillea. Next to Pope John Paul, here we've got Double Delight, one of the most fragrant and distinctively colored of all roses. Still a favorite for me. Very, very popular variety. And I've got some more Mystic Spires here, and this is Sweet Delight starting per second flush. Also another very generous and very fragrant rose. Here we come across some more ground covers. This one is Limonium Status, and a very good pollinator plant. Kind of a seaside plant in its native environment. I think it's a Mediterranean seaside plant that also blooms year-round. And here I've got my favorite of the Lobelia. This is, again, a Lobelia arenis, but this one is blue with a white eye. I find it especially eye-catching. And here, a White Bidens that also blooms pretty much all year. And Miss All-American Beauty, she's in full flush as well. This is the second flush, so they're a little taller now. This plant is about five feet and, you know, not as compact as it was in the spring. It's kind of going its own way. And this is Bolero, always also a really good bloomer. Here we see what Bolero looks like. It's an old garden rose with a very good fragrance Floribunda. It's bred by Mayon, good for a long variety, a big variety of climates. And here we've got an Electric Blue Lobelia. And then this is Golden Zest on the second flush. The first flush blooms were larger, but these are still quite nice. What I like about Golden Zest, it holds a little longer than the Austin Yellows. It's bred from Golden Celebration, but I think it lasts a little longer than Golden Celebration and Molyneux and Tees in Georgia and that whole bunch. And here's just a little slice of dirt that I decided to utilize very densely. It supports my palm tree that accents the house. And I've got this ever-blooming ice plant. Most ice plants only bloom in the spring, but this one, while not quite as profuse in the spring, it blooms from spring all the way until like November, December. And here we have the favorite Lobelia again. Some Geraniums and Gazania and Calabracoa and Bougainvillea. Then on the other side of my gate that I suppose is for a boat or for an RV, I don't have either of those, so it's just a gate for me. The neighbor let me have a of this little piece here. And this is Treasure Trail. Treasure Trail in about a 25-gallon pot. And I find this variety blooms almost continuously. And here we see the little button center with the deeper towards the center, lighter at the edges, a tiny green proliferation, very detailed rose with the mossy buds. And a very compact grower, so don't have to worry about Treasure Trail growing into a monster and overwhelming this little area. And here we have Bidens and, pardon the trash cans, but Agapanthus. And this rose just starting to bloom is Pom Pom Veranda. This is one that also gives almost constant color. I show you the bloom, kind of like a mini Eden in terms of color and form. I actually think Pom Pom Veranda, while a smaller flower, is a little more intricate than Eden. And the blooms last forever on this variety, so it does give a really good display. And then here's another White Bidens and Yellow Bidens and Light Blue Lobelia and Electric Blue Lobelia. And Agapanthus kind of falling over itself. And this is True Love starting her second flush. This is another rose. The three I planted here, Treasure Trail, Pom Pom Veranda, Pashmina, and True Love, they're kind of, they're landscape roses that also have very nice and interesting individual flowers. So I like that they provide a lot of long-term and are almost always in display. And yet you get color and you get beautiful detailed flowers. And then along this trail, I've got more of Lobelia and Bidens. This is Chicago Peace starting another flush. And this kind of blend usually get the best color when it's sunny and mild, which is what we are fortunate enough to have now. And so this is the magical coloring of pinks and yellows with a little bit of orange. And here's a complimentary rose. This is Outrageous, also orangey with sort of a yellow reverse. Outrageous has a very strong classic rose scent, which is unusual for a rose of this color and also blooms a lot. This is Bronze Star, very large flower. These might be only like four or five inches, but in the springtime, it can get, you know, maybe five, six inches, even a little more than that. But right now, the color especially brilliant, this coppery orange shade, and this variety also has a very nice and distinct sort of apple fragrance to it. Show you another bloom close up here. This is Esprit de Paris, a new plant for me that I think I'm going to be very fond of. It is very fluffy and peony shaped. Reminds me a little bit of Yves Piaget, but as you see here with the younger flower, there's a lot more color variation. You kind of see rosy oranges and yellows mixed in with the basic pink. So actually, you know, color is more close to Chicago Peace. The form is closer to Yves Piaget. I think it has some of the good qualities of both of those roses. This is Sensuous. I find the ruffling and layers of the petal of this rose very distinct. They're like concentric rings of ruffles. Kind of reminds me of like phyllo dough or tissue paper or something. Has a nice strong vanilla scent, and Sensuous is accented by these status here. And this one is loaded with buds, but just starting to bloom. These are Fuchsias coming into bloom here in Zone 9b. Fuchsias are perennials. They're actually kind of shrubs, small shrubs, kind of a little bit tender shrubs, but hardy here. And they've got a couple of colors on them. This one is red on red. This one, red on purple. You see, it's loaded with buds and just starting to bloom here. Kind of hard to capture with the sun the way it is. And then this one more like a white on a fuchsia pink. And they grow quite vigorously here and have a nice long season of bloom. This is my Saturn Peach Tree. I actually have a couple of these, and they have these flat saucer-shaped fruit. They're very, it's white-fleshed and extremely juicy and sweet. So I'm going to need to cover these from the birds. Otherwise, I won't get any. The squirrels and birds will eat them all. And very, very productive variety. It's not this very disease resistant, but a super heavy bearer of fruit. And this light purple airy plant is a Verbena benariensis. This one is maybe six feet tall. I'll show you the close-up. It's a good magnet for butterflies and some Lobelia to go with it. And then this kind of harlequin-colored carnation. Carnations bloom mostly in April here, but they still have scattered blooms much later in the season. So it's a good plant for long-term, a good color. And here I've got a big Shasta Daisy. Gonna see it with the Lobelia and the tall Verbena. Here I've got some Datura. Mine has been kept in a pot, so it's rather limited in size. These large bells for tropic and semi-tropic environments. They're very fragrant at night and in the early morning. And I got a vertical Begonia next to it. Both in pots, so that's kind of limiting their size. I think this Datura is maybe four to five feet tall, but I've seen others in the neighborhood that are planted in the ground and they're much bigger. This is blue for you, showing some extraordinarily blue-purple flowers for a rose. I think mostly it's the great climate that we've had in the last couple of weeks. Every bloom turning out this wonderful color that you don't usually see a rose quite this blue. And even though this variety is among the bluest, it usually isn't even quite this blue or purple.