The Best Blooms We’ve Ever Had, Julys Garden Tour

Hey, hi, how's it going? Welcome to the garden today. We are so excited to film a garden tour today. We're not going to be filming up at the front like we normally do. We're going to be starting here in the side yard and then we're going to do the whole back. Nothing has changed up front and things are looking like they're slowing down a little bit because of the summer heat. Hi, my name is Robbie if you are new here and I garden in Northern California zone 9a and sometimes in the summer times we'll hit about 110 to 115 degrees. It is very toasty here and usually once we start getting above 100 degrees plants kind of slow down and they start to go into survival mode here and then they pick back up in the fall time for us. Our growing season is incredibly long. Our first frost usually is like late November and our last frost is usually like the first week of March. So we have a very small window of time where we can't grow anything and we can still grow things because our frost is like we might hit freezing temperatures and if we do hit freezing temperatures it's usually like right at that freezing temperature of 32 degrees and so we have a very long growing season here which is really really nice and I often say that our growing season stops in the summertime because like I said everything just goes into survival mode and we typically don't see a whole lot of growth on anything. Everything kind of like makes it to a really good size and then it halts all summer and then once we cool back down things pick right back up. So we are on just under a quarter of an acre lot and right behind me that would be north so you guys are looking north right now and this is east. The way I'm looking is currently south and then this is west over there. So let me turn the camera around show you guys. I'd say my garden is probably about 50 percent annuals and then maybe like 40 percent perennials and then maybe 10 percent shrubs and trees. So let's get into our garden tour. We're gonna start here and the car's in the way and I can't move it because it's like six o'clock in the morning and it's pretty loud when it starts and I don't want to wake up my neighbors or anybody else who is sleeping. Um so I had the only reason we're starting here is because I wanted to show the Arabian jasmine. So this is Arabian jasmine and we put it here because of the smell. The smell is amazing. It is phenomenal and so you can see all the little white dots are blooms. All the brown dots are spent blooms and I will say we have to come out here and we do deadhead it. It does drop its blooms once you like I mean you have to pop them off but it it doesn't just like loosely drop its blooms. You do have to come out here and deadhead this so it is kind of a higher maintenance plant but the smell is amazing. We can smell it in the backyard and then it's just so nice you get out of the car and it hits you with this beautiful perfume of flowers. It's fabulous. Um the other thing that I wanted to show you in the driveway was this container right here. So this is I think it's a 24 inch container is what we figured out. It's 24 inches around and I think like 22 inches tall or something like that. So it's a good size container um and this has two of these stratosphere gara right here which is the like super crazy plant and then the yellow petunias in here. These are the supertunia honey. I love them and I love them paired with the Bermuda beach petunia right here. So that's the pink one right there. It is so pretty and then we have this lantana. This is part of the luscious lantana series. Um I think this is raspberry or something like that but I love this color and the new blooms start out yellow and pink. Tell me that is not like perfectly paired with the petunias there. And then this is the Bewitched with Green Envy Ipomoea. Oh my gosh. So this was kind of an experiment for us because this is a full sun location and I've always grown other ipomoeas sweet potato vine. They've all needed to have protection from afternoon sun. This thing gets full sun and it is the best looking sweet potato vine that we have on the property. So I will be growing sweet potato vines in full sun from now on from proven winners. This combination is just absolutely killer. I just I cannot get over how big and beautiful everything is in here. I will say everything here is got like really good soil in here. I went in with fertilizer. This container gets weekly water soluble fertilizer um because these are all heavy feeders. So everybody in here is getting fertilizer every single Friday. So it's a high maintenance container for sure. So let's actually enter into the back garden and there's probably gonna be some things that you're noticing that maybe if you watch any of our other videos that you haven't quite seen yet. Those videos will be coming out. They will be coming out soon. I swear you didn't miss the video. It just hasn't come out yet but the side yard looks amazing and also kind of sad. So for years we've had a lattice that was growing here that had an evergreen clematis on it. It was called Armandii and we had to take it down because things are happening here around the house and so we had to take the lattice down and it looks so sad. It's just a blank empty wall but if we ignore that everything else does look really really good especially this left side over here. So we've got a hedge of Pitosporum which are these evergreen right here. They're so pretty and they're putting out some new growth and then in between that is Supertunia Vista Paradise which is the really pretty like bright pink red petunias. They are gorgeous and then behind that we planted this hedge of service berries. They've all been about this size but look at those ones over there get a ton of sun and so they've put on some really good growth which is great to see because when First Editions sent these shrubs out to me they're like just so you know they're slow to grow and so I was expecting that where like they're just gonna sit but those have put on that one right there has put on all of that growth. That one shot up one single stem over there so they're growing and those ones are growing really quick but those ones also get more sun. These ones right here are a little bit shaded from the red bud tree that's right here so um kind of funny to see that. Anyways I have annuals tucked in here. I've got these really pretty phlox right here. I'm loving this phlox like this. I don't grow any. This is my first phlox that I'm growing like this. Anyways side yard feels like it's totally been transformed and is looking just amazing. The perennials that are over here are still looking good. They're starting to the penstemon is starting to fizzle out and the alliums are starting to open and the phlox is also starting to open so it's um nice because these do have like so this garden right here that we did is supposed to have like continuous flow of plants that bloom so that way like everything's not all in bloom all at once. And these are all perennials right here so that's like a plant it and kind of forget it type situation. Let's keep going in here. The little balcony garden is looking really good. Everything here has kind of gotten a slight refresh on things. Um I had super tenuvis to bubblegum here. It was just starting to get a little too big and it was starting to crowd over on the bad hair day mangabe so I did move the bubblegum. Bubblegum is a little bit of a psychotic moment in the garden. Every time I show this I get questions. I don't have a link for it or a source for it. I did pick it up locally and the guy that I picked it up locally from is no longer in business. Sorry about that. No source on that. Um I always talk about the Kilmarnock willow. I feel like people get annoyed because I talk about the same plants over and over again but it is such a cool tree. So it is a tree. It's a willow tree and it gets these really pretty silvery catkins in the springtime and then they explode into these like yellow flowers and then it's just a really nice green small weeping willow tree in compared to our big giant weeping willow tree. Let's come this way though and I just finished getting a flush of blooms on my silver lining rose right there. It just finished like two days ago so that was kind of a bummer but it's fine. I do want to show you this. This is the best this clematis has ever looked. This is one of those like stand by me clematises. For me it's more of like a drape by me clematis. It's not doing a very good job standing on its own and I even have like a little support system in here but it's really pretty and it looks so good. So I'm enjoying the blooms. It's blooming a lot later than I thought so I don't mind that it's actually hanging like that in a container. I might grow it in a container with some other things and honestly just kind of treat it as though it is a spiller in the plant because I think that's a really pretty spiller. That would be stunning, right? Okay so we'll go this way because look how good everything is looking. So those are some petunias from a petunia test that I did and then this is the Supertunia Vista Bubblegum that was over by the Lion Fountain. So you can see she looks really good right here because this is the section that was getting a lot of sun and then this back section over here this was getting this is where like the Bad Hair Day Mangave was and then there was the boxwood right here so it's a little like bald on this side but that's just because it was scrunched up against a whole bunch of other plants. This right here is a Tiger Eyes Sumac. I've totally fallen in love with this tree especially in the basket planter that it's in. I love the basket planter also. This is one that has really pretty color right now. A lot of people have said that it looks like a fern of some sorts and I completely agree about that and then it also gets incredible fall color supposedly. I haven't seen it yet. I just planted this not that long ago but the fall color is supposed to just be spectacular. I will say like don't plant this one in the landscape because this one grows underground by some runners and so a lot of people have said if you plant in the landscape you're probably going to have it forever and it's going to be a total pain to get rid of so this is not one that you want to put in the landscape. Try putting it in a container. I've had other people who have said that they put it in containers and it just busts through containers because it is a tree and it's a very fast and quick spreading tree so just just keep an eye on this one. This is one we're keeping in a plastic container. It's got a plastic liner inside that basket right there. You definitely want to think about this one before you add it to the garden. We did a lot of thinking before adding it into a container and it's also on a cement pad so that way it can't like be on the ground and spread its little runners through the drainage holes and like spread into the garden so this is one that you want to just really try to keep contained if you do want it in your garden. The gazebo area where we spend almost every single morning and every single night. We drink coffee out here and then a lot of times we will have dessert out here. Last night we had chocolate pie. That was super fun. I do want to show this. Do you guys remember this? This is the variegated wax ivy so it's actually not an ivy at all. This is actually a succulent and it is more a shade plant or a house plant for a lot of people but I've got it growing in this little cement basket looking planter and then I just put it up on this like little trellis stand and then we've got it growing here and it is so loving its life. It's so happy here. It does get water every single day because it it's probably already root bound in this. When I put this in here it wasn't even really quite reaching the top. It was like barely reaching it. Now she's growing down up and above all around but it is so pretty and I cannot believe that it's not an ivy. You can see how thick these leaves are right here. They're quite thick. I do want to show you guys the coleus that's back here. We have these curtains up because the sun blasts through the top and it blasts through the trees right here so we have to drop the curtains at nighttime when we come in here but we usually pop them up in the mornings. Look at these coleus though. Aren't those so pretty? I'm gonna have to pop the name up on the screen because I don't remember the names of them but they're doing exactly what I wanted for the coleus. Look you can see they're starting to pop behind the chair and they're gonna just get even taller which is amazing. You can see there's one back there. See how tall that one has gotten back there? It's incredible and then I have another set of coleus. I can't remember. I can't remember the coleus names but these ones have filled in beautifully and these ones looked really bad when I planted them. Those ones are doing what I also wanted but they added a little bit of color into that bed so they added just like a little pop of red where it's not super overwhelming. Okay let's go out this way. So the daisies right here, these are the pure white butterfly marguerite daisies. The blue is the unplugged so blue salvia. We had some really really intense hot days that just happened and so some of the some plants right here are looking a little rough. Some plants throughout the garden. The pure white marguerite daisies right now are looking a little bit rough. You can see a lot of burn on those but the salvia is looking amazing. So I am kind of hoping that the marguerite daisies kind of slow down a little bit so that salvia can continue to pop through. But this is this is a combo I will absolutely repeat. And then we have a maple tree that's planted right here. Eventually I will have to come through and kind of wind these up a little bit so that way we can walk through. I am enjoying a little bit of canopy right here for now. Let's go this way. I do want to show this. So this is a yarrow and it is the prettiest yarrow. You guys know pink is probably one of my favorite color palettes for the garden and the pink with like the dusty miller right behind it is so pretty. This is the firefly fuchsia yarrow. I could have sworn that I had multiple of these throughout the garden. I can only find one so I'm not sure where the other ones went. This is hands down my favorite yarrow I've ever grown. It is just so pretty. And I also want to show you guys the snow on the mountain euphorbia. Last time I showed it to you guys I think it was looking like this one right here. But look how cool that is. So this is snow on the mountain. It's a really tall euphorbia. This one's self-seeded and I'm just kind of letting it do its thing because it's one of my favorites. And so that one's actually growing in the walkway and I don't even care because it's so worth it to me. I do like to use them for floral arrangements but you do have to harvest them like a day before you use them in floral arrangements because they seep because when you cut them there's like a sticky sap. I can actually show you guys. Let me show you on this. See? See that coming out of the leaf right there? That is a sap and that will actually get sucked up by other plants and it'll clog the stem of them and then they can't absorb any more water. And so if you do want to use this in floral arrangements you want to cut it and then you want to stick it in its own vase for at minimum a couple hours before you use it in other floral arrangements. So that way you can stop secreting the sap and then you can put it in with other florals. If you harvest it in the middle of the day like most flowers they will wilt and they usually don't rebound. So this is one that you do want to harvest first thing in the morning or really late at night time. And then down here look how pretty these petunias are. This is saffron finch. I love saffron finch. I just think it's a nice like cool yellow color. It's not like a bright yellow color like that is. So I really love this like creamy white yellow. It's really pretty. It's not overwhelming. And then look the sun is just starting to touch the garden. But see back there that is a cleome that is Senorita Rosalita. That is an amazing annual. If you can find it, highly recommend you grow it. The hummingbirds really like it and the bees also really are liking it. This cleome here is not it's not going to spread like other cleomes. So this one is more sterile and it doesn't have the thorns like cleome has. So this is just overall like an amazing cleome. And then down below that that's the ivory halo dogwood. I just transplanted that this springtime and it's doing well. And then this year look how good my hydrangea looks. I think this is limelight. I have limelight and I have little lime and I didn't label which one was which when I planted them. And so one is limelight, one is little lime. I think this is limelight. Lemon cypress tree. She's getting bigger and bigger every year. This was started from a little teeny tiny plant that you pick up from Home Depot like the Grinch trees. And it's just doing absolutely amazing. I do want to come over here and show you guys these petunias. So this is Supertunia Vista Bubblegum. It's one of my, it is my favorite petunia if I'm being completely honest. This one, I'll show you the other one that is my favorite. This one is my favorite because of the size. I'm pretty sure that this is five plants. It might be, it's somewhere between three and five plants. And this is what they do. They just grow like crazy. I will say petunias are very high maintenance. They are not a low maintenance plant. We have to fertilize every single Friday. We also have to spray with BT, and that's what makes it so that the caterpillars don't eat it. If we don't spray with BT, I can show you what happens. I've got some other petunias that have not been getting sprayed with BT, and you don't get any blooms on them. If you're going to spray BT though, you cannot spray it in the morning or in the afternoon. You have to spray it at the very end of the day because BT, the chemicals in it, it's organic and it breaks down with UV rays. So if you spray it in the morning, try to get rid of all the caterpillars that are on there. When the sunlight hits it, the chemical is going to start breaking down immediately. So you want to spray it at nighttime so it can get all over the plant. The caterpillars will eat it at nighttime, first thing in the morning, and that's how they die. So if you're having an issue with spraying BT and you feel like it's not working, try spraying it, you know, as the sun is going down. Um, the eucalyptus right here, just kidding. It's not a eucalyptus. This is my honeysuckle. This is the Kinsley Ghost honeysuckle, and I almost removed it because it had aphids so bad last year. But it's got that silvery round look that eucalyptus has. These right here are called bracts, and they're part of the, like, reproductive part of the flower. And then the flower is right here. These little pieces and then those, once they got pollinated, they should all start turning into berries. So it's moving a little weirdly with the berries. I've never seen the berries in real life, but the berries should turn orange and yellow and red, and it's supposed to be really stunning. So, honeysuckle. And this one is native, so this one's not going to take over like you think of normal honeysuckles. This one is native to the United States, and it is mostly found on, like, the northern side of the United States and the east coast. This one does do quite well. I think this is growing zones three through eight. I'm in zone nine, and it does well for me. I have no issues. Obviously it is loving its life. Look how much new growth it has. So the new growth does look like this. So that's the new growth, and then once it's flowered, then it sends out this growth, and then from this growth, next year is where you'll see all of those bracts on it. So it does get quite large. You do want to make sure that you give it support. We've got a trellis in here. It's way too small of a trellis. It does need a much larger trellis, but this is what we went in with, and so we will pay the price a later day. We're moving on. Um, this year is the first year that I've had really good luck with coneflower, and I'm so happy about it. I don't remember the name of those. Those were planted a couple years ago. That one is a Monrovia brand. I want to say it was, like, Cheyenne Spirit, but that doesn't seem quite right if we're being honest. Oh my goodness. Okay, that's one of the weeds that has thorns. I will deal with that later. How did that get missed? Probably because it's green. Whoa. I'm usually pretty good about taking care of weeds. And then here's another one. Coneflowers this year I am just so happy with. I've never had good luck with coneflowers, and these ones are doing pretty good, I'll say. This is a plant that I will be growing more of next year. I want these everywhere. This is for plants. I would like to just do, like, single plants everywhere and just kind of, like, dot them through, like, a really long drift. This is a rebecchia called Indian Summer. Oh my goodness. I always love rebecchia when I see it in other people's gardens. I've never had good luck with rebecchia, and this year I've had amazing luck with the rebecchia, so I'm really, really impressed. And then there's another cleome back here, and that one's doing really well also. It's just, it's so pretty. It's really pretty in person. I feel like it's underwhelming on camera, so that's kind of sad. Um, this is a begonia. These are the surefire cherry cordial begonias. They're supposed to be an annual. I planted them last year. They overwintered for me. I cut them back all the way to the ground, and then they just shot right back up, and I'm really glad that I didn't have to buy them again. I was fully prepared to because of how much I love these begonias. Let's kind of look this way. So this is the first year in a few years that I've had really good success with grasses. Um, my grasses have been getting eaten by gophers, so we're dealing with pocket gophers here, and I think that we may have gotten a handle on them. We were using, for those of you who are wondering, we did use traps. Um, so what we did is I found old tulip bulbs that I put in my compost bin, and I used live traps. If there's somebody who doesn't like that, I'm sorry, but I was losing thousands of dollars worth of plants. So we would open up the hole that we would find, and then we would put a trap with a tulip bulb on it. We tried peanut butter. We tried all these other things. We've tried everything. An old tulip bulb worked really well. Put it on the trap. Kind of, like, break open the tulip bulb so they can kind of, like, I thought maybe I could, like, smell it or something, and then we would put a bucket over the trap so that way if, like, the tunnel was still in the dark, they would come up out of their tunnel, eat the bulb, and then they would be gone. So it's worked great for us. It's been a couple of months since we've dealt with loss in the garden. Um, I did a couple days ago lose a petunia in the side yard, and other than that, I don't think that we've lost anything. So that's been really, really nice. But let's keep moving on. You can see there's another euphorbia in the walkway. Like I said, I'm leaving it. But the pocket gophers have left the grass alone this year, which I'm so thankful for because I love purple fountain grass. I think they're really pretty. A lot of people don't like them because they think that they're quite overused. Um, but honestly, they just do really well when they get left alone from the gophers. Um, let's go over here to this bed. This here is the meant-to-be nectarine agastache. I think this might be two plants. It could also be three plants. But this one has done amazing. And you can see, so the bed is here, and so it does really, really well. It's growing very happily in this location. These are the supertunia vista fuchsia, I believe. Pretty sure. Don't quote me on that one. But those are actually doing really, really well. Also, this is my first year growing those ones. The vista series just does absolutely pure craziness. So this is a really large drift, so I think that's one plant right there-ish. And so that's one plant. There's another plant. So they grow really, really well here. We'll go this way. You can see the repeat of the surefire cherry cordial begonias at the walkway. This is a door that leads to nowhere. You can see me. Hello. Hey. Hi. How's it going? Um, the arbovites. I've only got one of them over here. Oh, there's the other. Here's the other yarrow. So I've got two of them. This one is almost the wrong location. I was a fool to put that there. That's too much shade. The sunpatients are doing pretty good now, now that they're getting ample water. These sunpatients are called tropical rose right here. They're cool. They're super interesting. I wasn't sure I would feel about them. They're fine. They don't make me angry. They don't overwhelm me. They're just fine right there. So will I grow them again? Probably not. But do I hate them? Also, absolutely not. They're just a- they're a fine plant for me. Um, we'll go this way. I do need to get more color in here. So foxloves were- there's a lot of spring blooming. So there's foxloves right here. That was spring blooming. I've got a peony, spring blooming. I've got columbine. That was spring blooming. And then I've got amsonia, storm cloud. That was spring blooming. So there's a lot of spring blooming here and no summer blooms. So I'm gonna have to fix that. I need something here because that is just too much green. And then you can see the flamethrower redbud right here. That is also starting to turn more green. So what happens is the new growth is this beautiful red color. And then they fade to green. And then eventually this will be all green except for like- you can see like just how the tips of it are kind of red. And then it'll lose all of its foliar growth this fall time. And then next spring it'll be a really pretty red show. But I need to add color in here. I will say this bed is looking phenomenal. So this is another sun patient. This is my favorite sun patient. These here are the sun patient's compact blush pink. These are my favorite. I love the dark foliar growth. I love how bright the sun patient blooms look on it. I think this one, if I'm gonna grow any of them, this is the one I want to grow and I want to grow more of next year, I'd be fine if I didn't really grow any of the other ones. This is the one that I was like, I'm not sure how we'll feel about it. Like when I saw it when it was in its container, the blooms weren't this bright, and the foliar growth was dark, and the blooms were kind of dark. And I was like, I feel like they're just going to get lost. But I think with the dark foliar growth and how the blooms kind of fade, it just totally shines. So I'm so happy. And then I've got a little border of alyssum right here. And then that border repeats over on this side with the same sun patients and the alyssum all the way down and around. I do want to talk about the greenhouse that's right here. So this is a BC greenhouse. This is, I think it's the 10 by 12. This is the cottage series. We have a blog post. I'll put a link to it in the description down below. And in the blog post, it does also go over full cost breakdown. I don't quite remember on the top of my head, but I added in the cost of the foundation. I didn't add the cost of the brick that we added, or the cost of the tile, or like the built-in. But I did add in the cost of what it cost us to have somebody come pour the foundation for us, and the cost of the greenhouse, and the cost of the shipping. So if you're interested in all of that, it's on the blog. Our blog is called visitourgarden.blog, b-l-o-g.com was taken. And then behind that, look at the borrowed view of the crepe myrtle that I have. Isn't that so amazing? I love having a borrowed view of a crepe myrtle. It's not ours. It's on our neighbor's property. I don't have to deal with it. I don't have to maintain it. And it just gives us the most glorious show in the summertime, and it's my favorite color in the garden. So it's hard to be mad at that. I love the pop of pink right there. Anyways, love the greenhouse, love the pop of pink. I still do use the greenhouse almost daily. I still have plants in there. So things are going. Things are also somewhat dying in here. I potted up this plant. It's a attached creeping fig. An attached plant. It's a creeping fig. I potted it up in this, and then it promptly died within like a couple days. And so I just kind of left it there. But other things are doing fine. I bought so many palladium bulbs. These are the only ones that have come up. Yeah. Anyways, things are growing here. Things are still alive in here. It's very easy to keep succulents alive in the greenhouse in the summertime, I have found. But I also do have other things in here. So like, I've got some calla lilies. I just keep them in a tray full of water. This is a glazed terracotta pot, so it doesn't like seep out water. I've got some vingas. I do keep those on a silver tray because, you know, why wouldn't you keep your plants on a silver tray? And then I just have other things that are doing, they're doing fine in here. So I think I'm starting to figure out how the greenhouse works. Let's, let's get out of here. Another cleome. I tried to repeat this, I think, five times in the garden. And so last year I'd grown this as like a big drift plant, but I found that it's, it does really well as a single specimen impact plant. So I repeated it five spots throughout the garden. And then see these right here? Those are the surefire white begonias. That one is my favorite. Hands down, my favorite begonia. It does really, really, really well. These ones came back for us last year, and I think that's why they got so big. The ones that I transplanted are this big right here. There's ones right here, so they stop. You can kind of see this line right here. So there's one, two, three of them right here. And those ones are not nearly as big. And the ones that are really big that start here, that go all the way up to here, those ones were there last year. And those ones woke up in that spot. They worked all winter on their roots, came back for me, and that's just what they did in there. If I stand in this bed, they come up to probably like just below my chest. They're incredible. Highly recommend. Can't recommend them enough, especially if you're in a higher zone. I will say too, I get questions about the edging that we have throughout our garden. We have it throughout the entire thing. It's from a company called Edge Rite. I will put a link to it in the description down below. I do earn commission if you use the link in my description. If you don't use it, that's fine too. It's from Edge Rite. I love their product. It's what's transformed our entire garden. Over here though, look at these coleus. I did not think these were going to survive. These are the Wicked Witch coleus, and we lost a huge branch on the willow tree, and so I was like, they're not going to survive. They're not going to live. I just planted all of these, and these now get sun all day long. So probably in about an hour and a half, which will be at eight o'clock, these are going to start getting sun. So they'll get sun eight o'clock, and then they'll get like a little weird window of reprieve because there is still some canopy above them, and then they get hit with the hot afternoon sun, and I thought that's what was going to kill them. And they're obviously loving their life. I do have them repeated over on this side, and we did have to put the bench right there because those ones get no break from the sun. So this is now a 100% full sun location from right where the bench is over. So those ones were really struggling. I put the they rebounded completely, and then those ones do get some midday sun, but then they get reprieve from the hot afternoon sun. So it was literally right where the bench arm is over is full, full sun, and those ones, those ones struggled too hard. Turn back around. We're going to look this way. I want to show off the alyssum border. Isn't that incredible? So the alyssum border is amazing. I will be growing alyssum from seed next year, and I will be doing borders of alyssum absolutely everywhere. Our alyssum does get irrigation twice a day right now during the growing season because it is too hot, and so alyssum, I have found, needs a good amount of water for us in my growing zone. It's not the case for everyone, but I do like to keep it watered, and this is what it does for us. So this also gets now full sun. So it gets full sun, and it gets ample water, and I think that's what keeps our border of alyssum looking really, really nice. This is emerald tassel amaranth. Isn't that so stunning? It is amazing to use in floral arrangements to add some drama. I like them draping over the sides of floral arrangements, or I like them, like, hanging out from the top of it, but emerald tassel is amazing. It's just so pretty. I strip off all of the leaves because I don't think the leaves are pretty, and then you just get left with this stunning tassel of a flower. Um, it's also edible, so that's cool. I don't need it, but it is edible. We'll look back this way. So this is the, I think this is compact blush orchid, and they're fine. They just look muted compared to the other ones, and so it's not my favorite thing. Um, so I probably won't really grow those ones unless I can think of something super specific for them next year, but they're just not my favorite. And then the coleus bed. That is limetime and rediculous. Limetime is doing great. Rediculous is not doing great. I will say limetime has been starting to flower on me, so so this is a coleus flower, um, and this is the first time that I'm seeing limetime flower this early for me. Usually it doesn't flower until the very end of the season, so like fall time, um, which in that case I usually then let it flower. I think this is now too much sun for these coleus because these ones get more sun than the wicked witch do, so I'm not really sure. I've been super unimpressed with rediculous and limetime this year. Wicked witch is still hands down my favorites. Ignore the menagerie of plants back there. I will be getting all of those planted soon. We're going back this way. Um, so there's a lot that's happening in this bed. This is the best that this bed has looked. I think I want to walk, and I'll show you guys this side, and then we will end there because it looks really good when you're standing the other way. When you're standing this way, it looks medium, so we'll look at it the other way. Um, this is the other hydrangea, which I love tucked into the willow tree. I think this is the little lime hydrangea, and they basically both have the same size blooms, but this one gets smaller the way that I understand it, and these are panicle hydrangeas, and I'm no, I'm no hydrangea expert, but I'm pretty sure that means that they bloom on new and on old wood. So, um, if you have deer that come and eat them in the wintertime, they should regrow, and they should bloom for you, but if deer come through and they eat them when the blooms are formed like that, you may forfeit your blooms, and panicle hydrangeas can handle, I guess, a lot more sun. So, panicle hydrangeas for the wind for those of us in higher zones. The opening act phlox. This is an amazing phlox. It's one of my favorites. This is called and you can see all of these are new buds that are forming, so this is going to be the second flush of blooms that I'm going to get from it. The first flush happened, and then I gave it a severe cut back. I cut it back more than half, actually, is what I cut it back, um, but I also waited a little bit too long because we had some friends that were coming over here to the garden, and I wanted it to look good while they were over here, and it still was, like, on the cusp of looking good right before it started to look a little rough, and so I waited to cut it back, um, which meant that I did forfeit some of the blooms, but it rebounded, and so you can see it's already started to bloom, and it is pushing even more blooms, which is amazing. We'll come over this way. This is the prairie princess ironweed. Um, this is also a native to the United States, and it's starting to explode with flowers. It gets these really pretty, like, purple flowers, and this entire thing is eventually going to open up with those flowers, and I love the dark foliar growth on it. I saw this one when I was in Michigan, and I loved it when it was in full bloom. You can see this one has a little bit more blooms on it, and it also has some spent blooms, but it is a native, and I think it just is, like, not an ugly native. I don't typically love most native plants. I think that they're scraggly, usually, so this is one that I'm pretty happy to have in the garden. Um, you can see there's the other cleome right here. This one is having to fight for its life a little bit in this location, so good luck to you, buddy, but you are starting to get ahead of everything, which is really nice. This view is kind of fun, because you can see more of the sun patients right there. That's that orchid blush one. That's the same one that I said that I won't be growing more of next year, and then you can see the begonias. Those are the surefire white begonias, and they are a workhorse in the garden. They also are stunning in floral arrangements. I will say I make floral arrangements for one of my friends each week, and, um, yeah, I love using them in floral arrangements. They're really pretty, and she said they have a really long base life. Okay, let's go this way. So the superbena peachy keen is looking good. Also, these right here, I planted five of them. Three of them survived. I don't even remember the name, because I thought that they would die. I planted five different colors, and they're doing so well. I think they're called, like, summer snapdragons, and they kind of snap like snapdragons do a little bit. Snapdragons, if you squeeze their neck, they actually snap and talk to you. I planted five of them. Two of them died. Three of them survived, and I'm super happy the fact that they did live. They're not the most impactful, but I do think that they're just, like, kind of, like, soft and pretty, and I like, I do kind of like that it, like, flopped, because I would love to have put something kind of bigger here and have it be kind of like a trailing plant. That would be really pretty. So I will try to grow them again next year for sure, but I will use them differently. Verbena peachy keen. Can't be mad at that one. That one's doing really well. That one's probably doing the best out of all the verbenas this year. Um, verbena might be a low on the list plant for next year, though. Probably not one that I'm gonna be super ambitious about growing. Um, and then this bed from this side, we just kind of extended the bed. The bed used to end back here, kind of like, actually, right, see that little line right there? That's where the bed used to end, was about that location. So I added a foot and a half to the bed, which has been really nice. Gave it more of a, like, soft look up into it instead of a, like, jump up into a bed. You can see more amaranth in there. There's the emerald tassel, and then coral fountain or lovelies looting. I can't remember which one. I don't know why. They look so similar. I just love amaranth. I think it's really pretty. Treasure trove rebecchia. This one is great. This one, once it's mature, is stunning. I saw it in a huge drift. I want to grow more of this. This is a perennial one. I will be growing more of this in my garden. I think this is new this year, and then those are the supertunia bermuda beech. I do really love the, like, pink and the yellow combo. I kind of have, I kind of have that repeated over there. I think that that is the supertunia vista cool jazz underneath the indian summer rebecchia over there. Look, it's starting to get in the full sun. So I really do like the, like, pink purple with that yellow combo. I think that's really pretty. Okay, we're backing up. Yeah, I think this bed looks really good. Oh, I also want to show, because I've been getting questions about dogwood. We've had some very, very hot days, and there is no burning on the leaves yet. And yeah, see the white? It's flowering for us, which is insane. I don't really know why it's flowering, but it is flowering. And there really isn't anywhere, like, that's like a little burn spot, but that might be old burn spot. But yeah, I'm super happy with this, and we've had days over 100 degrees already. I think we had, like, 105 or something like that already, and no burning. And that was one of the biggest things that we were getting comments about when we played with that. Everyone was saying, Robby, that is gonna just cook, burn, scorch right there. I would say before you go out and go buy one of those, still give us a little bit so I can update you a little bit further into the summertime, what this actually is going to look like, and if it's actually going to burn. But so far, we've had 100 degree days and very high UV index, and no burning on it, and flowers. Super weird, but this is definitely a great dogwood. This is one that we did look up, and we were like, yeah, okay, this is one that if you have a more sunny location, this one can handle a ton more sun. So that's why we planted that one. I just can't believe we're getting flowers right now. Seems so backwards. Okay, so we're coming back around this way. You can see our aviary. I get comments about the aviary all the time about people who don't like that we have birds in there. We have birds in there. They're zebra finch. They're not native to the United States. I do want to show you guys, okay, bad hair day mangave. This is our other one that we have. I think it's such a, like, unexpected plant and a fun plant. A lot of people don't like mangave or succulent type plants, but I think this is kind of a fun one. This one also has what is referred to as a death spike. So it's a spike that comes up, and it's flowering. Do you see how big that is? Isn't that crazy? And so the flowers have started to be spent, and this is what the flowers look like. They were actually much more interesting when they were open. I can't show you what they looked like when they were fresh, but they looked really cool when they were fresh. And so these are a whole bunch of flowers. With this death spike, it means that the plant may die or it may not die. People are saying that because it is a cross between a manfritta and a mangave that the death spike doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to die, but it does mean that it has a chance that it could die. So I will update you guys when the death spike finishes. This is my other favorite petunia, and this has been one that I struggled with for years. I had a hard time keeping it alive. It was just one that I just genuinely struggled with. It just always fizzled on me. Last year I was like, you know what, I'm going to give it one more shot, and if it doesn't survive, then that's fine. I just will never grow it ever again. Last year I think I told it that, and it was like, okay, fine, I'll get it together. It got it together, and bam! She looked so good last year. She looked exactly like this, and this year I was like, I'm picking them up, and I'm putting them back in the exact same location, and when I put it back in this location, this is what it is doing. So this is supertunia latte, and I love the blooms on it. They're this creamy white color, so they're not like a stark white, and then I love the like black, chocolatey, purpley throats that it has with like a little tiny bit of veining on it. I think it's so pretty. So blooms are kind of closed right now because it is morning, but once the sun hits it, the blooms open up. So this one is kind of weird that the blooms do kind of open and close for me, I've noticed, versus like this is the supertunia Bermuda Beach, and these ones are always open. The blooms are 100% open all the time. This one is a much more well-behaved petunia, so if you need like a well-behaved kind of tuck-in plant, I would plant this one. If you want something overwhelming, I would plant the supertunia vista bubblegum. Bermuda Beach is like, I might grow it again, I might not grow it again. I think I would rather grow like latte because I think that's so much more impactful, and I do think it's, I think it's really pretty. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. And then this is the longbed that I wanted to show you guys from the other way. Let me show you some petunias that have not been getting sprayed with Bt. So you can see how there's no blooms on there. That is because caterpillars are coming through, and they are eating off the blooms from my petunias. So they are starting to be on a little bit of a struggle bus. So we do need to get in there and spray with Bt. I just didn't really want to because there's so many other flowers that are in here that I don't mind if caterpillars are on some of these plants, but I just don't want them doing that because that is not impactful. So the plants are doing well, they're just not doing well enough because of the caterpillars. Anyways, this bed is looking the best it's ever looked. These are the firefly yarrow. I could have sworn that these were the orange ones, and I do now remember them being yellow last year, and I remember last year also thinking that they were the orange ones. So I don't know. The yellow ones I'm not super impressed with. They're fine. They're medium, but the yellow ones do turn brown. I don't like that look. So like, you get really pretty yellow blooms for a minute, and then you have to like come out here and I hate deadheading these yarrow because like you have to come through and like snip off each individual little branch, and like I don't want to like shear it all the way down because I don't want to cut off the blooms that still look pretty. So then you have to come in here. I don't know. This is the color that I would not grow again. I'm not going to take it out because it does fine here, but I also would not actively add it back into the garden. Just my take on that one. Um, also there's another Mangove in here. This is, I'm, I'm not a Mangove fan, but I do really like this one. This is called Lavender Lady. This one I think is really pretty just because of the color of it, and it doesn't get super huge, and so it's kind of a cool little unexpected add-in plant. I love this one. The Fifi Dahlia is doing really well. She was the first one to bloom in the garden this year, and she was also, um, the one that's been putting up the most blooms, but this one over here gets a bit more sun than our other ones, and she does get a little sun scorching, so I learned that about this one. This one does not like full, full afternoon sun, but, uh, the other spot that we get it, the other spot that we have it does get full sun. It just doesn't get hot afternoon sun, so that one's struggling. You can see my other Cleome back there. This bed has been really fun this year. I have for years hated this bed. I've never felt like it was doing anything. It didn't, like, give me any impact, and this year it's, I feel like, actually giving me some impact, which is, I don't know, really nice, and I'm actually enjoying walking past this bed. So that's been a very pleasant surprise. This is a plant that I wanted to show you guys. I've been waiting for it to bloom. This is an oregano, and this is called Drops of Jupiter. The blooms on it are stunning, and they really pop because of the neon green foliar growth, and then the blooms are just so stunning. It smells like oregano. It's more ornamental. It's not really one you want to eat. I suppose you could eat it, but, um, it's more just recommended as a really pretty garden plant. So I grow it as a really pretty garden plant, and I love the way that it looks. I just think that is the bee's knees, if we're being honest. Um, hibiscus. I keep talking about this one, which is so crazy that I talk about it because I fought Brent about wanting to put a hibiscus in the garden. They're not my favorite plant. I just think that they look so out of place in gardens because I don't live in a tropical climate, and this is a tropical plant, but it does really, really well here, and the blooms are stunning. Right now, yesterday's blooms are starting to fade, so this is a yesterday bloom right here that is starting to fade, and it will drop its bloom today. It usually doesn't hold on to blooms, and then this is going to be today's bloom, and this will open up completely. You can see this one right there. So it opens up new blooms every day, but it does also drop blooms every day. So every day we are coming out here, and we are picking up the blooms so that it drops because we don't really like the messy look of the blooms, but, um, it is surprisingly a plant that both of us are loving. I knew that he would love it because he loves hibiscus. It's a plant that I'm surprised that I'm also loving. Um, I've got some petunias down here. That is more of the Bermuda beech. It's doing fine. Uh, I don't hate it. I don't think it's the world's most impactful petunia. I feel fine about these petunias. Nothing to write home about. The magnolia tree this year, though, is doing really well. No spider mites. We did use a systemic on it because we dealt with spider mites really bad last year, and we thought we were going to lose the tree, and I paid way too much money to lose this tree. This is a black tulip magnolia, and last year was, I was really nervous that we were going to lose it. So this year, this spring, right as it started to leave out, we put systemic on it. It sucked it up, and so that way if it did get any spider mites, it would, uh, be able to fight them off. She was doing really, really well this year, and I'm very happy to report that. She is not blooming. She's not giving me a single bloom this year, and, uh, upon further inspection, it was saying that once you kind of transplant them, they can kind of go into, like, a little bit of, like, a bloom shock, where they don't produce blooms for a year or two. So I don't expect blooms this year. I'm not going to expect blooms next year. It would be a nice surprise, um, but hopefully by year three, there's blooms on that thing. You can see the Supertunia Vista bubblegums are looking a lot better over here. Um, they're not as being eaten by the caterpillars, but the pokeweed is kind of hanging over the fence this year, so we're trying to also not let that happen. Um, the birds really love pokeweed, and they eat it once the berries turn purple. Everything gets covered in purple berries, and honestly, it's just a mess. These are pretty toxic to people, so we do try to keep the berries off of our side of the property. It is kind of nice because it does create a little bit of a wall for us, so I don't mind that the neighbors let them grow. But I do try to keep them right at the fence line, so that way we don't deal with too many of the little seedlings popping up. And then my volunteer zinnias right here. So that is Oklahoma Salmon. I think this is the Benares Pink. And then this is either, I think this might be Polar Bear White or something like that, or it could be, like, Benares White or something. I don't know. It's just a white zinnia. It's just a white zinnia. These zinnias are all self-seeded, and I didn't have the heart to pull them because I don't hate zinnias at all. I like zinnias a lot. So I said, great, you're a great little accent plant there. So I think this might be where we say goodbye. This was just kind of the back garden tour. Nothing's changed in this bed from the last garden tour. Nothing is looking super fabulous or anything that I feel like I was like, I gotta show you this right now. There's nothing over there that's looking top-notch. So it just is...it's fine over there. That has also been a bed that I've struggled with over the years, but a lot of the rest of the garden is looking absolutely amazing. So, my friends, I do think that this is where we say goodbye. I hope that you've hit that subscribe button by now through this video. I love gardening. I hope you love gardening. I hope that you're here to stay. We have some very exciting things in the works happening. I hope that you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much for visiting our garden. We will see you all tomorrow in the next one. Bye, guys.