Weekly Garden Tour: Big Changes & Plans Ahead! 🌱 | Week 1

Join me for a delightful spring garden tour as I share all the big changes and exciting plans ahead! 🌱 From planting flowers and shrubs to refreshing raised beds and tackling storm cleanup, there’s so much happening in the garden this season. I’m working on narrowing walkways for that dreamy cottagecore vibe, adding medicinal herbs like dill and yarrow, and setting up new asparagus roots and shrubs to fill in the landscape. Plus, you’ll get a peek at my evolving orchard, raised bed gardening progress, and even a few fun surprises like my tropical hibiscus and quirky garden décor! 🌸✨

In this video, I talk about growing in Zone 7, seed starting, and how I’m transforming our space into a lush haven filled with flowers, plants, and nature’s beauty. Gardening is such a fulfilling journey, and I’d love to hear your tips, advice, or suggestions! Let me know if you have any comments or ideas for how I can keep things looking great—especially with all the mulch drama thanks to my dog! 🐾

Follow along as I share my organic gardening adventures, healing herbs, and the joy of creating a personalized space that feels like home. Let me know if you’d like to see more videos of specific projects—like cleaning up the old cottage garden or beautifying my storage shed—or just the final results! 💬 Follow me there so we can chat about all things gardenlife! 🌿

Thanks for joining me on this journey—I can’t wait to hear your thoughts! Let me know if you’ve tried any cool gardening tools or have advice for growing in Arkansas. I love this time of year, and I hope you’re having a wonderful spring too! 🌷

#gardenjournal #zone9gardening #ediblelandscaping #urbangardening #cottagegarden

CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Intro
01:03 – Side Garden Design
05:55 – Cottage Garden Ideas
09:58 – Back Garden Layout
18:10 – Greenhouse Plants Overview
19:10 – Garden Planting Update
27:30 – Greenhouse Features
30:00 – Berry Bed Planting
31:50 – New Orchard Planting
34:34 – Cottage Garden Tips
41:04 – Front Yard Landscaping
43:50 – Deck Design Ideas
44:46 – Deck Container Gardening
45:00 – Banana Trees Care
45:50 – Final Thoughts & Tropical Hibiscus Care

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Hey everybody, it’s Elizabeth and welcome back. Thanks for being here today and I hope you’re having a wonderful day wherever you are. So today I wanted to give you guys a garden tour and I was thinking that this year it’s very windy that this year with garden content that one thing I think I would try to do more which I with my original YouTube channel I had back when I lived in Arizona and that was I did weekly garden tours and then I would work on different projects and little things in the garden off camera. um because it’s really less interesting to watch if you ask me, but it’s really fun to like tune back in to someone’s garden every week, see how things were growing and changing and flourishing and stuff. So, I thought why not kick that off now, really midspring or kind of still early midspring. So, we’re going to do a garden tour today. I’m going to try and show you everything. Uh big inground gardens are not in yet, but when they are, I will show those to you. But I have changed some things around here since I last showed you guys the garden spaces. Now, it is windy here today, so just uh I’m going to do my best to try and stay out of it. I’m over at the side now. Um so, one big thing I’ve done since I last did a video was planted these flowers here. So, there was nothing here except there’s a rose there and there, which I had put those in last year. Everything else was wide open. This year, you can see we’re trying to establish a border. So, I put in this cute a little evergreen right over here is a purple basil seedling. Those get pretty big when they’re thriving. At least a 3×3. So, it’s going to like just fill in this whole area. And then over here, I don’t remember what this was called. I also want to note a little pref prefix warning about um all of the plants here right now is it’s we’ve had beautiful lovely kind of really warm spring weather the last few days but just previous to that we had 4 days of rain, lots of flooding in the lowlands. We’re good and safe here because we live in Hill Country, but lots of stuff flooded here in Arkansas and uh we got 7 and 12 inches of rain here in just two days alone. So, a lot of the flower petals are like beaten and falling off. So, the plants don’t even look that great and happy right now. But I did get all these right here in this new row. I did get these in the ground the day before the rain because I just wanted them to get like really rained into their new spot. And they sure did, but they look a little rough. So, this one, which you can see like the petal color that is so pretty. Autumn starburst. It’s an Aelia and I think Oh, sorry. I got cat walking in front of the camera. World’s bestselling relooming aelia. This one gets 3×3. So, um, a lot of aelas are bigger than that. They can be big shrubs. This is just a 3×3. So, I love that. And then here’s the rose that I put in last year coming back to life. Cute little new mushroom thing I got. This is a eucalyptus that I got from my local nursery and she said it um it it cannot be overwintered. It keeps falling down and attaching to this rose over here. Anyways, I think I need to tie that right there. But it can’t be overwintered. So, she said leave it in a container. Here is another rose, which by the way, this smells amazing. If you love eucalyptus, it’s divine. I love it. Um, this is another rose finally doing good. I don’t remember the color of these two roses. I think one of them is a lilac. I can’t remember. We’ll see together. Got some weeds here. I didn’t pull because I’m for now I’m just kind of like leaving them for the bees. But um especially any of these flowering weeds. But this is a uh what is that called? A daisy. A perennial daisy. This is a really cool evergreen. This one didn’t have a tag on it. Some of some evergreens will yellow at different times of the year and that’s normal for them. This one is called like a yellow rod something. It’s actually meant to stay yellow. So, I got it because I love that color. Over here is a dill seedling. And the last time I grew dill, it got to be four to 5t tall. So, I put it here kind of like a little shrub. And that one I got that same time as that purple basil. And this dude is thriving. I did also go through the garden and I refilled mulch. You cannot tell because look at this. This is for my dog. There’s the guilty party right there. But this is like seriously constant. It’s very annoying. Um, I’m actually, have you guys heard of that like clear spray that you spray on mulch and like small gravel to keep it from moving around? I’m considering that, but let me know in the comments. Have you tried it? Is it toxic for plants or pets? Like, it just seems weird to me. And anytime I’ve ever like seen that in an ad, I thought that was like someone who never like literally touched that bed and they just want it to look perfect. But this is pathways and I’m having a really difficult time keeping the pathways looking nice. Also, that new mulch I did is a slightly different color. And so, right now, it’s starting to look okay. When it was new, it was super noticeable. Like, you can see right there, this is all the new mulch. And there’s some along those plants. I don’t like that. I hope they blend in. And I do still have to add more mulch. I’m not done with that. You see, I’ve got different spots. I have started refilling these raised beds this year. I’ve added seven bags of soil to this one, seven to that one back there. I only put one in there. So, these two I still need to fill. Uh, but you can see how that, you know, quickly becomes 21, 28, 35 bags of soil. One thing I’m going to work on this year is if you see here, we’ve got these lovely holly bushes and they provide privacy for the rooms. Also, like, you know, a little shade on the house. I’ve got this tiny little hosta down here. It doesn’t get a lot of direct light. It doesn’t seem to grow much bigger than it is right now. And this is new. It just leafed back out this spring. So, I have another spot with uh Holl’s over there, and I’m going to just start adding some different things in here. I have randomly grown some zenyas there before, but this year, my goal is to add one or two small shrubs that maybe don’t get over, you know, 2x two or 3×3, but perennial shrubs to just fill this in and decrease my walkways. My walkways are huge. That is because this is like I think maybe the third year I’ve been growing in this space. If we look at it as a whole, it is it’s really coming together. If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that this space has gone through so many changes. It just started out with these four original beds. That’s it. There was nothing else in this space but grass in between the house and the shop. So, a lot has happened, but there’s still just like so much to do. And then look at this right here where all this is washed. That’s because we got so much water. It literally was just pouring and it was moving the mulch. So, still a lot of clean up from that storm. But anyway, point being is this year in the cottage garden, we’re getting established enough that the goal now is to fill in the walkways. I want by August of this year. I’m envisioning that the walkways will be maybe 2 ft wide in some places, maybe even just a foot in other places. I want narrow walkways just like in your typical cottage garden. It needs to be like full like brimming full of flowers and herbs and evergreens and just lovely. So that’s what we’re working on this year. And that’s also part of the reason in getting this front part here done is because then this comes in here and it necks down this walkway. I left this opening here. So obviously this is in a container, but between this rose and this rose, there’s like 5t there. Now they’re going to grow and they may even touch, but if so, I’ll just keep them trimmed. But that’s the intention is leave a gap here and everything else I want to touch. Um, chocolate mint I brought out of the greenhouse. It is doing lovely. Smells good. First time I overwinter that. Um, I’ve got some random flower bulbs in this bed because that’s where I put them last year. So, I’m just leaving them for now. I planted some asparagus roots in two rows here last year, and the cats played with them a lot, so I wasn’t really sure if they would survive. But when I came in and I added this new soil, this this guy right here was already coming up. So, this is the first time I’ve had asparagus plants. Oh my god. So, but now look, we’ve got three more over there. See the three little babies? So, I’m really excited about this. I did just plant asparagus in the new metal raised beds in the back, but that’s okay. It’s a perennial. Could have it everywhere. Comes up and stays by root. So, um, like these, this right here, this is like the actual asparagus that you eat. Um, and they say don’t harvest it the first year. So, this year we’ll just watch them grow. We’ll get to eat it next year. Let’s see. Another thing over here I changed is I used to have like a an old little fountain, water fountain thing over there. It’s been broken a long time. So, we just got this new big waterer for the dog. And this is what is that? Jasmine. Jasmine. Yep, that’s jasmine. It is a vining plant. So, for now, I just have it there and want to see how it does, but I really wanted something kind of taller to fill that spot in. This area’s pretty much always just been ugly. Nothing permanently in the landscape. And of course, gotta redo my mulch. Over here is another new shrub. Again, in that same line of thinking of how I want to pop some shrubs in around the holl, I put one here. I ordered this one online through Amazon, and it’s a gardinia. And it’ll get to be 3 or 4 feet tall, maybe 3 ft wide. So, she’s going to come in and fill out this area and just kind of hide this right here. That’s my goal. Hide that vent there and just kind of come up. Plus, it flowers and smells lovely. So, um, don’t know if we’ll get to experience the flowering this year, but that’s okay. I’m excited about it still. Um, I am getting some other shrubs that I want to do right here in this spot. You can see how we’ve we’ve got a gap there. The corkcrew willow is totally leafed out. Look at this crazy guy. So beautiful. Oh my gosh. Totally leafed out and glorious. And my intent in putting this here was that I knew someday, it’s so windy today. Look, it’s just like falling over. I knew someday Oh, the cat’s trying to get it. Um, that this walkway might not exist. And that’s fine. I don’t like I don’t even ever really walk that way. So, again, no, not a big deal. But, this is one of those things like the limbs are like so small. If I wanted to like just trim it back a little bit to be out of the way, I totally could. Um, there’s nothing going on in this bed. Oh, I did set this guy up. Um, this is I think I did a reel about this uh recently. But this is just a bird feeder I had salvaged a while ago. Repainted, painted the inside blue, but then eventually it was just getting really like weather worn. When we got a ton of rain, these little figurines I have here started like literally floating around in it. Just got this at like uh I don’t know if this was Dollar Tree or Dollar General. This thing’s not very deep. Anyways, just going to put that back in there. Find it a new home. Anyways, this got like really flooded from all the rain. And but anyways, that was the intent. Just have it be something more useful than just for a bird bath because it was getting really ugly and not savable. And then this gu is my little um my little planter. And he actually has been sitting on that potting stand for two years and never had anything in him. So I went and pulled a couple of stems off of one of my succulents. And look how cute that is. Adorable. Okay, so let’s see. We move over here. I don’t remember what that is. I think that’s a mint and that’s why it’s in in the container. But I did not overwinter it in the greenhouse. I just left it out here. So, we’re waiting to see how it’s going to do. Moved some new items onto this table because it’s like always empty and just looks weird. This was over on the ground. This is a bee bath and it was over on the ground and my dog would knock it over all the time. So, we just put it up here for the bees. This is a fake flower just to give me some visual interest. Um, in this bed we have I had planted two things in here that started from seeds that I had told you about already. One did not make it. And that is the bo. They did not survive. It was there. Like literally, look, it’s gone. Like there’s just nothing there. And these are some succulents I have that are coming back. They were planted all along the edge. I already came through and dug up several of my um hostas I had in here that I was just overwintering because I took them to my mom’s house and put them in her yard. This right here is the other one. This is the finel. And I’ve got some bulbs coming up here too close to it. So soon I’m probably just gonna like scoot this guy over. But if you remember from that last planting video, this can get like 5 to 6 feet tall. And so I put it here thinking, okay, I’ll take this whole corner. Oh my god, I just noticed. Look at all my radishes. Oh my god, I hadn’t even noticed those before. When I was sitting over there, I was thinking these were just weeds. But my husband asked me to plant some radishes cuz he just loves them raw. And look how cute they’re all coming up. You see my little thing is like radishes to the left and then radishes to the right so I wouldn’t forget and plant something else in here. Anyways, that’s fun. So, okay. So, let’s see. This area is something I’m going to work on a lot this year. Probably just this spring. I love this little mirror. I bought this antique mirror off of Facebook just to have in here. And I’ve got so the stringy greens are daffodils. And you can see I’ve got hostas in there. They’re just starting to come up. I added those all last year. And I had some other flowers here before. I don’t remember. Oh, and here’s one of my Where is my tag for this? This is a plant I just put in the ground. Look, you can barely see it. I just put this in the ground. Here’s greenery. Maybe it just got beat off in that storm. I don’t remember what that is. Hi, buddy. Hi. I’ll have to look back. I think this is going to be a shrub. I’ll have to look at my notes. Anyway, I came over here. So, there’s numerous places where I’ve got these white tags with nothing written on them. And what that is from is because I direct sewed seeds for annual flowers. I don’t think any of them were perennials. But look at this. There’s one. And there’s one. This one, if I can recall. Oh, look. There’s more right there. Where is it? I can’t see on the camera. Where’s the green one? There they are. Right there. Coming up. Um, I think I did um something that gets 36 in here and then a row of something gets 24 in and a row of something that gets 18 in. Trying to stack three layers here with some annual flowers. Moved that over here. This was like a really temporary idea. You guys have heard me mention all the time how much I hate this this view. Several things about that. I am going to do a project video on this really soon. Next few weeks probably. We power wash this building every year and just it’s time now. So, that needs to be done. I cleaned out some of the storage back here that’s like the kids bikes. They’re over there now. And was trying to clean this up. We have this porch swing used to be on our porch and my husband’s talked for a while about just making a stand for it and we’ve not done it yet. So, we’re going to eventually do that, but I was thinking this could be a pretty cool spot for it. Anyways, the project I’m going to work on is beautifying or lizifying this shed. This is a garden/h holiday shed. What that really means is like a third of it is garden supplies and materials and then the rest of it is literally my holiday decor. Christmas, Thanksgiving, spring, Valentine’s, whatever. I’ve got shelves on both sides and it once upon a time was really organized and now it’s kind of falling by the wayside. So, I’m going to have to fix that up. But this project is about the exterior of the building. So, we’ll be doing some painting. will be doing some decorations and I just want to make this feel so much homeier. It’s just been such an afterthought. Um oh, one of my other perennials is coming back. That what is that? I can’t remember. It’s just like third year here. We’ll see when it starts to bloom. I don’t remember what a lot of stuff is. Anyway, so this is another thing from all that rain. Look at this. We’ve just got mulch displaced everywhere. This is way worse. It did not look like this before. It’s just Yeah. Anyway, when I cleaned that out, I also pulled out a ton of leaves. There’s just part of them still there. But um anyways, so going to get this area planted. Part of this project again like the decorations I said, but I’m also going to purchase a screen to put right there and attach to both of the buildings so you literally just can’t see in there. I put this trellis over here and it’ll buy me a vining beautiful flower for there. I direct sewed seeds in here that looks like this tag is missing, but I’m pretty sure it’s zenas. And then right here in this spot where I’ve got this little pink tag or Texas blue bonnets directed. And then over here, this area will be really fun. Oh, look at the cats. They’re so cute. I’ve got potatoes in these tubs. I don’t know if that was done in the last video before I mentioned it. This had a this had a cactus in it and then the bottom was a succulent. The succulent is coming back. So, that’s cool. And then we’ve got a prickly pair of cactus down there. And then here’s my little tag for zenyas. I’ve got zenyas planted all throughout this whole area. Like just hopefully full. This is another bird bath that was at the end of its life. But this one um does have a hole in the bottom of it. That’s what happened is it cracked and it froze over winter. It’s just plastic. So this one I put soil in and I planted borage in the middle, which is an herb, medicinal herb. And then sweet pea flowers around the edge. So it looks like we may have Let me just get in there and see. Ah, maybe some germination. Are you some germination? I can’t tell. Like you’re trying to fall over. But here’s a little something. But yeah, and my thought is, you know, the sweet peas, if you don’t know, they’re like a vine. They’re a relative to like a sweet pea you can eat. But this is just one that just flowers. It’s grown for its flowers and it smells really good. So, I’m hoping it’ll vine over the side. How pretty would that be? Lovely. I did plant um what are they called? Morning glories. I planted morning glories in both of these pots just like I did last year. Grow up there. However, I did do a different color than I did last year. Um over here where these chairs are, I broadcast seeds last year for um a plant. I can’t remember now what it is. It grows here wild. Ah, mullen. Mullen. That’s the end of a stem of a mullen plant I cut back. I broadcast that all over here, hoping they come back. You can see here, this lemon tree is starting to try to come back to life. I’m not sure if everything above that is going to have to be cut off or what. I’ll wait and see. In here, we’ve got um this is garlic or onions. This is garlic. Garlic bed is coming up good and looks nice. It’s hard to see through there. The other side is cabbage. And they’ve been struggling, but like they’re still alive. Over here is broccoli. Doing good. These are the onions. If you can see those over there. Let me come on this other side. Okay, these are the onions on the left. Um, and then this is Oh my gosh, look. We have some coming up. So, this middle section here is the new asparagus crowns. And look, there’s one in there coming up already. That’s exciting. These are head lettucees I’ve never grown before, at least not successfully. But y’all, everything just got beat down so much by the rain. It’s been crazy. This was all celery. And right now, I’ve got one plant left and the tiniest bit of hope for this one plant. And I put in eight and the others have all died. I don’t know why. Don’t know what’s happening. Here’s that succulent that I stole to go in the Yoda head. This is nice. It just comes back every year. Just leave it in a container with this cute little dragon. Um, let’s see what else we got to look at over here. This is my roso Sharon, which is the cousin to hibiscus. It’s a perennial hibiscus here for us in zone 7. This year she went in about well not went in. I’ve had this for 3 years. This one was about this tall last year. So she’s already almost doubled in size this year. Um it did flower last year for the first time. So I expect blooms again this year. But I’m excited for this guy to really fill out this corner because it’s supposed to get really big. And look at all my black holly hawks. This is the original mom plant. Is that like cats like really trying to hurt each other? Sounds like screaming. Anyways, um original mom plant, second year, second year baby. And third year baby didn’t grow or or um did not do a lot or flower last year. And then here are fourth year babies. Um these all flower last year. So that’s cool. I’m just letting them spread. They’re just spreading themselves. Less work for me. Get after it. Got some more hostas there in containers. They don’t do well, so I need to move them. What do you Oh yeah, the cats are playing. The dogs freaking out cuz like he can’t get to them. Um Oh my god. Oh, I said he she can’t get to them. I always mix up the sexes of my pets. I don’t know just in in words like in he she. Anyway, so here’s another citrus tree just living here temporarily. It looks like it tried to die back to the root. I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed. It was in the greenhouse all winter. It shouldn’t have done that. So, anyways, my husband moved the tires over for my old cottage garden. I could not be happier with just how cute they are. I’ve missed having them near me. I’ve not gardened over there for two years. So, in this one, I planted a giant elephant ear in the middle. with pastel gladiolas circling it. I’m so excited. I can’t wait to see what that does. I totally skipped over this middle section here. And this is where the blue tire ended up at. I love it. Absolutely love it. So, if you just picture all this mulch and stuff cleaned up and the walkways filled in. I love this contrast with the yellow and the blue here. And when when I had this in the old cottage garden, I had pink yarrow in there and it was I can’t even tell you how divine the color combination was. It was like a really like a medium like a dark pastel pink really when it flowers and it’s a perennial herb. It’s so lovely, but they don’t transplant well. It’s still over there in the cottage garden. My husband just brought me my tires and I filled them up and I had ordered Pinkiro’s seeds online before I remembered to bring the tire over. And so then it all just really worked out divinely and I direct sewed four or five in there hoping at least one will come up because at mature height it’s going to be probably a 3×3 for an herb. Um let’s see over here. This is my I don’t know why it’s in this pot, but this is a it was a bare root lilac that I bought. I think one of those from Tractor Supply that you can get. Look how pretty these little buds are. They’re like there’s so much power. So much power in there. Like this is just going to like bust out to life really soon. And really foolish foolish. Anyways, and it’s just going to be great. I think these get pretty big. I’ve got to figure out where I want it um permanently. That’s why I just overwintered it in the greenhouse in this. This is another not this, this is a blackberry. This is another one of my hostas. Um not hostas, hibiscus. This is a perennial version. Comes back on hardwood. So, cut it all the way back at the end of the year. What is this? Oh, this is weeds. Oh, look. That’s exactly what I thought I saw the corner of my eye. It will shoot up all new stems this year. So, let me see if the other one’s doing it. It’s not. See, that one I didn’t cut back to the ground, but they’re sibling plants, but different colors. So, that’ll be great. Here’s one of my other citrus. It’s actually doing pretty well. A lot of it is leafing out. Um, and so I’m just leaving these yellow things to make sure nothing’s going to happen. They’re very bendy, so I don’t know if anything’s going to come back or not. Oh, so really quick on the greenhouse. Only thing I’ve got in here are two trays of herbs. Always checking the ground for snakes. Oh, what’s the temperature in here? It feels warm. 82. Nice. But you like that. Okay, cool. We have some germination. I haven’t uh Yeah, I need to water top water. I just spray until seeds come up. But we’ve got some seeds coming up, so I might need to start bottom watering. This is raspberry Lana tomato. And then back here, mom’s spoon tomato. So, this is like a tiny tiny tiny little little bitty cherry tomato. I’m starting for my mom that’ll go in her garden. Over here, we’ve got flowers and spinach and kale and lettuce. And we’ve got a little something happening here. What is this? Blanco pumpkins. Okay, cool. Cool. Like you can see they’ve not quite they’re working on it. See this one? You can just see it. You couldn’t see it because of my finger, but anyways, this one this is very dry. I’m going to water this as soon as I’m done. Okay. So, I don’t want the video to be super duper long, but I do still want to like show y’all stuff. And I know I need to go out to the new orchard because y’all, we literally had so much rain that I could see from the window. A couple of these trees were crooked. Like they’re just croo crooked in their spot. Oh my gosh, I’m excited. This is a red maple I put in in the fall. We need to take this steak off. It feels Yeah. You feel like you’re choking the tree. What’s happening? Yeah, this see how tight this is. Need to just do something do something different. Anyways, it’s got his little buds coming out. But up here, it’s actually leafing out. Ah. So, yay. Because I bought this in the fall because it the leaves turn like fire red obviously cuz it’s a fire red maple. But, um and it was never leafed out. Oh my gosh, we have more trees coming to life. Ah, I love the spring. This is my mimosa tree. Look at her coming back. Good job. And then over here, I saw this one from afar. Oh, look how weird this one looks. Oo, girl, you’re weird. Anyway, this is a Chinese pistachio ornamental tree. Um, I did go through and clean up the the berry bed. This is raspberry. They’re doing good. Oh, look at this blueberry. Oh, I’m so pumped in this video because I wasn’t sure if this one was still alive or not. It’s an odd shape. Look, it’s like one stem. So weird. Anyway, it’s got all these buds. Look at these. That’s exactly where it had berries last year. I don’t know why my camera won’t focus. I guess cuz the wind’s blowing everything around. There you go. So, anyways, it’s super cool. All right. Yep. I I see a crooked tree cuz we’re on a hill. Oh, I also got my new additional water hose for watering over here. Brought this spigot over from the cottage garden. And I’ve got a quick connect on the end of this hose. So, I’ll just take this all off, run it up there to the house, have a quick connect on that hose, hook up, and then I can water. And I’m not sure why this is open. Oh my gosh. It’s like Okay, we’ll let dad look at that. Don’t know what’s going on. Anyways, I always worry about critters being in there, but that’s a kids playhouse. That tree looks good. Look at this. Yeah, this hill is very moist. So, we just need to lean you back over. Lean you back over. Just trying to like reinforce that spot because it’s so new. Okay, that’s a ton better. Hopefully it’ll stay because it’s so windy today. And then this newest one, we’ll stop and look at this guy in a second. This newest one I just put in like right before the storm. Look at that. Totally crooked. Thankfully, trees are like so flexible when they’re young. Like, we just got we got so much rain, so much wind. Like, literally just was very damaging. This needs more dirt. Like, I can see the top of the root ball there. Like I guess being on this hill, it washed some of it down because like this this right here, this should be covered and it was when I planted it. So I have to work on that. Um let’s see. This guy looks fine, not crooked, and finally finally budding out. Thank you, guy. I was so worried. Honey crisp. That’s what that new one is, too. So, both of these on the end are honey crisp. And then these were not butted out last time I showed you. And these are my hazelnut bushes. Ah, I’m so excited. Look at the crazy cats. Anyways, this one and that one are the hazelnuts. And the wisteria has been blooming. She’s almost done. Lovely. Um, and this is wormwood medicinal herb. She’s happy right now. Let’s go check this other tree I was worried about because the deer would eat on this tree. Like they loved its leaves. Okay, jewelry is still out. What is this? This was a malberry tree. It’s like very bendy. So, my husband and I, we’ve talked about it. We just keep leaving it, hoping it comes back, but who knows. Oh my gosh, I see blooms over here. This is my old cottage garden. This video is going to be longer than I expected. Hopefully you guys like it. Like, following along. What? Oh my gosh, it’s German irises. Ah, I forgot I had these over here. What? Look, look at this beauty in the darkness. Oh my goodness, that is so pretty. Okay, there is a critter over here in this pile. I can hear it. I don’t think it’s one of my cats. We have a stray cat that like hangs around and has been fighting with our cats. Anyway, I’m not worried about it being anything bigger. I don’t even know what this tree is. Um, I don’t recall putting it there. I don’t know if it’s a weed tree or what. This is another wisteria I had started to go over an arch. Bro, what is in there? Oh, it’s a bird. Okay, just a bird. Anyway, look. Was going to go over this. There was an arch here. We took it down obviously. So just the tost remain. But look at this wisteria. So crazy. It actually is blooming. That is nuts. The wisteria on the chicken coupe like just took uh years to do anything. So this is my old cottage garden. There is a landscape fabric under almost all of this. This is where the tires were. Um, there’s one. Oh my gosh. What was in that? That this one right here. Um, what is that called? I can’t remember. It’s a perennial herb. But this is a crab apple that I didn’t know survived. But look at it. She’s leafing back out. Ow. No. You’re That’s thorny. That’s not a crab apple. What is that? Oh, I don’t know. I feel like it’s something I put there cuz I had a tree on this corner. Anyways, I don’t think there’s much else to see over here. We can go see if the peony has survived. I’ve never moved it. And I’ve caught it blooming lovely before in the spring. Yeah, it’s doing good. This is it. Here’s a peony and right there. Oh, and it’s budding up, girl. Look at this. Right there. She’s going to bloom. Both of them have buds. So, that’s nice. Over here’s another tire. I should steal that one, too. This one is purple and that one is pink. Wow. And these roses are like really coming back. These are the knockout roses. I wanted to come over here because I have German irises over here, too. Well, this cottage garden looks so sad. Sometimes I want to come and like steal some of these evergreens. I’m going to at least come in here soon and weed eat all the weeds and see like what’s actually still alive in there. Um before we see that, I’ll show you up here. This used to be my big garden. The four pine trees I did at the four corners have survived just fine. They’re doing so great. And then I’ve got all these daffodils I plant along the front that have come up and they look really lovely. So, we’re going to go over here. This three or four years ago was my moon garden. And I stole some German irises off the side of the road and put them in here even though they weren’t white cuz obviously they’re purple. But anyways, these are starting to get ready to bloom. This is a really cool shrub that I have. And the rest we just it’s way smaller than it originally started out being. But anyways, it’s still here. Moon garden is still here. Cottage garden is still here. Oh, let me see if that tree is still alive. I had to put a magnolia tree in over here. This this right here. Oh my gosh. It’s like it’s taken over. Look at this. I don’t need to mow this. This it looks like a fern, but it’s not. What is that called? It’s that same plant up there at the top of the cottage garden. I was trying to remember what it was called. It’s not lemongrass. It’s not finel. It’s smell doesn’t bring back a memory. What is that? What is it? I have it in like six places. Yrow. I had to plant ID it. It’s freaking yrow. Um I have that lots of places. Anyways, that’s that used to belong in that bed because it flowers white. Um, and it is spreading just like yrow does. I don’t like coming way over here without boots on. Let me just show you why. Look at all this tall grass. I mowed over here. Gosh, this probably already been three or four weeks, but this is tall. But there is a tree. What is that? What I step on? My gosh. Right there. That tree. I don’t see any signs of life. Oh, this is like a burning bush. Really cool looking shrub. Um, anyways, this was the magnolia. I don’t think it survived. These weeds here just come out of this brush line, shrub line. There’s a raised bed right there. You can’t see. What a mess. Anyway, let me know in the comments if when I come clean up the cottage garden, do you want to see a video on that and come along for the ride or do you just or do you just want to see the after? Comment below. Bring us with or just show me the after. This is my view of the house walking back from the cottage garden. If I come up the road instead of the way I went. This is the ingground garden. My husband has dissed it open right before we had all that rain. And it’ll still be first of May before anything is planted. And like you saw all the seedling trays, like almost nothing has germinated. So it’ll be a late year again for us like usual. This front flower bed is really maturing nicely. So lovely. Michael’s barking at someone coming up the road. Porcia is done blooming. This is the view of the cottage garden almost from the road basically. Uh the forcia is done blooming so I’m gonna trim it back soon. Knockout roses. Everything is coming back and looking really good. See, there’s more of that yellow. Got it so many places. This is a knockout rose. One of my favorites. If I could get them in different colors. First blooms on you guys. It’s early in the year. So exciting. Butterfly bush, evergreens. Oh, and my two roses up here in the front. This used to be a bed of hostas. They struggle so much when it gets really hot outside. So, I replaced them with gorgeous roses. And they’re they’re really going to come into their own this year. I cannot wait. They’re going to be gorgeous. Um over here um I have direct sewed some flowers over here in random spots like right over here and right here as well. Um this is my Arkansas black apple tree. Um buds are tender but it’s not come out yet. It’s a late bloomer. Look at the Chinese uh uh Japanese maple. Japanese maple. Yeah, that is so beautiful here with this honeysuckle look alike. Oh, anyways, love this. Got to finish mulching that bed over there. More yrow over there under the Japanese maple. And yeah, this is just going to be great when this comes to life. And then not a lot going on over here. This is one of those newer trees. Oh, I will tell you just because if you’re curious, I mentioned them in another video that I didn’t know if they were going to live. The pomegranate is coming back to life. We get her. And then she’s got some greenery here and some new life on the limbs there. So hard to see. So, pomegranate made it first winter. And the fig, the fig made it. She’s leafing out. This both of these barely grew any last year when we put them in. So, they made it through winter. I think they have made it through the hardest part. So, that is super exciting. The only other thing I’m going to show you is around or on the deck. We’ve got roses coming back here. Looking lovely. And then this is a what are you called? This hydrangeanger. Panacle hydrangeanger. Okay. Got this. Look at this. Is weeds. This is almost all weeds. Insane. This is another Aelia, but like unless you come in here and these are those sticky weeds, but they come up like so easy. Anyways, this Aelia is doing really great. So, she’s Oh, she’s butting up to bloom. So exciting. So, I just need to clean up those weeds. Um on the deck I planted containers. This on the left is chingula. On the right is dwarf netoriums. And then I was just going to wrap up by showing you this that the banana trees have not come back. But I did go ahead and order new banana trees through Amazon. That’s where I got these before. for banana tree plants. Live plants come through Amazon. Um, I ordered them from the exact same supplier and I posted a review with all my photos from last year so people know these are solid plants to buy because it’s like it’s really a tossup with the plants on Amazon. Anyways, ordered some more. They just came in today. So, I got four. Um, I had four in this bed last year, but the one that was like ended up being like right there did not get a lot of sun, direct sunlight, so I think I’ll put the fourth one over my mom’s just for funsies. But anyways, those uh they did not overwinter for us, but that’s okay. And we will grow and love them again this year, which is exactly what I said on the review. So anyways, I hope you enjoyed this tour today. And oh, I forgot to show you this flower, y’all. Thought I could do this for like an hour. It’s fun. Anyways, I also bought my annual tropical hibiscus. I grow a new one in this container every year because the tropical hibiscus is truly my favorite flower on the planet. Although I have like 20 favorites, but this is my number one favorite. And this they just they can’t overwinter for us. I’ve tried them in the house. I’ve tried them in the greenhouse. They definitely don’t survive the landscape. But these grow to be huge shrubs in Arizona where I lived for 20 years. So I miss them. They remind me of my Arizona home. But anyways, so instead I grow them in this planter every year. So I bought a new one. I bought my mom an identical one. So we both have a lovely little tropical hibiscus. It’ll just last up until frost. But reloom rate is great. And I just absolutely love them. So, anyways, needed to throw that in because I forgot I didn’t show you that. And that’s about it for now. Got to get some mowing done. We’ve got stuff popping up all in the yard. But anyways, great start to the year. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this video. Thanks so much for coming along and let me know if you have any tips or suggestions in the comments or want to give any advice. Love advice. Anyways, have a wonderful day. [Music]