Texas Garden Tour July 2026 Thriving in 100 Summer Heat

Hi everyone, welcome back. My name is Dawn. I garden in zone 8b in North Texas. Welcome to my channel. If you're new here, I'm grateful you're here. If you're a subscriber and you're returning to watch, thank you so much for coming back and always supporting my channel. I hope everyone had a beautiful 4th of July. Raul and I are back from a two-week vacation where we went to Portugal and Spain. I'll be sharing some photos and videos on my Instagram and Facebook so be sure to find me over there at Shaded From Reality. But we're so glad to be back in the garden and as you can imagine, we had a lot of work to do. As always, leave lots of comments. I love to hear from you guys and if you haven't subscribed, I hope you'll consider subscribing. Alright, let's go ahead and jump right in. So many things are in bloom and so many things have been cut back but just to give a general overview of how everything's looking, it's been a hot July since we've been back and unfortunately, we were there for the tail end of that heat wave in Europe. Barcelona was pretty hot but let's go ahead and start here with the Goldstrom Rubacchia. This is a beautiful, beautiful Rubacchia. It's been coming back pretty strong every year, spreading so nicely and because of all of this beautiful color up front, I've been able to cut back a lot of the perennials in the back of the bed. This is Senorita Rosalita. She's an annual and I love everything about her but you can see she also needs to be cut back and I love this annual color because it does kind of pad when I need to cut back my perennials. So several cutbacks have happened so far including the mist expires and the amazing daisies back there. Texas Fall Aster is all along the base here. This is the bed that I created earlier this summer. The Bridal Respirea is doing well. I want to highlight that beautiful morning light maiden grass back there. Absolutely gorgeous. I do have it in a couple of spaces here in the front garden and coming around you can see the dill. I don't see any pollinators and that's the main reason I planted it as a host plant and I've also got some parsley down here. Again, I don't see any signs of caterpillars so that's disappointing but keeping my fingers crossed. I have a volunteer Cleome here. You can see the Abelia has gone nuts. This is Radiance Abelia. You can see it shooting sky high. I'll come in and close that or cut those off very soon. It's not my priority right now so I'm just letting them be. Henry Duhlberg. This is Mealy Blue Sage. It needs to be cut back. I haven't gotten to that and you can see the Double Play Doozy is going on to a second bloom and that's one that I didn't cut back. I usually like to but you can see the dark foliage in the new growth is still so beautiful. This is a really wonderful plant here in North Texas. The oak leaf is all done blooming. This Laura Petulum is so massive. It's really beautiful back here but you can see the rain barrel. We're harvesting lots of water from those June rains. The Japanese Clairis trimmed up as trees doing wonderful back here. Coming around you can see how sad that is the Mystic Blue Spires. I cut it back and yes it's devastating but from the front of the garden everything looks fine because of everything going on up there. You don't even notice the spirea missing but it was beautiful but it had fallen on top of everything. So coming around you can see the Helen Weinstein Lamb's Ear. Lots of Kufias. They're self-seeding all over my garden. It's pretty wonderful. They're a beautiful annual to have by the way. Love the Texas heat. This is a gorgeous Coriopsis called Mercury Rising. It's a herbaceous perennial and I love it. It is so whimsical up here in the front of the garden and it's doing well right next to the Muhly grass which is filling out nicely by the way. This is the Zexmania tucked in back here with the Blackfoot. I'm sorry that's Milkweed behind it and then next to that is the Mexican Bush Sage. This is a bicolor. It should start doing amazing once it really really starts heating up. This will come alive and the Milkweed over here. This is a Swamp Milkweed and I love it. It has been in bloom almost all season all the way from spring. The Rattlesnake Master here is putting on a lot of growth and you can see all sprinkled throughout is Blackfoot Daisy. I've got some Volunteer Augustoches back there. Some Volunteer Celosias. Lots of annuals tucked into this front area. I cut my amazing daisies back. There's some Volunteer Xenias in front of that. The Coneflowers have just taken over and reseeded this entire area and I'm going to let it. These haven't started blooming yet just because again these are new from seed but I expect them to start blooming soon. So between the Coneflowers and the Xenias this is going to be a really really pretty and pink area. Another Volunteer Augustoche. Just very beautiful. A Volunteer Cufia here and then these are Volunteer Dragon Breast Celosias. One of my favorites and it has volunteered all over my garden actually. Tucked away back there is a few new natives. Gulf Coast Penstemon is back there. I also have a giant Coneflower, actually two giant Coneflowers back there. The Gladiolas have all been harvested and I need to get in here and cut back my Russian Sage. I've cut back the Midnight Masquerade Penstemon but giving all of the color that is needed is our Holy Grail Hibiscus because just the foliage in itself is quite a show. It's just one of the most beautiful plants that as people are walking in the neighborhood so many of them stop and ask me what that is and tell me how beautiful it is and I would have to agree. And directly under the hibiscus is the fashionably early Flamingo Phlox and it is still in bloom. It's one of the earliest bloomers in my garden. It's beautiful and down under that to the right is the Jolt Cherry Dianthus. Also does really well in the heat. The Liatris Blazing Star is coming out of bloom. I think this was in bloom when we were on vacation but I love to leave the spiky stalks and the foliage. I think it had so much interest and especially right now when so many things are starting to burn up. All right as we move over here you can see my Mexican Sunflower Tithonia. I started from seed every year now as much as I love this flower I had to cut it back when we got back because it does get very very tall but I want more of a bush and since I wasn't here to cut it back I came back and had to cut off a lot of flowers. But as you can see here a few flowers are coming in and there's a lot of blooms on it or buds I should say. These beautiful Caladiums. I plant Caladiums every year. I got these at Costco. I do not know the variety but Caladiums will pucker out as our heat starts kicking in but I still tend to plant them because I love how they fill this area. There's not that much that can grow under this holly tree that flanks my porch here. The two Feather Falls Carax as you can see are so exquisite and I really want to add more of these to my garden. The foliage has gotten so long and I usually give it a haircut at the beginning of each season. We are planning on terracing this area. I don't know when but we're going to dig this grass out and terrace it because of the drainage situation. So a lot of the natives and perennials that we have planted that need more space will be able to move them at that time. And honestly the best time to plant things are in the fall here in Texas. So you can't really find a lot of plants in the fall so this is great because they're in my beds and I have them ready to go for when we're ready to do our project. But you can see down at the bottom this is Walled Germander and it is one of my favorites at this point. I'm loving its evergreen color and it's taking the place of all of the boxwoods in my garden. It's starting to make a little flower. It didn't last year so I don't know if each coming year I'll get more and more flowers out of it. But I love the spiky texture of it. In front of that is White Skull Cap. The camera doesn't do a good job of picking out that color. And of course I want to highlight the beautiful John Fannick Phlox who just so happened to have a Pipeline Swallowtail Butterfly on it while I was filming. I could sit and watch this all day long and the wind was blowing so it was really really beautiful. All right and as we come around this is Vivid Bright Lights Dianthus down there. That's a Monrovia Dianthus. Lots of Volunteer Salvia and Ducafia again. That is a Rose Creek Abelia. Several in there just to give some evergreen color. And then as we come around the Horseman Blue Addis Cedar is looking amazing. That light blue conifer is so beautiful with the River Rock. But it is a semi-dwarf and it'll be about 8 to 12 feet tall when it's completely grown. And Rob's water feature looks fantastic. We love the sounds that it makes now in our front garden. And we've been wanting one forever so when he saw that pot on the side of the road that was pretty cool. And he did make this himself and we did create a short video on how he did it. I'll put the link right here. But again lots of Profusion Zinnias and Volunteer Cufias. This is my Mexican Mint Marigold that I've cut back. It's one of those that you do need to cut back or by the time it starts to bloom in the fall it will flop over. But I do love this plant for the gorgeous golden foliage that it is in the fall. And then coming around we have more of the Rose Creek Abelias. And then you can see here is this gorgeous Crowning Glory. It's a Purple Rain Pineapple Lily. I'm not familiar with this plant but it looks like it's going to take and I'm excited to watch it grow. But I've got some Amelie Cup Sage growing back there from seed. It's going to be white and all of these plants just a lot of evergreen color going on between the Sunshine Magustrums, the Abelias, and the Lamb's Ear. And then you can see under the Japanese Maple I've just got some Seeded Coleus, that dark burgundy foliage. Foliage is so pretty with all of the minty and grayish colors going on back there with the foliage. And as we come around the Magnolia is doing beautifully and I think there's a few blooms left on it. You can see one way up high but for the most part it's done blooming and I love it because it hides my ugly hose back there. So it does its job. But all this coming around in this awesome, awesome Pretoria Canna Lily. I dug some up from the back and I'm bringing this gorgeous foliage up here to the front because you just can't beat it. And these pots here these are just another wonderful addition that we found in the neighborhood. It's wonderful when you have neighborhoods and they put things out on the street. So we got four of them. We kept two and then I gave two to my daughter when I went and landscaped her house for her and I gave her two. But I love the rustic look of the planter. I do have drip in here so I don't have to come out and water it every day. It makes a huge difference. And this is, let's see, coming around here I again just have a lot of volunteer Dragon's Breath Celosia that I underplanted under the Japanese Maple. So it's growing slow but I think that red color is going to be really pretty as it gets bigger. Coming around front just a lot of ground covers. The ground cover Juniper, so pretty. It was covered in baby oaks. Rob when we got back he came back he came through and trimmed up all of those baby oak trees and it seems to be a constant that there's not that much we can do about. I've got Henry Duhlberg over here and you can see it's looking crusty so I'm going to come make sure to get the Texas Chop on that. This is in bloom and still looks pretty. Artemisia going strong and I've got the second pot over here also hooked up to drip so it makes it a very pretty just to add some height right here into this bed. All right and as we come around onto the other side the Artemisia bed that I did earlier this season looks great and it's underplanted with some Dichondra Falls and then terraced below it is the big blue Liriope. Another perk of living in the neighborhood where they're putting things out at the driveway we got this really cool rock and we don't know what we're going to do with it yet. We're going to have to chip off some of this cement if we want to use it but we've already used others in multiple places in the garden. All right friends let's head to the back and I'm going to try to capture this before the sun starts rising. Dichondra Falls all throughout. This is the same Cleome I have in the front the Senorita Rosalita. This is the same canna lily that's in the front and then down here we have the native purple skull cap and then behind it is the Mexican Marigold which I have not had a chance to cut this one back yet. There's a mango blanket flower down there with lots of self-seeding zinnias all around it. As you can see I need to come in and give those a cut. Dwarf crepe myrtles they look like they're kind of coming out of bloom. There's some yellow yarrow and that lesser catnip. Both of those I have cut back and then here's a gorgeous planter. This is not mustard like I thought this is actually a beet and then it's underplanted with creeping jenny. There's some lavender and rosemary in there. It's a gorgeous planter and I do love to add herbs and veggies in my garden if their foliage is pretty like that. Why not? And then you can see a clematis growing up into the crepe myrtle because why not? All right these are in the sun so we'll come back to these in a little bit. And here's the container garden with the morning sun coming through. It's so beautiful but I wanted to show you this cute mobile that we got in Portugal. Little dragonflies. It's so cute when the wind blows their little tails spin. I love it so much but I do think that it might be scaring away the hummingbirds so I'm not sure if I'll be able to leave it there. I'll have to find another spot. Beautiful Japanese maples and pots. He's getting huge and then I'll keep spinning. I'll do a slow spin show you guys everything. This is the blood good and then I want you to know people ask all the time about weeds but look what we did come back to. See that? That is all weeds. All weeds. Well other than the sedum along the house here and this is one I keep getting putting off because it's in sun most of the day so there's really not a good time to come out here. But lots of coleus, the dragonweed begonia does so well all summer long. Beautiful guacamole hosta and it's about to bloom. I also want to note about the Belinda's dream and the moonlight in Paris. Rose bushes. Both of them are coming in and looking healthy. I was really struggling with thrips. I released lacewing larva and I you know it's so hard to tell when you release that larva and if I can find a little card somewhere. Here you go. Look right in there. So you purchase the little cards and I think I got these from Arbico Organics. This is old you won't see anymore but it's larva in glue and then well it's not glue but whatever it is the product they use and then the larva release themselves slowly into your plants. So you put them on the plants that you're really struggling with and then you just hope they take over your garden but obviously they're working. Previously with thrip damage you would see lots of brown sucking away at your buds and so your buds already look brown before they open. Anyways that's a relief. Looking good, looking good. Everything in the container garden is interplanted with just lots of varieties of coleus. More coleus and I found this variegated bear's breeches so I thought I'd give it a try. Just fill a crate in a little snow. However the new growth looks like it's coming in non-variegated so we'll see. That happens a lot. Beautiful hydrangea turning green back here. It's doing well. It's doing well in this area. It hasn't turned crispy yet which is very interesting. The Australian tree fern in the pot is amazing. Huge. And back here I have two leopard plants. You can see the clematis and if you saw some of my earlier videos you saw we had to cut it all the way down because we were staining these fences but it's definitely had a nice comeback and even though we cut it down the blooms are scattered throughout. So if you're interested in growing clematis I will put the link to the video because I have started so many babies along this fence. It was originally two plants then it turned to three. Lots of babies. This is a new baby so I do highly recommend you giving clematis a try. Leatherflower is a good native if you'd like to try a native variety and I'll show you that in just a little bit. Another Japanese maple. You can see all of the clematis growing into it. Lots of new growth and I do not see it harming the tree just yet so I'm not worried about it. I threw a little dill seed in right there so look it's coming up. I didn't think it was going to get enough sun but it is so and these are all on drip from both the sprinkler head and the water hose. Again container gardening can be a little bit of a struggle in Texas just because of the amount of heat and they dry out pretty quickly. So if you're going to have a container garden I recommend you set it up on drip or just put plants that can handle the drought. These holly ferns are very old now. You can see how beautiful and large they are. Pentas are doing beautifully. I normally do pentas in this area. It's funny, let me go from one side to the next and you can see the difference in the blooms when as they reach for the sun. So the bloom is on the pool side and the peachy keen verbena is a beautiful annual and it is loving the heat. I have another one over here and let me show it to you so that you can see how well it's doing. All right and in the back we've got lots of this is just this area over here is the self-seeding alyssum and it spreads and volunteers throughout this entire area. It's beautiful. Also some self-seeding basil that pumps up every year and I do pull it out from this area because we have a sidewalk here and we have to be able to walk on it. So we step on our base, we step on the alyssum, we tend to kill it. This is the chiclet orange esperanza and the blooms look a little few and far between right now. It was in full bloom. The orange is such a beautiful variety. You know I love a good orange in my garden. And the plumeria is starting to crank out some beautiful flowers. Look how huge this cluster is and the rest of them have lots of babies getting ready to burst open. There's about to be a showdown going on on my fence. Just keep watching. I don't know what's gonna happen but something's gonna happen. Evil squirrel. All right well so much of that. This is a new clematis I'm giving a try. She's just a baby so we're gonna see how she grows in my garden. And then here's happy Diana and she's doing amazing even in this heat. She's continuing to put on growth. So as we flip around to this bed we have more liatris blazing star. In front of that is more self-seeding alyssum. Then the purple pintas. The drift roses coming out of bloom. And look at this monster volunteer of dragon's breath celosia. This is huge. It goes all the way up to my knees and so I'm leaving it. And then more gorgeous john fennec flocks back here. Absolutely beautiful. And it's just slowly spreading. Then it's got underneath we've got more blackfoot daisy. Lots of echinacea started as white swans from seed and then purple pupuria echinacea kind of all intermingled in there. So we've got a bunch of colors as the purple is going in and out of shades of pink and mauve and all kinds of beautiful things going on there. I'm actually loving it. I was liking just the white swan but the mix is working too. And then another favorite for my pollinators is this lesser catmint and I feel like it absolutely glows in the garden. Dragon's breath celosia again volunteering everywhere. That's some black and blue salvia that has spread taken over. Beautiful. Need to cut back but it's too late so I'm just gonna let it be. And again lots of beautiful echinacea but I want you to see that incredible incredible hydrangea back there. Looks beautiful under the Arizona cypress tree here and I should step back and show you the tree. All these colors together look very very beautiful. They work well. On this side we've got more alyssum that is seeding into the sidewalk and then the dusty miller with the cat's pajamas nepeta behind it that I can't get myself to cut back. It's one that I always struggle to cut back just because it feels so much space up and then it always looks so pretty this time of year. You can see back there more coneflowers. They're reseeding all over my garden. This is the same goldschrummer bacchia that's in the front. It's interesting how different areas different microclimates, right? This one is just full of buds hasn't even bloomed yet but anyway. The good thing about all of this growth is it's keeping the weeds out. There was milkweed back here. I'm sorry there was butterfly weed back here so if it can find its way through all of this celosia that'll be a bonus. You can see all the volunteer celosia in the sidewalk here and as we come down I got this new hummingbird feeder that I love. The nectar sits at the bottom and I like to put up a few more hummingbird feeders when I do my Texas chop since I take out a lot of their favorite bushes and flowers and then we'll just turn around to a different view, different perspective. It's very colorful but I think it does work together well and down here we have the moonbeam coreopsis. It just now seems to be putting on some growth. All tucked away under these eagleson hollies. I've got I think voodoo sedum in here and then we've got some autumn joy sedums and also lily sage up in there as well as the purple foliage is oxalis which I'm now becoming to be a little more grateful for since these eaglesons have been such a challenge to grow anything under. I'm actually grateful for the purple oxalis. Never in a million years that I thought I'd hear myself saying that but down here we have again more pink kufia and then it's scattered throughout with some Augusta lavender heliotrope. Both of these are re-seeding every year. The kufia re-seeds but it's super super slow to get started. The heliotrope re-seeds and it gets started very quickly in the spring. Gorgeous combination and as we come around another ground cover that I'm grateful for is this silver and gold chrysanthemum. You can see that it is kind of taking over under this holly tree and that silver and gold chrysanthemum you can see the silver foliage underneath. I love this plant and in the fall it creates this really small gold little ball. It's just wonderful. So it does spread by rhizomes underground just like the oxalis. So I'm letting these two go to town and here's a good look at the eagleson hollies. They're putting on lots of growth. We're trying to get them to grow straight up and that's you see rope everywhere. But I did trim both of my oak leaf hydrangeas this year. I'm wanting more growth upright. It is growing so far into the sidewalk. I'm really really having to prop them back by using string or whatever whatnot to hold the branches upright. So I've either been propping them with stake or I've been using burlap and tie it to the fence just like this. And you can see that there's already some new growth. And then on the other side we have underplanted the coleus here is underplanted with more Helen von Stein lamb's ear, some more cat's pajamas, cat mint, some nandinas, hostas all here under the Japanese clayeras. And then on this side I'm trying a new native here. This is heartleaf skullcap. It did have some blooms on it earlier in the season. While I'm here I want to highlight this gorgeous bird feeder that Rob and I put together. Holds several bird feeders at a time and the birds have been visiting our garden left and right. It's been pretty cool. And then this container garden I've got lots of coleus. This is a coleus tree that I've had for several years now and I don't even know the variety of coleus but it's so beautiful. And it's just super super tall and I've just got some creeping jenny in it. But we bring it into the greenhouse every year. I'm trying to make a lantana tree. So I've got them braided into a trunk and then just slowly clipping this growth. You know I love to make things into trees. And I'm trying some succulents in this spot. I have string of bananas down here which I absolutely love. We've got in a couple of spots in the garden now. There's one back in the container garden. And then this one up here is eonium voodoo. It's looking pretty cool. And then what I thought was dead was my Shirley's bouquet rose which was originally in this pot. And I see that it actually lived. I thought it died in an ice storm. So I'm thrilled. And then back here you can see all of the hostas underplanted from the oak leaf hydrangea tree that I'm pruning. And I'm just trying to shape it right now so that it fills out at the top. I've got lots of hosta varieties, a leopard plant, and a wood violet all underplanted there just to kind of fill that area. It gets full shade. This is the variegated liriope and then creeping germinator in front of that. And then that tall grass is blue fescue grass with gray santolina underneath. Since I'm not able to highlight every single plant, please let me know if there's something that I'm not highlighting and you want to know what it is. Just let me know at the time that it's shown and I can let you know. When I cut my oak leaves back, I propagated a few little babies and it looks like they took. So down here you can see I think three of them took. Several others didn't, so I've already just tossed those. But these, you can see how happy they look. So that's exciting. Once they get going, I'm going to go ahead and put them in my daughter's garden at her new home. And you can see a radiant sebillia also took well. That's just one way you can propagate oak leaf hydrangeas. I made a full video on that and I'll share that with you. I'll put the link right here. All right and we're just going to kind of twist and turn around all over the place just trying to film what's best with the sun. So we're going to start back this way and you can see the morning sun coming in. Looking beautiful. The wind's blowing so it is kind of a nice breeze right now. But I have here on the left more tethonia. Same thing, I did have to cut this one down and a few more flowers have popped up on the one here in the back than in the front. But love this for the monarchs. When it's playtime they're all over this thing. And then behind it the bleeding heart vine, it's just taken off. It's actually spread everywhere. I've got little babies. I have about eight little babies going on. So I've dug up a and put them along the retaining wall. But I didn't want this right here. I've decided against it because it was shading the euphorbias here in front and I lost a couple of them because they were in the shade pretty much way too long. So I'm not sure where I'm going to move it but I'll find a spot. I may just go ahead and dig it up and put it put it back at the retaining wall with the hyacinth bean vine. It's too pretty of a vine so I'll definitely find a spot for it. Well there's some columbine up in there. So you can see all the wood ferns under the blood good maple. Since I showed you the mystic spires that I cut when I got back, let me show you those that I cut before my trip. See those all up in there? Those were cut about two and a half to three weeks ago and they already have full growth and they've got buds all over them. So they're getting ready to explode thankfully. Those are bee balm that I've cut back as well. That beautiful grass you see back there is Lomandra gold. I'm trying a few new sedums where the mole is really active. So this is either dragon's blood or voodoo and the mole loves to run along this little brick wall here. So since sedum is a little bit like a weed I feel like it'll withstand the mole's digging. When it digs through the roots I think the sedum will have no problem coming back. So we will see. There are certain plants I definitely want to feature and the snow hill meadow sage is definitely one of them. Loves this heat, keeps spreading. This is a winner in my garden in both the front and backyards. The Japanese snowball viburnum is looking pretty cool right now. It was a multi-trunk tree. I was trying to train it that way but once it has started layering out at the top I'm loving the way it looks. So I went ahead and cut those trunks and now it's just a single trunk. So I may have to stake it but I'm actually just thinking that I'm gonna keep it. I was debating about pulling it for a while but I'm actually loving it now. So it's a keeper. Real pretty sage that's a little bit of blooms right now. Sinaloa sage. I cut it back and it's starting to bloom back again but I love the little delicate blue flowers and this is right behind my white salvia. And the bronze fennel looks great but I don't see any sign of caterpillars. It's here as a host plant but I also do love that bronze foliage which I have scattered throughout my garden. All right so we'll flip it around and this is all denim and lace Russian sage here. I've already cut it back. It does have some fresh blooms or buds ready to to go on here. This is apricot apricot bright agastache. This is from seed. I love the orange color and down here I've got some butterfly weed babies and then to the left here is whirly milkweed that is probably going to be a year or so before this plant actually looks anything substantial. And then these millennium alliums. I'm thinking about digging them up. I moved them into this spot thinking more sun would force more of a bloom but it's not happening. So I'm thinking about replacing them maybe with some society garlic just to get that grassy texture right there. But I wanted to show you all the oak tree above and let you know that this is all surviving under this oak tree but the roots do go amongst all of these beds. So I do have to take into consideration that it's going to take them a little bit longer to get established and to thrive. Backing up a little bit further more of the perfect storm. This side it's a lot more blooms. This is the sunny side. Such a beautiful plant even just the dark foliage is enough without the flower. There's a lot of action happening on this plant and you guys need to see this spider. So this is a salmon aster that I grew from seed. Look at it stretching for the sun. Isn't that awesome? It was supposed to be a salmon color and they were when they first bloomed and now they've kind of faded to a light pink. But anyway I thought I'd just leave it and let it do its thing and see how it develops under there. Hi Ruby! All back here so the rosemary's tucked in under the perfect storm. These perfect storms just fill out so beautifully but I do want to have plants around it just to add that evergreen color. This is Walker's low catmint and these are pincushion flowers from seed. They're supposed to be a salmon color. We'll see how that turns out. Blue grama grass also from seed and then my day lilies. A few here and there are still in bloom. Switch to this side. You can see a few buds here on these gladiolas but I grew the most beautiful crop this year. Last year they've become my new favorite cut flower. Once it starts getting three digit temperatures like this though you really need to go ahead and harvest them. They can't handle the heat so the second you see those blooms opening I've been harvesting them and bringing them inside and then they give me a nice vase life. But just so many beautiful varieties and then back here growing with the gladiolas is white bone set. I have it all along the retaining wall and then lots of south-seeding coleus and then along the retaining wall we have creeping jenny and then hyacinth bean vine growing upwards. So on the other side this sidewalk is lined here with fordner of daisy. We've got a nice drift of peach drift roses probably on their second or third flush by now. Lots of basil has receded you can see on the bottom of the screen there. And then the greg's mist flower here behind the perfect storm. Monarchs have been on it sporadically here and there. All right and then back here along my west facing wall is texas sage trimmed up as trees. It's under planted with lots of volunteers so you can obviously see the purple oxalis but what I have planted under here is the dusty miller and the dicondra falls. But I've got There's some old sun drops that I thought died that popped up earlier this spring and you can see a few blooms here and there but it's not bringing any rain so it means nothing. But I'm super happy about how this plant has survived this intense heat especially coming off of the brick in the afternoon. And things are progressing along really nice in this bed. The inland sea oats are really taking thank goodness. This has been a bed that's been a struggle because of it being under this huge holly tree which of course takes all of the water and nutrition. So the combination's working well. Lamb's ears filling in. I do have some lisianthus on this side just with continuous blooms. Supposed to be salmon but of course it's not. This little pocket right here gets lots of sun. And then look here over to the greenhouse. How cute. The two hanging baskets. They're all fed by drip. Oh and I want to show you guys this. Look at this volunteer. I'm going to talk about a hardy plant. This is dragon's breath coleus coming up in the greenhouse. No water. It is so hot in here too. All right we're on the way to Rob's veggie garden but I want to highlight my roses. Like I said they're looking better. These are the sexy rexies and they've got a few blooms on them that are looking very strong so it's making me feel better. Between the black spot and the thrips it was very much a struggle. So I'm glad to see a few new fresh blooms here and there. Of course I have to show you the pollinators on these mystic spires. These are the ones that I cut back before our vacation and they're coming back so strong. He's got so many peppers coming. These look like little red peppers. I saw some banana peppers somewhere. Lots of banana peppers. Lots of poblano peppers up in here. Lots of things need to be harvested. Cherry tomatoes coming out of the wazoo. Some roma tomatoes in there. Eggplant. Let's see if I can see some eggplant coming up. And he's got cucumbers, squash. I wish I had taken a photo of the biggest cucumber I've ever seen. I don't even know if it was legit but we didn't. I think that's about it. Limes and lemons coming up. Also want to give you a little bit of more of a close-up of these ballerina zinnias. Hey beautiful. And then this is the flamingo feather celosia that again it pretty much reseeds every year and comes back. I don't know if the quality is going to be as good because I did not throw in celosia seeds this year. I don't know which one's which. There's no fruit on this one. Oh yes there is. If you've watched this all the way to the end then wow thank you so much for doing so. I've got lots of little snippets of some of the beautiful gardens and tropicals and tiles that we saw. Portugal and Spain. And I think you'll think they're just as beautiful as I do. But I'll be sharing these again if you want to see more. Find me on Instagram and Facebook under Shaded From Reality and I'll be sharing them through my stories and posts. But as always thanks again everybody. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Turn on your notifications so you don't miss a video. And I hope to see you in the next one.