Late June Garden Tour | Blooms, Foliage & Fresh Growth

It's a perfect time to do a full garden tour at the end of June. So join me and let's see what's blooming and looking great. Welcome to Joy in the Garden. So here's a perfect place to start. So this garden bed right down here with all of the smooth hydrangeas, this is his first full year. There are three plants that were here that I planted a year ago spring and the rest of them were planted last fall or this June. So the largest blooms that you see here on the left side are from the incredible smooth hydrangea. That's a proven winners hydrangea. And this is looking great. They can get about five by five. This one was planted a year ago in spring. So it's one of the three that I actually had in this garden all last season. The blooms are looking fabulous. Nice, large, absolutely gorgeous. You definitely can tell the bloom size difference in comparison to all the other smooth hydrangeas that are here. This spot here, I consider it part sun. It's a little hard to explain what kind of sun is in the morning and the afternoon because I don't know, I have this big large maple, autumn blaze maple tree right here. And so sometimes sun just comes in really heavy right here and then it turns into shade and different times of the year the sun definitely changes here. But I definitely consider it part sun and I will say so far this year, the smooth hydrangeas that are in here are very happy. I typically would not put a smooth hydrangea in full sun in my zone five B central Iowa garden. Maybe if I had drip irrigation, maybe I would consider that, but I don't. And so the sun is just too strong for the smooth hydrangea to be happy in full sun. Now in front here, this is a lemon perfection catmint and you're gonna see a lot of that in my garden. And it's really happy in this part sun space. You know, catmint is definitely a full sun plant, but you'll see it in a couple other places. I really love it. It's got a beautiful chartreuse color. It's perfect for the front of the border because it doesn't actually get very tall and it really kind of continues blooming the entire season. So now I'll show you some that are in full sun and they actually look a little more lemon than this one, which definitely looks more chartreuse. Love them both. Just a little bit different sun happening to them. So here we have the Let's Dance Skyview hydrangeas. These are pretty new to the market. These I purchased this spring. So this Let's Dance Skyview hydrangea blooms on old and new wood, which is excellent for my climate, you know, because where I live, zone 5B, Central Iowa, we can get spring freezes, frost. And so that often kills any buds on old wood for hydrangeas. So because this actually has blooms on old and new, I'm always going to get blooms. So because I purchased this, you can tell kind of what the old blooms are. I love the look of the old blooms. They're actually just gorgeous, the coloring. But you can also see new blooms coming there. That's actually a new bloom there. That's a new bloom right there. That's an older one. But here you see some that are coming. So I think next year, I will really probably get a better, you know, feeling for how this blooms, but it's gorgeous this year. And, you know, we do have springs that we don't have those early frosts and freezes, but I figure if my mindset is that we'll have that every year, I'm going to get a surprise every few years. So I'm going to be able to see the old blooms here, so. Now I also have some Foxglove here that I started from seed and it's not bloomed yet. So who knows? This is the Giant Sherberty Allium. That is planted in the fall, bloomed this spring. I'll put a photo of it, bloomed in the spring. And this, I'm just keeping this up for the entire season because I love how they look. I love, this has been my, I don't know, like the happiest plant in my entire garden right now. So I really do love it. This is a Green Mountain Boxwood. I have a lot of Green Velvet Boxwood. The Green Velvet gets about three by three. The Green Mountain will get five feet tall, three feet wide. So a little bit taller and wider. And then I also have a Sting Arborvitae right in there. And there's another one. If you look on the upper left there, you'll see the second Sting Arborvitae. Those get about a foot and a half wide and maybe 15 to 20 feet tall. So I'm hoping that I need some height here. No question, I need some height here. I will be probably adding some kind of garden structure. I don't know, I don't know. When I say structure, I mean some kind of arbor or moon gate or something, but just haven't found what I want yet, but I will. So next to this Incrediball right here, I do wanna show you. So this is about the size of the Incrediball bloom. So it's a very, very large size. This is the Flowerful. This is from First Editions. And you would think that they kinda all were one shrub here. They are smaller, not that much, but they are smaller. And the leaves are definitely darker here than on the Incrediball. So just something unique. I kinda purposely planted them right by each other just to see. And then this, I don't know. You know, it's hard to say which one's your favorite, but I will say the Invincible Lace right here, absolutely magnificent. And for pollinators, they will love this lace one the best, just because of the shape of the flower and how they can get to all the goodies inside the flowers. In fact, you can see there's a bunch of bumblebees kinda hanging out there right now. And then behind there, we have the Sublime, Invincible Sublime. Absolutely love this one for so many reasons. It is the structure of this hydrangea just is really, really, really pretty. Very strong stems. Just really liking how there's two of them. So there's one right here and right here. And they're just really full and they look fabulous. And to the left there is the Invincible Spirit II. And there's actually a Ruby hydrangea right by it as well. So I'll show it to you from this side. So on the right side is the Invincible Spirit II. I just think that bloom is absolutely gorgeous. Now, right in front of it is the Ruby. There's two blooms that are the Ruby. So right there and right there. That bloom color is very, very similar. Very similar. So I'm gonna be watching to see how these perform the same or different. The Ruby, I think, might stay a little bit smaller. I have fallen in love with the Ruby smooth hydrangea this year. And this Invincible Spirit II is just captivating me. This is, both of these are not easy to find for me. So I need to start expanding, you know, where I look for some of these things. Cause that is just gorgeous. Like with the Sublime behind it. And then the Incredible and the Lace. Just a great combination. And there is another one of the Lemon Perfection Catmints. Again, I think they look fabulous. I'm gonna add, hopefully add a few more along here this fall or throughout the summer. Now here, under the Cloche, the Caladium, these are bulbs from Longfield Gardens. And you will see, I have many Cloches right now and they're all on top of Caladium. So I do start these from a bulb. And pretty soon, in fact this one, I could start to leave the Cloche off and just spray it with the Rabbit and Deer, you know, deterrent or whatever. But I don't know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna keep it just for a little bit longer. We're actually gonna have high heat for the next week or so. I don't know, I think that could make critters hungrier. So I think I'm just gonna try to protect all those Caladiums in that Cloche until we get past this next heat wave. I do have some annuals kind of tucked in here and there. Like this is a Begonia, the Surefire Rose. You'll see that kind of popped here and there. I just really, the Begonias are really low maintenance and for the back, you know, they don't require fertilize. They do okay in drought. They're just kind of tough. So you'll see those popped around. Now this is an Ageratum Red Bouquet that I started from seed indoors. I do really, really like that color. I've grown the Tall Blue Planet for a few years. Thought I'd try this one and we'll see as it, you know, continues to bloom, just kind of how that looks. But I think, well, especially I really like it with the lime, the sublime hydrangeas, just very, very pretty. And as we head this way right here, there is the Sting Arborvitae there. The second one over here, looking pretty, pretty good. That is the Tall Orange Pillar Barberry here. I just planted that this year, but I do think that punch of color looks fabulous in there. This is a Midnight Sun Weejilla and I'm going to show you those in other places. And you can really tell that this is part sun because if you look at the leaves here, they're just starting to kind of pick up some of that rose and orange. And they have completely turned those colors in the full sun spaces that I have in the other parts of the garden. So good comparisons. This one will still turn. It will just be later to turn. This is some of the Helen Bonstein Lambs here, right here with some, oof, one of the smaller Sedums from Proven Weather. It's escaping me. Pride, pride and joy. I'll put the name of it here. I think I have the tag in there somewhere. And back here, you can see a really nice stand of Lamium here. This is the Pink Chablis variety. That is from one plant that I had in a container here and then I put it in the ground. So I used it as an accent plant in this container here and then in the fall, moved it to the ground. Here's another one that I had in a container and then moved it to the ground. So I like doing that. It's a really, really nice Lamium. Very nice. This here, you'll see a Juga. I have the Burgundy Glow variety here. I'm putting them in between the stepping stones so that I don't have to mulch quite as much. There's a Curly Fries hosta and the Autumn Frost hosta with a Smooth Laimetta. This Smooth Laimetta has been here for quite a while. Really loves that spot. There's actually another one over there kind of tucked in. That one isn't quite as big because I moved it about, I don't know, three or four times in its life and then you can see the other Laimetta is right there. So if we start from back here, this is a Ruby Smooth Hydrangea, the hydrangea that you see there and this is only its second year in the garden. That was very, very small when I bought it with the Magma Coral Ball right next to it. Sun King Aurelia behind it. Summon Substance hosta to the right. Wee hosta to the left. There's some more Curly Fries hosta. Some more of that Burgundy Glow, a Juga and these are the Sun Mouse hostas. They don't get any bigger than 12 by 12. So a nice hosta to just tuck in places. This Silver Gray hosta, this is a beauty. This is Diamond Lake and underneath of it are a bunch of Autumn Frost hostas. So I like how that's turned out. I did not really realize that Diamond Lake would get so big but I love the accent of Autumn Frost hosta underneath it. I do some Coral Ball with this Laimetta here. This is the Pretty Pistachio. It's a really old variety actually. It's not the one they have today, it's not Primo. And then this is Silver Gumdrop. I really like that Silver Gumdrop. I actually love the blooms that come off of that Silver Gumdrop. And there's another one of the Surefriar Rose Begonias looking beautiful with the blooms from the Silver Gumdrop. Here's some Lamium. This is White Nancy and it just doesn't do quite as well for me as the Pink Chablis. So I've kind of shifted over to Pink Chablis. We do have right here, this is Creeping Phlox. Blooms beautifully in the spring. I have decided to remove it. If you saw my last video, you see I did decide to remove this. This gets way too much shade. There's just not enough sun. It can't usually, for years it was like a really thick mat but now you can see it just doesn't fill in anymore. So as I've gotten, as this area of the garden has really taken shape, I can now see, I think I'll get much months of enjoyment versus a few weeks of enjoyment from the Creeping Phlox. I'll get months of enjoyment if I remove it. Maybe add another Ruby, maybe a Limetta, Hostas, Corbels, it'll look great here. Now I also tried planting Bare Root last year. These are from Longfield Gardens. And this is an Astilbe, and this is its first bloom. I just feel like a new mama, here's my baby. So I think this is Purple Rain, I'll confirm. And that's what this one back here is as well. So those will get bigger, but you know, I just, it feels good that, you know, the Bare Root, sometimes when you plant Bare Root, it's so small the first year, you can't even imagine, like, is that even gonna get any bigger? So I'm very happy about that. This is Jack Frost Runnera, and this is a beautiful fern. I'll have to put the name of that fern on the screen, because I also can't remember. Same with this Corbel here. It looks like Palm Pudding, but I don't know for sure, so I'll put the right name on the screen. And in the front here is some Allium. This is the Millennium, it hasn't bloomed yet, but it's a nice, it's a nice clean plant for the front of this arbor here. This Clematis here has already bloomed, and it was the Jack Manny Superbia, and then this is the Autumn. Sweet Autumn is on the left side here, and that will bloom in late August and into September. Definitely one of my favorites. This Allium here that's getting ready to bloom is Bubble Bath. Bubble Bath is taller. The blooms are bigger than Millennium, but they are a lighter color. The leaves are more blue-gray, as you can tell, like it's here by the lambs here. I would say it's a gorgeous Allium. I do think the Millennial stands up straighter and taller as far as providing good structure to a garden bed, but I do love them both, and I have throughout. And as we head in here to what I refer to as the Black Circle Garden, there's another Millennium right there. I will put all the names of the plants that are in this container on the screen there. The Sweet Potato Vine is Bewitched. Then I have some more of the Surefire Rose, which I love. There's a Selvia there, but this container here, these have the same, almost the same plants, and then there's a container on both sides. And so, you know, different plants perform differently, but I've been working to get similar plants that can perform in both shade and sun. I should say part shade and sun. This is the White Surefire. And this Coleus back here, which I absolutely love this Coleus. This is the Road Trip Something Something. I'll put the name on there, but I love, love that one. I've gotten that over and over for many years. And here's some more of the Lamium. This is the Pink Chablis that I will, after the season is done, I will put in the ground. And this lovely, lovely, beautiful, look at that. Isn't that gorgeous? This is a new annual variety coming out from Proven Winners. I think it's coming out next year. But look at how beautiful those blooms are. I don't think I can share the name of it. When I can, I absolutely will, because this is probably my favorite of the new annuals that they have coming out next year. There's another Autumn Frost Hosta, and this is the Guacamole Hosta. And you'll see the guacamole repeated throughout the garden. I've kind of turned around in here just to show you. I wanted to show you this right here. This is a type of Lambsear. It's Humelo, and I'll put the name of it on here. I have three of them in here. I just, they're gorgeous. I had one of these for a long time, and finally I went and found a couple others, because it didn't grow so much that I could divide it. It didn't seem like it did. But I love the three of them here right now. They've been blooming a very long time. Bees love them. There's another Curly Fry. You can see the Limetta, Smith Hydrangea. And there's a view of the beautiful Arborvitaes there. And you can see them repeated there, and then the rest of the Smith Hydrangeas. There are caladiums throughout this circle garden. Everywhere you see a cloche, there's gonna be a caladium, and I actually don't have enough cloches for the caladiums, because bunnies and critters do really like them. Pretty soon, they'll be to a point that I won't have to do that. So this is, I think, Lemon Blush. This one is a Proven Winners Coleus, and I actually purchased those as plants, because my bulbs actually did not come up here. But most of the caladiums that I will show you are grown from bulbs from Longfield Gardens. So they're really pretty. I'm gonna take the cloche off here for a second. So this caladium here is next to the Dipton Wine Coleus, and there's some more of that Lamium back there. There you can see more caladiums in their cloches. So this is the White Queen variety. I do really love the White Queen variety. I have this variety last year. Oh, see? See there? That's why I need to get it out, because it's actually time. It's time. I gotta pull it off. I was pretty careful when I did that. So that's when you know it's time, and I just need to keep spraying them. And, you know, it's possible that the critters might get some of them, but they won't get all of them. They won't get all of them. This is the Copper King Puccarella. So that is a hybrid between a Puccara, or corbels, and a Tiarella. That's what a Puccarella is. The colors on here are just absolutely beautiful. This is the Praying Hands Hosta. I actually removed, there were more straps on here that had this happening to it, and I don't really know why. It can't be too much sun. It doesn't really make sense. So it looks like it's still, I removed them, and now there's a couple more branches, or not branches, but straps, these straps that have that. So I don't know. I might have to move that to a different location so that it's happy. So I have kind of turned around just to kind of show it from a different viewpoint. Right here, I have two Ladies Mantle Gold Strike, and I think it's time. I'm gonna cut these blooms off today because we are gonna go into a, I don't know, seven to 10 day heat wave. And so, you know, they're ready. You know, usually they're a little bit brighter than that, but I've kept them on as long as I possibly could because I think they're just really, really pretty. But it's time, it's time. This is the Bright Idea Sedum, and I have that popped in different places. So it actually, see the very, very pretty bright yellow blooms. So it's kind of, I think it's kind of going out of bloom. This is the first year. I just planted this last fall. So we'll see, you know, what it does as the season progresses. This gorgeous foliage plant right here, this is Mukdenia crimson fans. Absolutely gorgeous. I'll show you a larger one that I have as well. One of the absolutely most asked about plants in my garden. There's some more Curly Fries hosta, some more Helen Von Stein lambs here. I love that variety of lambs here. I think it's, I think it's actually the best one out there. This is a good old Patriot hosta. It's funny because it reminds, the Autumn Frost hosta reminds me of the Patriot hosta, but I'll tell you as the season progresses, the Autumn Frost hosta will look great. And this Patriot one will start to look raggy. So I will tell you there's a difference in hostas. Some of the newer varieties definitely don't get as raggy as the season progresses. This is another stained glass. There's three stained glass hostas around this Wineshine, Midnight Wineshine regila. I think I have the right title there, but I think they look absolutely so wonderful there. This is a Little Lime hydrangea right here. This is the very first hydrangea I ever purchased and had. I didn't prune it for, I don't know, seven years. And then I learned I was supposed to prune it, so I started pruning it. So my only point there is, you know, if you don't prune a few years, don't worry about it. You can always start pruning and the hydrangea will react in a positive way. Right over the stone wall there, there are three of the green velvet boxwood. And in this garden area here on the left is another incredible, oh, that looks incredible. Seriously, it looks incredible. That is a Pinky Winky in the middle there, a Pinky Winky panicles standard tree. And then this is the Firelight and there is another Sun King Aurelia on the other side. So I refer to this as the birdbath garden because of course it has a birdbath. So again, there's that incredible on the right side. Now this one, this is its second full season. I actually thought I purchased a Ruby, but it turned out it was an incredible. And I think it was a very nice, happy accident. It was about a foot and a half taller. I actually did cut down the blooms here because it just got too, it was, I don't know, I couldn't see the birdbath and I like to see all of that. So I love to see the little birdies coming in and out of the house there and, you know. So I did actually trim it down to the right, to a good size where I could see through it. So we'll see what I do this fall. I think I want to, even though this looks absolutely gorgeous and I'm loving the white, incredible. With, this is seven Wee White Smooth Hydrangeas here. This has been here, this is probably its fifth year. Just a really beautiful stand. Some of them are too thick, not too thick. I mean, I have like five here and then there's two more in here. So when I say there are seven, they aren't just in a row. So the Wee White doesn't get that big. I think it's like two and a half by two and a half. So it's not a very big hydrangea. So it kind of fits in here. I think it'll look really cute. It's one of the reasons why I thought, we'll just add that pinky winky standard hydrangea there and we'll kind of feel like it's, you know, peering above the Wee Whites. This yarrow here is the Millie Rock Terracotta Yellow. I love, love, love the color. I actually, this was, this is a second year in the ground, but I divided it in the fall and you will see it in the garden bed right behind me as well. In the front here, that's Lady's Mantle that has the blooms already removed. This is another one of the Midnight Sun Wee Jillas. So I showed you the one over in the other garden and it was still green with a few of the marbling effects, but look at this. And this one is a great one to show you that underneath here where there isn't sun, it is green. So the sun is what creates the beautiful coloring on the Midnight Sun Wee Jilla. So it does love full sun and it actually has been performing great in full sun for me. This right here gets morning shade and afternoon sun, but I do have another bed that gets full sun like morning and afternoon and they are phenomenal. So I did add some Boom Chocolata Hearty Geraniums back there. I didn't really see them bloom this year because I added them later. One of you recommended that that would be a beautiful color back there and I think that you are right. And I think it would bloom about the same time that the Lady's Mantle blooms. So that'll be really pretty. Now I do have a couple of the annual plants, Meteor Showers or Shower, I think it is. But I do like popping that Verbena around because it's just really pretty and kind of brings just a nice pop of color, very drought tolerant as well. Back there is a, right here, this is the Purple Velveteeny Smokebush. It's considered a dwarf variety, so we'll see. You know, you say smokebush, ah, I don't know, is there really a dwarf variety? But it has, it's really, really a very pretty smokebush. So I'm curious how this will grow. It's supposed to only get four by four, so we'll see. And there you can see the Firelight Panicle that does have buds on it and so does this Pinky Winky. So, you know, panicles definitely bloom after smooth hydrangeas, but hopefully their show is coming soon. And so over here on the other side, this right here is the large garden bed that I actually kind of built a little bit at a time over the past three years. And this is a full, full sun garden bed. Before I go over there, I'll go over to this little corner area right here. This is a, gets morning sun and afternoon shade. So this is a lovely, lovely bed. This was my first bed that I really dealt with some hard clay, but I, it's actually a pretty, the soil is pretty good in this bed right now. So here's another one of the Mukdenia, I say that right? Mukdenia, Mukdenia crimson fans plants, just absolutely beautiful. Another one of the Bright Idea Sedums, that it's a Georgia peach. Corabel on the left, Caramel on the right, with some little caladiums popping up. So pretty soon these caladiums, you'll really see these caladiums come through. This is a guacamole hosta on the left, Ruby, this is my largest Ruby smooth hydrangea. I have one, two, three of them. I bought them all like in these little small containers or $13, but this one just seems to be much bigger. I absolutely love it. It has been blooming this color for quite, for a few weeks now. So I'm kind of trying to track how long, you know, some of the blooms and stuff last there. There's another one of the Surefire White Begonias. I dug on it, I'm gonna forget what this annual is, but I'm gonna put it on the screen. It likes shade. So I have popped it back here too. There is actually a container back here that has a hosta and some caladiums and this purple flower that I cannot remember the name of, but I will put on the screen. Now back there, eventually there's some hosta, or not hostas, coleus that you will be able to see. I do this kind of every year and they will get, they'll get about probably that big. And the color is just beautiful. So I have a few different varieties back there and they have just a really pretty burgundy, that kind of matches this Royal Purple Smokebush as well. Now the two larger shrubs here, Shinsei shrubs, this is hydrangea. This is a Bobo hydrangea. This is the very first Bobo hydrangea I ever had. It's really looking big this year. It really has grown. I love it. And I will say, I have Bobo, I've had it in full sun, I've had it in part sun. In part sun, it definitely is a looser habit than in full shade. Or in full sun, but it can grow in multiple different locations. This is actually a Pinky Winky hydrangea. It's got, it's all butted up. This one looks great too. Not last year, but the year before, it had some large branches that broke in a storm. I thought about removing it, but it's back looking good. Here's an example of a Green Mountain Boxwood right here. So that's where I have those in a couple different places. This is the most mature one that I have. I haven't really pruned this a lot. I probably will maybe next spring, but I love how that, it's taller than it is wide. There's a Green Velvet Boxwood right back here. This is another Guacamole hosta, a Summon Substance hosta back there. Those are the first hostas I ever really had. And then we do have some repeats here, right? This is the Bright Idea Sedum. Some more of that, the Caladiums. And I will put the names of each of the Caladiums on the screen as well. The Curly Fries hosta here. And this is, this is a Corabella pet for ever and ever and ever. I didn't keep the name of it, but it just keeps living from year to year, which is funny because some Corabellas, you know, do great over the winter here. So what can happen with Corabellas is if you have a cold winter, it can kind of make a Corabella heave up. And then after it has kind of heaved up, some of its roots are heaving up and then you get a cold snap and it can kill the roots. And that's how Corabellas, you know, tend to die over the wintertime. And people are like, I keep losing my Corabellas. I tend to come out in the wintertime and I, it's a nice day. I'll actually just take my foot and just like, you know, come around here and just push it down. Now this Caramel here is phenomenal. It comes back every year. So there's just some Corabellas that just do a better job of returning from year to year as well. So let's move over to this garden bed right here. So this is one of those garden beds is like a labor of love. And I say that because I look at it and I certainly remember how much work it was. And I just felt like I was a woman on a mission and I started this. It was about, I don't know, quarter of the size. And then I doubled that, doubled that. So it's looking really beautiful this year. There's certainly things I will have to change. We had part of this tree over here came down in a storm. I say part of it, like a third of it. I mean, it's, it's bad. So I will have to do something about it. I had some plants, you know, the big limbs fell right on this garden bed. But all that said, it's looking great. So let's kind of start. I'll kind of back up a little bit because I honestly, I love the view from a lot of different angles. I do think it's really pretty kind of when you start out this way. Now, I am amazed that this Walker's low catnip still looks as good as it does. It just looks beautiful. I think by this year, time last year, I was definitely cutting that back. But I look at that and I'm like, no, that's actually adding a lot at this point in time. So there you go. Keep it. Last year when, after I cut it back, I kind of cut it into a, you know, like a round, and it was like a gray round. And it did bloom a little bit, but not much. So I know that the first flush is the one that I really love. So I'm gonna keep this as long as I can. Now in the front here, I do have some coral sedum. I'll tell you, this is coral sedum right here. And this right here is lemon balm. It looks, if you're in a nursery, they look very, very similar. But here it's kind of interesting. This, I'm like, okay, Joyce, this is great. I'm gonna compare this as the year progresses. Now, I definitely bought this lemon balm here later in the, later in the season, because I thought that these dahlias could use some of this, you know, up front, kind of a border here. So it was really pretty large when I bought it from the nursery. So, and again, we haven't had a lot of heat, heat, heat. So it'll be interesting to compare. Obviously the coral sedum looks smaller than the lemon balm, but that's not what I'm evaluating. I do think the lemon balm might be a little looser habit, but we'll see. These beautiful dahlias here are pinkerific, pinkerific. Love them, love them, love them. They're from Proven Winners. I did not plant them from a bulb. They have been blooming since I put them in the ground. They are absolutely gorgeous. This part of this bed gets really, really, really, you know, sun beat on it all day long. They've looked fabulous. They are a repeat for me, for sure. They do have some other dahlia varieties. This pink, this pinkerific, I don't know, could be, could be hard to beat. Now, that large gold plant on the left there is Rays for Days Heliopsis. And I have been just going round and round in my head, like, oh, can I handle that gold color? I've never had that gold color this time of the year. Now I have two more of those plants in this garden bed here. So you can see one's right here, and then there's one down here. So let's see, where is it? There. So the larger one I had last year, and these other two I planted in the fall. So I do, I initially was kind of struggling because, well, first of all, because this gold one over here sort of was over there by itself. But as I, I'm gonna try to back up for you. As the other ones, you know, start to produce their blooms, and I try to imagine them that size, I think I like it. But I, you know, it's one of those things, I've just, I have rejected that color for so long in the garden, especially this time of the year, certainly in fall. But I don't know, I think I'm becoming a Raise for Days Heliopsis fan. That's another proven winners. I think this year is a first year it was in garden centers. So I was sent one last year to try, and it has been blooming. This plant over here has been, gosh, I bet it's been blooming three, four weeks already, and it will bloom all season. It did last year anyway. Okay, now there is a lot in this garden bed. There's a lot happening that I really, really like. So I'll try to quickly go through the repeat plants that are in the other parts of the gardens that I've already shown you. But down here by the Pink Horrific Dahlias, we do have a couple more of the Green Velvet Boxwoods, you know, fairly small. I do have in the landscape, tucked in here and there, this is the Queen Tut grass. This is an annual, but I love it. So I love popping it around there, I think. And right now it doesn't look like much, but as the season progresses, it'll be really pretty. It'll look like, you know, fireworks. So this is a Very Fine Wine Regila. And behind that is the Lemon Meringue Baptisia. I gotta tell you, look at the, look at the shrub. Look at how beautiful that, this is three Lemon Meringue Baptisia plants. Just absolutely gorgeous. And I think you'll see when I come over this way, it's really, I just am so happy about it. I've had other Baptisias, but nothing in my mind compares to the Lemon Meringue. I might be biased right now. I also have tucked in here some Seeded, and this is Midnight Velvet. That's going to be gorgeous eventually. Now, when I cut back this cap, you know, it's gonna seem like there's a really big open space. So I did plant here, this is what I started from seed, the Tall Blue Planet Adgeratum, with the White Unplugged Salvia, Unplugged White Salvia. So it'll be kind of a nice little combination there. And hopefully, we'll fill in kind of a gap once I have to cut that cabinet down. There's some more lambs here, Helen von Stein. Here are the Midnight Sun Regila shrubs. This shrub only gets one and a half by one and a half. But look at that color. I think it's gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. It's a game changer in this whole bed, in my opinion. Absolutely love it. It should be in every garden center. I don't see it everywhere. But once you discover it, you will want it. I do have some of this, some Annual Salvias kind of popped in here and there. This right here is a Treasure Trove Rebecchia. Let me try to show it to you from the side. So this is a Rebecchia. This is new in garden centers this year. It's from Proven Winners. It has addressed many of the diseases that are common in Rebecchia. So very excited to see this one bloom. I have another one on the other side of the garden bed down here as well. So that'll be a nice pairing. I must say, I always get this turned around, baby jean or jean baby, baby jean blues, Russian sage here. One of these times I'll get exactly right. But this is a second year and look at that. I just, I love the texture. I mean, the color is gorgeous, but just the texture of those leaves. It's just beautiful. I think I'm gonna need to get more of that. And I'll back up a little bit here because I really want you to see this entire stand here of the Lemon Meringue Baptisia Shrub back here. It's just so full and beautiful. Again, this is three plants. I'll put a photo up of when it was blooming and it's gorgeous, but what a wonderful backdrop as well. There are the gold, that's that Rays for Days Heliopsis. Behind it is the Very Van Gogh Veronica, a very long bloomer, a really beautiful Veronica. Absolutely, maybe my favorite right now. I have been keeping my eye out to try to add some more to this bed and the fall I definitely will divide it. There's a grass here, it's trying to grow. This is, I think it's called the Red Cheyenne, but I'll put the exact name in it. So I planted those last fall. Grasses take a long time, well, in my area they do. But this will be, this is a beautiful grass. It has some really pretty red hints to it. So very, very pretty. The tan kind of, well, those are Alliums you're seeing back there. Those are Alliums that, not to be confused with, this is Bubblebath, I'm gonna kind of sneak back here. This is Bubblebath, look how tall that is. It's a pretty tall Bubblebath Allium, that's a summer Allium. But the tan blooms that you're seeing there, that is what's left from a wonderful Allium that I had blooming in the spring, purple and white. I'll put the name up there. It's just really pretty. I think I'm gonna leave it up probably all season. I do like that. You can see a, there's a Pinky Winky hydrangea right there. Nice and tall. I point that out because it's the only, one of the few hydrangeas that did not get damaged from the large limb. I should say limbs, about a third of the tree that fell in the garden, so. You know, the thing that kind of bummed me out probably is because you know the hydrangeas were getting to a certain age. They were actually starting to get bigger and stronger. But you know, we'll see, we'll see. What you see right here, this, I have five Firelight Tidbit hydrangeas. That is a phenomenal, I think they get maybe three by three. And I also think they are definitely, I don't know if I say chartreuse, but it's a nice lighter blue. Like if you compare that to, this is a GM right next to it. This is a Banana Daiquiri GM. Just the contrast in the colors. And here is the Lemon Perfection Catnip in front of that. And you know, I probably already said this, but just in case, that Lemon Perfection Catnip is also in front of here. So I have not trimmed this or done anything with this. Now, from what I understand, Lemon Perfection Catnip, you don't have to trim it throughout the entire year. You can if you just want to make it a little neater. So I'm just gonna see, you know, how long it goes and how much, you know, just kind of learning from it. This is its first official year out in the garden centers. I did trial it last year. It's a little hard to find in my central Iowa right now, but I think that will change in time because I think it's, I don't know, I think it's the best catnip out there. I also have some Penstemon back there. It's already bloomed, but that nice, that stand of beautiful plum foliage is from the Dark Towers Penstemon. You're just starting to see here, you can barely see them. There's some blooms of the Agastache, this blue fortune. It was huge, gorgeous, gorgeous last year. I did buy another one and kind of put it in the back. So I'm curious how it will perform. It will get so much larger and it's gorgeous. It was, it was a, it kind of stood on its own in this garden last year. So beautiful. Now this Clematis here is still blooming. I've now gone and I forget, oh, Betty Corning, Betty Corning. Now there are a couple of different Clematis varieties back there, but I'm only seeing Betty Corning. She has the little bells that are kind of dangling there. Those look really cute. She's definitely taller than what these trellises are here, but I'm just kind of letting her flow around. Now here, this is the Ever After Veronica, which is another one of my favorites. I just love the color with some Millennium Allium right behind them. You can see they're budded up, but they probably aren't going to bloom for a little bit here. Another one of the very fine line. The Achilles, there is a Pinky Winky behind there. It got hit by the branch. So, you know, struggling a little bit there. Here is some of the Backlight Luminary Phlox here just starting to bloom. I also have the Sunset Coral, but it just hasn't gotten very tall and produced any buds yet. So hopefully it will soon. There's another one of the Pinkerific Dahlias. And that is the Yarrow, the Millie Rock Terracotta Yellow Yarrow that I divided from the other bed and last fall and added it here. I think it's a really pretty Yarrow. I think I'll actually divide it again this fall and just kind of add it in a couple more spots in this bed as well. There you can see, there's the other Rays for Days Heliopsis. I will point out, I really do think the lambs here, the Hellermann Stein lambs here, they do make a statement here. And I think they look gorgeous. This is also Coral Sedum in front of that Pinkerific Dahlia there. And this tree right here is the North Wind Maple. It is a cross between the Korean and the Japanese Maple. Goes down to, hardly down to zone four, which is really good for my area. I am officially zone 5B. No question we get winters that are zone four. Here you can really see that Sedum is popping there. You can see two different stances of the Midnight Velvet. Very excited for that to bloom this year. And then another repeat of the Tall Blue Planet Aduratum that I started from seed with the Unplugged White Salvia. And I'm actually coming to the back here just to show a little bit different angle here. I did just add, I found these two and love them. This is a Bee Balm here. This is the Upscale Pink Chenille Bee Balm. How pretty is that? And this is a nice view of the Royal Purple Smokebush as well. And I have a tiny tree. This is the Seven Suns Temple of Bloom. Really, really beautiful, beautiful tree. It's just, you know, small. It's gonna take a while, but it will, I think it gets wider than it does tall. So it'll be a really beautiful, I think it gets 15 feet wide, maybe 10 feet tall, something like that. So, you know, I have, I'm getting over the fact that this large tree is gonna go away. And started to think how I can build a taller border in the back. And here we are in the front area of my house. And to the left here is the Golden Spirit Smokebush. It is in a standard, really beautiful. I bought it as a standard. I do keep it pruned, kind of in a lollipop shape. Love it, I absolutely love that. Here are some full grown green velvet arborvitaes just to tell you, you know, kind of show you what full grown will eventually mean to some of those. I've had these for a very long time, but some of the other ones are a little bit younger. Here's an example. There's two green velvets. That's what's right there. And we have some Angelina Sedum along here. This is a very interesting, challenging garden bed. This is a Japanese lilac tree here. It gets these beautiful brackets and blooms here. They're white in June and then they eventually will fall, but it's really a beautiful tree with three emerald green arborvitaes over there, which take a lot of root space and water. And so a lot of things just don't thrive here. They might live, but they don't thrive. A lot of things don't thrive. What I have found thrives the best. This will not shock you. Alliums, Sedum, Calamint, Catmint. And that's most of what is in here. So I just, although I do have this Penstemon here. You're very happy. So here's some Autumn Fire Sedum, some tall Verbena behind there. These Calamitas have been here a very long time and they're happy. But I always think it's just important to really understand each bed is very, very, very different. And it's hard to fight mother nature. So I just kind of go with whatever she gives me. So this is some Millennium Alliums here in front. I definitely have divided those and moved them around. There's some more of that Angelina Sedum, but I want to actually grow even more. Some more of that Verbena. This is the Denim and Lace Russian Sage. It hasn't done much. This is a second year. So I don't know. But again, I try to give everybody that starts her life here a break because probably if I moved that Russian Sage to the back, it would be three times larger next year. This is a Glow Girl Spiria. Now this has been here from the very beginning. And actually I think that's why it does live happily with all of these, because these all didn't have large roots when they were first planted. And then the roots are probably all intertwined. I tell you, I have actually cut this Glow Girl down to the ground to rejuvenate it. Again, cause it's just, you know, it's a hard garden bed. There's some more of that Midnight Velvet Sedum, some Coral Sedum. Now Coral Sedum is an annual for me. Angelina Sedum is a perennial. So I'm trying to add more Angelina in here because I think, you know, I prefer to have to add less mulch. This is a White Calumet, a very, very beautiful perennial. It loves its life here. So I really need to add more of that here as well. I have, this is the second year of this Firefly Yarrow. It seems to be fairly happy here. You know, it doesn't, it didn't double in size. Again, nothing does. Nothing does. So, you know, you gotta take the garden for what it gives you. So the last part of the tour is here in the front yard, in front of this porch that we have here. And I did really make, I did a lot different with my containers this year. These are all new containers, they're lightweight. I put them on wheels. I'm using the Proven Winners Aqualite inserts, just trying to really make things easier and more enjoyable, especially as, you know, we might travel and all the kids that used to do all my watering, they're getting old, they're graduating from high school. So anyway, it's time for me to figure out some new plans for when I have to leave. But look at this, isn't this gorgeous? This is the Blue Tierra Supertunia, just absolutely beautiful, beautiful. This is the Bewitched Sweet Potato Vine, more of that Meteor Showers Verbena. Two beautiful Coleus here, Dipped in Wine and Dream. Dream something, Coleus, I'm forgetting. Dream what? Oh, and then back there, there is also a White Surefire Begonia. This garden bed here is looking pretty good. I mean, I'll tell you, I, all my petunias have had budworms and they got them really early, like really, really early. Again, there's some of that beautiful Wedgwood Blue. I have fallen in love with that. I had the Wedgwood Pink Angelonia last year, but this I love even more. And this is the Indigo Mini Vista Supertunia. Again, it's actually recovering from budworms. So they all got hit pretty hard this year. This, I just love this flax. This is the Opalescence. It is from the Luminary Series, just absolutely beautiful. Now you see all those little granulars on there? That's to try to keep the bunnies away because they did just bit that off, but still looks wonderful. The Unplugged Blue looking great. Absolutely beautiful. And back here, more of that Wedgwood Blue Angelonia and a similar, actually not similar, I'm sorry, the same Smokebush, the Velveteen, wait, Purple Velveteen Smokebush. Just really pretty on the edges of those leaves. Just really pretty. I'm really excited to see what that turns into. Some more of the Lambs Ear, Helen von Stein. And you can see that is throughout this space as well. And here you have some really large Glow Girl Spireas, and you can see three of them repeating here. These are Concord Barberries. And then under there, I actually this year planted, you guessed it, Lemon Perfection Catnip. I think it's absolutely gonna be gorgeous. I'm excited, like that doubles the size and it comes out into, it goes on the stone. I think that would be really, really beautiful. I have more of the Cleome here. This is the Senorita Blanca. The white in the back is the Senorita Rosalita. Now, I usually have the Rosalita behind here, and I love it. I just thought I'd change things up this year, try to add the white, see if I like that. Again, there's some repeats. Unplugged Blue, this is the Back to the Fuchsia, Salvia, been a really nice performer. It's been blooming since spring, really love it. You can see the different Alliums here. Here you have the Millennium Allium, and in the back there, this is a great comparison here. That's the Bubble Bath, which will get larger blooms. You can see the color difference from the Millennial, more of the blue-gray, where the Millennium's more of the bright green. And here we have the, oh, what's this pretty one called? This is another Luminary Blocks, Ultraviolet, just starting to bloom now, so blooming a little later, where that Unplugged Blue, that is hard to beat. Now, I also do have the Bordeaux Supertunia, and this is the new, improved version. But I only have that so far. The Budworms really have, they have gone to town. They have gone to town. So I am managing that as we speak. So thank you very, very much for joining me today, and I know it was a long tour. Thanks for hanging in there with me, and I look forward to getting any questions, comments, or thoughts that you may have in the comments. Have a great day.