May Front Garden Tour! (with Before & Afters!) 🌿 Zone 9 California Garden

Welcome gardeners! Join me for a relaxing garden tour of my front garden in May! I live in Northern California, Zone 9b and my garden is officially in full swing right now! This is the second season we have been here and you know what they say: a garden will sleep the first year, creep the second year and leap the third! Well, it’s our second year and if this is creeping, then next year is going to be out of control! 😆 Enjoy!

Rafael’s Wreath Video: https://youtu.be/OxTImBRPe0M?si=WgNETBqn5gGXpmxl

Wreath: https://www.parkwintersmarketplace.com/shop/76d4pm5wwcrghympdujdxkf2megghl

🌸 Check out more of my favorites at my Amazon Store!: https://app.digplantwaterrepeat.com/amazon/DPWR

————M Y L I N K S————

I N S T A G R A M: https://app.digplantwaterrepeat.com/instagram/DPWR
F A C E B O O K: https://app.digplantwaterrepeat.com/facebook/DPWR
W E B S I T E: https://www.digplantwaterrepeat.com
M E R C H A N D I S E: https://www.digplantwaterrepeat.com/shop

————B R A N D S I W O R K W I T H————

🌸 Proven Winners: https://www.provenwinners.com
🌸 Hose Link: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=1966261&u=3810512&m=122144&urllink=&afftrack=
🌸 Bootstrap Farmer: http://www.bootstrapfarmer.com/JANEYDPWR
🌸 Vego Garden Beds: https://glnk.io/r5z6q/dig-plant-water-repeat

———— A D D R E S S ————

Dig, Plant, Water, Repeat
417 Mace Blvd Ste J # 238
Davis, CA 95618

————F T C D I S C L A I M E R ————

Amazon Associate: Some links are commissioned. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases! Thank you all so much for supporting me!

#provenwinners #gardentour #gardeninspiration

[Music] Hi everyone, Jamie here. Welcome back to my garden. It is miday right now here in my Northern California zone 9b garden and everything is looking absolutely gorgeous. We have had a fabulous, fabulous gardening year this year. We haven’t been too hot yet. We’ve gotten a little bit of rain, but we’ve gotten enough warmth for the flowers to just absolutely go crazy. I feel like we’re about a month ahead of where we were last year, this time of year. Um, and a lot of you have been messaging me asking if I could show more before and after clips during garden tours. So, I’m going to try and do that today. I will show you all some clips of my last year’s May garden tour just so that you can see how far we’ve come in just a year. If you hear a little bit of chirping going on, that’s because we have babies. We have a bird’s nest right there, and the mama just came and brought the the babies. I don’t want to get too close. We did have another nest just kind of right up here, but they actually abandoned that. I think that I was I was disturbing them just a little too much. It was right by our front door. Um, so they abandoned their nest, but they’re still there and they have babies there. And I I can’t see them. I wish I could get my head up there and see them. Um, but they’re up kind of I’ll show you guys. Uh, I I I can’t get my eyes on them quite yet. So, I can’t wait to see them kind of learning to fly all around. All right, so let me just get started. Grab a cup of coffee cuz this is going to be a long one. Okay, so since I’m up here already by the front porch, I might as well get started here. My front porch is a very, very shady area. You can see it’s kind of inset in we call these California rooms. um or loas is another name for them. Um basically it’s completely covered and so it it gets pretty much full shade all day except for in the morning as the sun is rising it gets about 20 minutes of direct sun and that’s it. So I’ve kind of had to figure out what plants I can plant in these two big pots that can handle more shade. But I have to say it’s been kind of nice because I have such a new young garden and I don’t have a lot of mature trees yet. I don’t really have a lot of space to play with with deep shade and so this kind of makes it fun that I can play around just a little bit with it. So in these two big terracotta pots on either side I have these Japanese maples. They are coral bark maples and they are perfect because here in California our Japanese maples need a little bit more protection than other areas of the country. So we really can’t put Japanese maples in full sun. So, this is a fabulous, fabulous place for these maples. I don’t know if I’m going to leave these here long term. I don’t know how they’re going to do in these pots, but I think that they look absolutely beautiful. And I really hope that they kind of grow and kind of arch over the door. I think that that would be amazing. And then eventually I want to replace that light with some type of chandelier. I’ll see. I mean, I really like this setup right now. I think it’s really, really pretty. Then underneath the Japanese maples, I have Brwalia from Proven Wyinners. This is Endless Flirtation Brolia. It’s really, really beautiful. Um, they also have Endless Illumination, which is a purple color. I think I prefer the white one better because the white one, of course, if you’re planting in the shade, you want something that’s going to shine, and this really, really does shine. Now, I have planted this bralia in other areas of my garden that do get a little bit more sun, and the bralia couldn’t handle it. They absolutely melted almost immediately. So this to me, Bralalia to me in zone 9b uh in California is a full shade plant. Definitely full shade. Then we have some creeping jenny as a trailer. And then also some of this lobularia. I cannot for the life of me remember if this is just a regular lobularia or if this is snow princess lobularia from proven winters. If it is snow princess, I have to look back on the videos when I planted this. I planted that I think last fall when I was planting a fall container. Um, if it’s Proven Winners Snow Princess Lobularia, I I’m excited about that. I would be excited because that lobularia can handle our heat. Regular lobularia that you get like in the six-packs, once it gets too hot, it just kind of melts and kind of stops blooming. So, I’ll be watching these guys and seeing how how they do. I’ll show you some other lobularia right over there from Proven Winners that is the Proven Winners variety. And that is I know it’s going to bloom all season. So, I’m really excited about it. Uh, a lot of people have asked me about these metal spheres right here. These guys I actually got at um it’s it’s called Apple Hill. It’s this, you know, like how do I describe it? Um it’s this kind of craft fair type of thing that happens every fall and you go and you pick apples and it’s just this beautiful thing fun thing and um there’s all these vendors that are selling things and so these are actually wine barrel um things like the like the metals go around wine barrels and the gentleman created them into spheres and they’re supposed to be hung from trees which I am going to hang them from a tree eventually but I put them here like this for Christmas and I just love them so much I just want I’m going to leave them there. I just think that they’re beautiful. And then I do have to point out this gorgeous, stunning willow wreath. My friend Raphael from Park Winters, he made this. He actually did a YouTube video of making these and I I messaged him after I saw that video and I said, “That is so beautiful. I want one.” And he gifted this to me and it is just the most beautiful thing. I’m pretty sure he does sell this on his website. He sells a lot of the things that he makes or Park Winters sells a lot of their stuff, their merchandise on their website. So, I’ll try and remember to link that in the description down below. But this is just the most beautiful wreath. He grew these pussyow um stems on on the flower farm and then he shaped it into a wreath form. And I am just absolutely obsessed with it. I love it so so very much. And I think it just makes this whole area. So, let me take you this way. Let me show you the birds real quick cuz I don’t think mama’s here. Um, they made their nest in this little area right here. And you can see why I can’t see I can’t see them. Yeah, I can’t see them. They’re like tucked in right there, but I can hear them for sure. And it’s really cute. And mama’s over there um over by the black walnut tree just waiting for me to walk away so she can feed her babies a little more. I just love it. I love when the birds make nests here. They’re so cute. People complain and they say they’re kind of messy and it’s like, yeah, I know, but we can always clean them up. It’s so it’s just to me it’s so fun to have them around. Okay, so let me show you guys my zigzag planter. My zigzag planter, man, it is just looking so I am so happy with it. It is so pink. I would say the star of the show is um is the stratosphere pink gar. I mean, look at how beautiful. Let me let me bring you guys over from this direction. Look at how beautiful this looks with the gar just kind of poking up all over the place. Um the tiara pink superunia is absolutely stunning. Unfortunately, the whirlwind blue scavola is having a hard time keeping up. I’m actually thinking about coming in and pulling that and transplanting it to other areas because I have it dotted all throughout this zigzag planter, but it just can’t keep up with the tiara pink. It’s just oh my gosh, it’s just such a beautiful plant. Tiara Pink Superunia is a new one, a relatively new one for Proven Winners. I think it’s new in garden centers this year. They got Tiara Pink and Tiara Blue. And Tiara Pink is significantly more vigorous than Tiara Blue is. As you can see here, it’s just it’s just beautiful. It’s just absolutely beautiful. And then I do have my Fragrant Delight uh helotrope in front of it. It’s almost getting taken over by the tiara pink, if you can believe it. That’ll grow. the the helotrope will grow to I don’t know maybe like 2 to 3 feet tall eventually. So I just got to give it time. But you can see what is growing fastest. It’s the um the the stratosphere gar and then the um tiara pink superunia for sure. And then in between I have these. These guys are totem pole panacums and these guys are supposed to get 6 feet tall and they’re just starting to grow right now. You can kind of see them poking up here. And so I’m really excited because right now the star of the show is the gar, but I feel like in like a month or two the star of the show is going to be the grasses, the totem pole panacums. So I just I don’t know. I just think this is going to be a really fun really great year for the zigzag planter. I just think it’s really beautiful. Then behind it, we have these monsters. These are the Vista View hanging baskets. The Vista View is a recipe of the year for proven winners. Oh, it’s about time for me to cut these back. I think they are going absolutely crazy. Absolutely crazy. It’s I wanted to show you guys these because a lot of you thought that the bubble gum was going to take over the stratosphere white gar and it was going to smother it, but they’re still they’re hanging on. The stratosphere white is poking out and it’s it’s it’s definitely acting like a thriller. It’s a little behind the rest of them, but it is still looking really pretty. Now, we did have a little bit of a problem with budworms in the past couple weeks. So, we have been spraying BT for budworms. So, these did get affected just a little bit. Um, so you might see a couple of Here you go. Can you see this? So, you might see if you see something like that, that’s a sign of budworms that um something was on here and it was chewing all the blooms. I think we got it, you know, in enough. I mean, I know we got it in enough time so that we didn’t lose all the blooms on it. Um, but the budworms definitely snuck up on us. I mean, I shouldn’t say that. We knew they were coming. They come every single year. Um, we just they came really fast this year, basically. So, these guys are looking absolutely beautiful. I’m I normally plan on cutting, you guys, I’m so bad at cutting back my annuals. I just hate doing it. It just takes so much willpower to cut back something beautiful like this. But as I’m seeing this, I know it needs to be cut back. And I usually plan on cutting back in like late June, but I think I’m going to cut it back in late May this year. One, because it’s been such a lovely year growing every, you know, everything’s been so happy, but two, I also planted these earlier than I normally do. I got my shipment of annuals much earlier, like in February, so they’re a little bit ahead ahead of where they would normally be. So, I’m just looking at it and thinking, “Okay, it’s just about time uh to start to to cut these guys back.” So, I just I’m mentally trying to prepare myself for that. But, they’re looking beautiful and we’ve really been enjoying them. And the the intensity of pink just, you know, it just gives me so much joy. I know not everybody likes pink in their garden, but I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious that I love pink in my garden. And to me, this is just gorgeous. Look at that. Oh my gosh. And then underneath each hanging basket, I was having trouble because we have these hanging baskets hooked to drip and they were dripping water onto my wood deck. And my wood deck is it it’s wearing out. But, you know, I want it to wear out as slowly as possible so we don’t have to replace it too soon. Um, so what I wanted to do is I wanted to somehow protect the deck from all the water that was draining out of the hanging baskets. So, what I decided to do is I decided to plant another planter right underneath the hanging baskets. And I did not hook this planter up to drip. The only water that this planter gets is the water that drips out of the hanging basket. And I think it is looking wonderful. It has super tuna royal velvet in it. It has superbina stormbburst and then it also has this angel wing sio. And I really love the combination. I think it is really, really gorgeous. and it solved a problem that I was having in such a really like just a beautiful way. Now, there are there are really gorgeous terracotta pots under there that you can’t even see uh that match these pots over there, but it doesn’t even really matter. I mean, I could have used plastic pots and it’s completely covered. Um, so just something to think about if you’re going to plant big vigorous plants like super tunias and superbas. All right, coming this way. I wanted to show you guys my espalier. This is my star jasmine espalier and I could not be happier with it. It is blooming. Star jasmine I always imagine or I always I always think about it blooming right around Mother’s Day and it does not disappoint. Like every mother’s day I know it starts blooming and the smell is just the most beautiful wonderful lovely lovely thing. So I have trained this up to um to follow an espalier. It looks kind of like I don’t want to say messy cuz it’s not messy, but it looks really full right now because I haven’t trimmed it because I knew the blooms were coming and I didn’t want to trim it. As soon as the blooms fade, I’m going to trim it and I’m going to make it nice and clean and train everything and all that kind of stuff. But if you want the blooms, which is I mean you want the blooms from star jasmine, you don’t want to trim it right before. So you just have to kind of hold back a little bit. Same thing for honeysuckle. If you’re if you’re growing honeysuckle or if you’re um a spalier in honeysuckle, which I did at my last house, you just at some point it’s going to get a little bit overgrown because you want it you want to maintain the blooms cuz that’s why you do it is for the lovely, beautiful, beautiful blooms. So, I planted this not last fall, but the fall before. So, it’s about a year and a half old and you can see it’s almost completely filled in. It has grown so much faster than I imagined it would. And I think it’s because we get this beautiful reflection of the warm morning sun here off of this stucco wall. I cannot imagine this stucco wall not having this espalier on it. I mean, it would have just been this one big blank white wall in the very front of my house. So, it was just the absolute perfect spot to have an espalier right there. So if you have a spot in your home, if you have a fence or if you have a cinder block wall or if you have just something that’s big and blank, consider doing an espalier. And you can choose a plant that doesn’t take a lot of work. The star jasmine does not take a lot of work. If you do honeysuckle, that takes a lot of work. If you do ivy, that takes a ton of work, but something like a star jasmine does not take a lot of work at all. And I just love it. So underneath my star jasmine espalier I have what was supposed to be my black and white garden but you can see that that concept did not work out at all. Um it what you mainly see here this white flower is this is superbina uh white out and this is just such a fabulous plant. It is just such a good plant. I like threw it in here not really thinking too much about it, thinking it was going to mix in with this black mondo grass and um with this bush morning glory and it has just absolutely taken over. It is just it’s just such a good plant. I’m going to I’m going to plan on taking all this out and I have an idea of what I want to replace it with, but I don’t want to take it out and leave it a blank spot, especially when I have these beautiful flowers here. The Bush Morning Glory is a complete fail. It is just like the tag at the store said it was supposed to bloom all season long. Absolutely all season. And like I have one bloom on it right now. So maybe it’s just the not not the right spot for it or something. But it just doesn’t work. And then the black mondo grass. Um I’m so interested because a lot of you when I plant black mondo grass you say, “Gh, that’s so invasive. It’s going to take over.” You can see it. I mean I don’t even know if you can see it doesn’t take over here. I wish it took over more because I love black mondo grass. I think it is so beautiful and I would love to have more in my garden, but it just it just doesn’t do very well for us. I mean, it just kind of stays put and it doesn’t grow at all. So, this bed is kind of a work in progress, but it’s nice to see what I needed, what’s going to work here, what’s not going to work here. Um, so this is uh TBD, not TBD. This is to be worked on eventually. Okay. Okay. And then coming over this way, this is probably one of my most favorite views of the garden right now. This gu this that I’m showing you right here. I just think it is so gorgeous. It is so beautiful. We have this burm right here. I don’t even know if you guys can tell that it’s a burm, but basically it’s a raised area that we plan just to have a little bit uh interest in our very very flat property. And eventually we are going to put a fence over on the other side of the burm, but for right now I decided to plant it up. And I’m so happy I did because I just oh my gosh, I just think it looks so beautiful. So, first off, the two trees that I have on top of the burm, this is blue angel cedar of Lebanon. I got this from Eley Nursery, and this is a hit, you guys. It is the weirdest, most funky, most Dr. Seuss tree, but I’m obsessed with it. I love it so much. It is still staked up and it definitely needs to be staked up. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to take the stake off because it is so such a flimsy tree. You can see it kind of falling over. Um I will let you guys know. I just planted this. It’s only a couple of months old. So I will let you guys know if it ever gets strong enough to where I feel like I don’t have to stake it. But for right now, it’s just going to stay on the steak and I’m just going to completely enjoy it. Right here I have a lavender twist red bud that was a gift from my friend Katie. It is so so beautiful. Last year it did get a little bit of um a fungus on it, circuspora, which is a red bud fungus, and I treated it with copper, and man, it looks beautiful this year. So, I think I’m going to come through and I’m going to treat it one more time. Uh just to make sure that it stays nice and clean all season long. Uh but I am just so happy with this tree. It’s beautiful. Then underneath there we have one of my absolute favorite plants which yes I have many but this one is so so great. This is superbina pink cashmere and it is part of my best for the west line collection with proven winners. Uh it’s which is basically a collection to say this plant does really well in a hot dry climate. And you can see how well it does. It’s still going to keep growing. It’s going to get really really big and this one will overwinter for me here in zone 9b. So, I’m just planning to leave it here. It’s going to be so gorgeous in between these um miniature junipers right here that are only going to get about 2 feet tall. I just I just I love it. I love it so much. Then back behind it, I have my other one of my favorite favorite plants. And this is plain the blue salvia. This plant is just if you’re a new gardener, go get this plant. I promise you, you will be so happy that you got this plant. There’s pollinators all over it. It started blooming and it’s going to bloom absolutely all season long. And what I love the most about this view, I already told you guys this in another video, but I have the soft pink, I have the soft purple. This is blushing princess uh lobularia from Proven Winners. This is the variety that’s going to be able to handle our triple digit temperatures and, you know, not absolutely die immediately. Um, and then I have the purple of the plain the blue salvia and the meteor shower of verbina. But my favorite thing is that it has I have the nifia back there. This hot orange color that it’s like it’s so interesting. It’s so unexpected to have that color in this kind of garden bed area. And to me it just makes it it makes the color it makes it so interesting. It’s like that contrasting colors, right? Or complimentary colors. This is actually called hot and cold nifia. It is so beautiful to me. It is just a like a definite that you have to have in your garden because of that contrast that it brings to all these other beautiful frilly type of plants. So, speaking of frilly plants, we have the iceberg roses. They are kind of coming out of their first huge flush, but these guys, they’re going to keep blooming all season long. And I will come in there and I will dead head them, but you really don’t have to. You don’t have if you want to be lazy, if you want to be a lazy gardener, which I am definitely a lazy gardener sometimes, you don’t have to uh deadhead them and they’ll just keep blooming. They are such a fabulous rose. Um, and which is why I think that they’re so popular. I always call them parking lot plants, which is so rude of me, but it’s true. They are parking lot plants. Um, but I think that they’re parking lot plants because they perform so so incredibly well. Right underneath that I have my meteor shower of verbina, which is a verbina benerianis. You can see there’s pollinators, there’s bees absolutely all over it. This is one of my favorite plants because it is sterile or almost sterile. Verbina banariansis is notorious for receding itself, which sometimes you might want, right? A lot of people like that verbina beneriansis uh recededs itself, but this variety is absolutely sterile. So, I actually, this is actually from last year, and it did not recede itself at all in my garden, which is really fabulous. Right underneath that, I have another one of my favorite I’m sorry, I’m going to keep saying that. It’s another one of my favorite plants. It is superbina raspberry, and it is just such a beautiful saturated bright color. I cannot get enough of it. I do have my cat’s pajamas nepida. This grouping right now is fading out of its first bloom. I have another grouping over there that’s still in full swing, but I will be kind of shearing them back in in probably a couple weeks just so that I can get a second flush. Um, this right here, this is uh osteosperma moonglow and um it’s not doing well. This is one that I can show you that is just it’s just not working for me. I’m not sure what’s going on. This one died immediately and now these two are kind of dying. And it’s not just that they’re going out of bloom. It’s that they’re like literally dying and we’ve checked to make sure that there’s drip to them. I don’t know if it’s just too hot in this area or if something’s going on. Maybe Monty’s peeing on them. I doesn’t really look like that type of damage, but I don’t know. This is just this is just kind of not working right now. So, that’s unfortunate, but that’s okay. That definitely does happen. And I I want to emphasize that it does happen. You can plant a plant and you can do everything correct and it just might not be the right spot for that plant or might not the right garden for that plant maybe. Coming over here I have uh my salvia lucantha which is a really beautiful addition to a garden. It always blooms a little bit later. This is kind of the first bloom which is kind of like a baby bloom but later in the fall it’s going to be covered with these beautiful soft purple blooms. I have a white one as well that I got from my friend Pri and it is just so gorgeous. I love it. Is such a fabulous addition um to the garden and it is definitely one plant that I would say plant in your garden if you live in a hot climate. This is a great plant and you’ve probably seen it in other gardens and maybe not known what it is. Um but it is called Salvia Lucantha. My habiscus, my summeric habiscus is starting to grow up which is looking really good. My sweet romance lavender river is looking absolutely beautiful. See, there’s just there’s so much that I can show you. I want to come over this way. I don’t want to forget this area. This is my whirlwind blue scavola. This actually overwintered from last year. I did have a section of it that died, but I’m pretty sure that was because Monty smothered it because that was his sleeping area all last year. Um, so I pulled it out of that section and I think what I’m going to do is I’m going to pull it from the zigzag planter, which you can’t see them, and put it over here where it’s going to have a chance to shine. Another plant that overwintered from last year was my Surfire Rose Beonia right here. I cut it all the way back, and you can see it’s starting to flush out in blooms. This plant is fabulous because it can handle the shade and it can handle the sun. So, it’s getting completely shaded right now by my orange tree, but uh it gets some hot hot afternoon sun. So, it’s that’s kind of a hard um uh area to plant in. And you can see this plant is handling it like it’s absolutely no problem. Then, if you see this crazy stuff back here, I do need to come stake these up. Uh these are my summer drummer aliums. They’re so cool and so beautiful. They are like 7 feet tall maybe, I would say. They’re just the coolest coolest plants and I need to plant more of them for sure. Um because they’re just such a statement in the garden. They were standing absolutely straight up like that one right there, but then they started falling over which I’m kind of bummed about. But that’s okay. I’m just going to stake them up and they’re going to be absolutely gorgeous. And then right in there, that is my tree dalia that is starting to sprout which is really exciting. And that’s another one that’s going to get like 9 ft tall. So I’m going to definitely going to have some beautiful height here. And I’m just I’m excited. I think it’s going to look really gorgeous. This is my Romantica ball gown. I cannot believe how many petals this rose has. I know you guys don’t like it when I pet the rose petals, but I love doing it. I don’t care. So, so beautiful. This is such a fabulous rose. And one thing I’ll show you guys is that there’s no there’s like nothing there’s no black spot. There’s no disease on this rose. It is just such a healthy, strong rose. I definitely recommend it. So, it’s called Romantica Ball Gown. Um, we’ve been uh deadheading this. I My goal in life, one of my goals in life, I should say, is to follow Monty Dawn’s advice and be able to get out in the garden and dead head every single day. But I’m just not in that season of life just yet. I have too much going on, you know, with work and kids and all that kind of stuff. So, I will be patient with myself and I will be, you know, I I will forgive myself for not deadheading absolutely every day. Um, but that is my goal is to be one of those people that can come out and dead head every day. That have set their life out life up to be able to dead head every day. Underneath the romantica ball gown, I have kind of a a sea of Russian sage. This is denim and lace Russian sage, which is just starting to grow. It’s looking beautiful. This is their second year, which I’m really excited about cuz they were just babies last year, and they’re getting a little bit bigger this year, which is which is really, really fun. And then I wanted to show you my Miss Molly butterfly bush. This one is not quite blooming yet. It’s almost blooming, but I’ll show you another one over there further on in the orchard garden that’s blooming. It’s just such a lovely, beautiful plant. I did want to tell you guys that I would have chosen this shrub as one of my um best for the west options because for me, this shrub is just such a fantastic plant for those of us in California. However, this is not a sterile butterfly bush. So, if you live in Oregon or if you live in Washington, you’re not going to be able to buy this plant because it’s illegal to buy non-sterile butterfly bushes in Oregon and Washington. So, that’s why it’s not on my best for the West list. But, if you live in California, this is a fantastic plant. And oh, I see a bloom over here. Look at that. I mean, just look at how beautiful that is. Is that It’s just It’s just such a beautiful bloom. This reminds me a lot of the superbina raspberry color. Very saturated, very, very strong. And uh my friend Michael Grassman, who’s a landscape designer, he leans heavily on this plant because it’s very low maintenance for people. You can plant this and then just not even worry about it. Okay. And then coming over this way, you can see the cat’s pajamas nepida over here. This one is a little behind the other one, probably because it’s getting a little protection from the orange trees. You can see my entire sea of lemon coral sedum lining the border. It is in full bloom right now. And this is what lemon coral sedum looks like in full bloom, which I am not a fan of. I don’t like this bloom. If I had more time, I would have come here and I would have trimmed it all back and cut it all back. But, you know, it’s fine. I’ll just leave it. It’s really funny because I had a couple people message me and ask me if I double up planted the lemon coral sedum. I only did one along this line right along my border. This is not doubled up. This is actually how big they get that quickly. So, once they go out of bloom, then they’re going to kind of shrink back down a little bit. Um, but you can kind of see what they look like while they’re in bloom. And then after they go back out of bloom, they go back to that chartreusey green color, which is really, really beautiful. Uh, over here I have my ladybird sunglow calius. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful. Beautiful. I do have some breath of heaven right here that I’m not really liking. I’m not I’m having trouble with breath of heaven in this garden bed. My last garden, it was absolutely beautiful. It was, you know, I could grow it and it was just not a big deal. I’m wondering if it has to do with my water because my water here, I’m on well and we have very a lot of boron in our water and so I’m wondering if that’s causing the problem. I think that that’s causing the problem with my Chinese fringe flower. I’ll show you that over in the center island. I know it’s causing a problem with my aelas. Um, so I just have some issues going on with certain plants. And like I said, sometimes you can do everything right and it’s just not the right spot for it. So this breath of heaven isn’t supposed to be this yellow looking. It’s supposed to be more chartreusy looking. Um, and it’s just I don’t know. It’s just not looking 100%. So I’ll keep an eye on it and I’ll see kind of what’s going on and what I want to do. Here you can see on my tutori I have some orange thumb with a giant weed that I just noticed right in the middle. I’ll deal with that in a little bit. But underplanted is more of the superina raspberry just to repeat it. And then of course more of the plain the blue salvia which is gorgeous. I’m going to step back here. Here you can see I have oak leaf hydrangeas. I have one here and then I have another one here. They’re so tiny right now and they are going to get so huge. But I just wanted to make sure that I got them on video when they were blooming uh this year because next year I bet you they’ll be double if not triple in size, which I’m super super excited about, which is going to be really fun. Um then I wanted to show you my purple lilac vine right here. It is out of bloom. Purple lilac vine blooms right around February and it’s like stunningly beautiful. But this is what it looks like when it’s not blooming. It just kind of looks like a evergreen vine. It’s really, really beautiful still, but of course, no blooms on it. Okay. And then coming further along this way, you can see I have my cardon plant, which is looking so cool. I love this plant. You can see I have all of the little seed heads or or buds up there, and they’re all going to start blooming. This this electric purple flower, very similar to artichoke flowers. So, I’m just waiting for that. that I cannot wait to see. I am not going to pick them. You can eat cardons. You eat the rib area, this area. Um, but I’m not going to bother. I want the I want the blooms for sure. And then I have my pomegranate tree right here, which is looking really good. I do have some blooms over here. Looking absolutely gorgeous. This poor tree I have pruned to within an inch of its life, but you can see it really took well to the prune job. I’m still dealing with a little bit of bushiness down at the bottom, but it looks so much better than it did last year. It just looks a little bit more compact. It’s It’s elev. It’s raised up, right? Limmed up. And to me, it just looks it looks really really great. I’m very very happy with it. Okay, coming over here, we have some royal raspberry agistaki. I don’t know what’s going on with this one. It is not looking happy right there. But the other two look really good. I do want to warn you guys, I am having trouble with this plant. I’m having trouble with it keeping it alive. I planted three of them over in my long border. I transplanted two of them. Two of them died. I planted a new one. That one was looking really terrible. So, I just ended up taking it out. These three are actually new. And you can see that one is having a lot of trouble as well. So, it’s a beautiful plant, but I am having a little bit of trouble with it. And I just wanted to uh give you guys a heads up before you did purchase it that I’m still kind of trying to work it out and trying to figure out what’s going on. Behind there, I have some shasta daisies. Um they’re banana cream, too, and they’re about to start blooming, which I’m really excited about. I have my rise up ember rose that’s looking gorgeous. More plain the blue salvia. More playing the blue salvia. More plain the blue salvia. I just I It’s just such a great plant. It is such a great plant. Okay, coming over this way. I wanted to show you guys I have my Oh, there’s a hummingbird on it. Can you guys see that? Uh my chicklet orange Tacoma or Espironza. Oh, I love this plant. I love it so much. There’s a new variety called chicklet gold that I planted over there. It’s not big enough yet. Oh my gosh. Can you see that? Oh. Oh my gosh. Now it’s on the pomegranate tree. That makes me so happy. I even stopped and I took some footage so I could do a real for Instagram and it was just hanging out. It was going on these and it was going on the orange blaze nopia right here. It is that hummingbird is a happy hummingbird in this garden. That makes me so happy. Okay, so I don’t know what I was talking about before. Uh chicklet orange Tacoma. Beautiful plant. It’s just a gorgeous plant. It’s a beautiful pop of orange. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they don’t like Tacoma. It’s not a great plant. It doesn’t bloom very well. It doesn’t perform well. That’s the old one. This is the new one. This is the new one that Proven Winners just came out with and it is just such a cool, wonderful, lovely plant. I’m just in love with it. In front of it, I have a line of denim and lace Russian sage that’s just about to coming coming into bloom. Then I have my orange boys that’s looking gorgeous. My cat’s pajamas nepida. And then of course uh the lemon coral sedum. I do have um my uh verbina damina. There we go. Verbina damina right there. That’s looking beautiful as well. And that guy has been blooming just non-stop. Like literally non-stop. So what a fantastic plant to have in your garden. If you’re just looking for easy care plant, get that one. Get Miss Molly butterfly bush. Get plain the blue salvia and get superbina pink cashmere and you will be a happy happy camper. Okay. Coming this way, I had some gorgeous aliums that they’re faded out of blooms, but I’m letting them soak up all the sun that they need. You can see I have some over there as well. Here’s two more of my Miss Molly butterfly bushes. You can see this one is blooming like crazy. And that one right there is blooming like crazy. And then I do have pink profusion salvia here that I underplanted with Superunia Mini Vista ultramarine. There we go. And that’s looking really gorgeous. I told you guys this was going to be a long garden garden tour. A very long garden tour because I just have so much beautiful, beautiful stuff to show you. My fig tree has come in. All the all the foliage has come in and it’s just added a layer of shade under here that I just think is absolutely gorgeous. Um we did have um the arborist come here and he trimmed this and it looks so much better this year than it did last year. I’m going to come in and I’m going to clean up this whole area underneath. And then I’m probably going to plant something under here as well, which I think will be beautiful. This plant right here, this is called Kalandrina Spectabolis. It’s a gorgeous, gorgeous plant, and it is getting to be a little much. It is completely taken over my walkway, which I really do like that look. I really I I do like it when it takes over the walkway, but like I couldn’t even take my wagon in here this morning. So, I had to go around the other way because I didn’t want to mess with any of the blooms. They’re just so so very beautiful, especially right now. And I just can’t bring myself to cut any back because obviously the pollinators are loving it. So, really fantastic, gorgeous plant. Back here, I have my uh um white pillar, Rose of Sharon. Really gorgeous. It’s going to get even taller than that. Hasn’t started blooming yet, but I am loving the shape, the pillar shape of it. And I just did a Best for the West event and somebody raised their hand and was like, “You really should put the pillar rows of Sharons on your Best for the West because they perform so well.” So, just something to think about. That’s a really, really good performer as well. Look at this. Isn’t this beautiful? Oh, I just love it. I love it. All right. Then here I have my unplugged white salvia. It’s looking gorgeous. Another one that has been totally blooming for so long. Pink profusion salvia right there. And then my ladybird sunglow calius. Uh you guys have asked me to show this area more. I’ve been kind of skimming over this area a little bit and I’ll take the time and show you this area. I have my Helen vonstein lambs here. I actually pruned back these this morning. I cut back the the bloom stocks. I don’t like how it looks with bloom stocks on. I think it’s much prettier when it’s just the foliage. Um, and I think that that’s really gorgeous. And then behind it, I have back and black sedum, which again, that’s another plant that maybe doesn’t do as well for me as it does for a lot of other people because to me, it kind of just sits there and it doesn’t really grow enough, unfortunately. And I wish it would grow a little bit more and a little bit faster. But I’m going to be patient. I’m going to wait and see cuz those are only maybe a year and a half old, I would say. So hopefully hopefully they’ll get a little bit bigger. Here’s my homestead verbena. Looking good. Um, I do have to say I have been neglecting it like so badly. So, don’t look too close at it. There’s weeds all in there and everything. But behind there, you can see I have my smoke brush that’s leafing out right now. That’s another new one. Um, and then, oh, my raspberries are starting to look good. These are the raspberries from uh, Proven Winners. I got very, very small varieties, not big varieties at all. Um, and I planted them here and they’re starting to look really good. So, I’m pretty excited about that. I did have my Tower of Jewels finally faded. It was a bianual and it it it was just pretty much done. And I don’t see any babies, which is unfortunate, but that’s okay. And then I have some Euphoria Wolf and I right there. And I have a ton of weeds that I need to go clean up around here. Okay, so two plants that you guys have asked me to point out. One of them was my yardline viburnum. Here you can see some over here. I planted these last fall. Oh, look at the butterfly. Pretty pretty. That’s exciting. Um, so sorry for the distractions. Um, I planted the yardline viburnum last fall, last summer, I think. And, uh, they’ve pretty much doubled in size, right? So, now they should be in their creep year. And they are going to get about 12t tall and 4t wide. Um, and they’re growing really well. They’re just kind of taking their time. Uh, so pretty soon I’m gonna have like a whole wall of living green here, which I think will be really pretty. I do have them in between my Matella poppy, which is growing. It’s got so many buds on it. It’s looking really good. I do think I cut it back too far this year. I cut it way way way way back. And that’s pretty to keep it in check, but I kind of don’t want to keep it in check. I want it to be big. this guy can get like 10 feet tall or 11 feet tall or something like that. And and that’s what I want up here. And um so I don’t think I’m going to be pruning this this year. I think I’m just going to leave it and let it get really big. And then when I do prune it back, I maybe I’ll prune it back to like 4 feet or something like that. Um so that’s the Matella poppy. It’s looking really good. Here’s my bottle brush that’s out of bloom right now. I just planted that. And then another plant you wanted me to talk about, somebody wanted me to talk about was my seven sunflower tree. Uh this guy uh is looking really beautiful. It’s looking gorgeous. I did limb it up. Uh I had a whole bunch of limbs kind of coming out the bottom and it almost looked kind of like a bush. Um and so I just limbmed it up and it to me it’s looking great. This guy’s only going to get about 10 ft tall and 10 ft wide. So it doesn’t have too much more to grow. Um it’s probably 5 and 1/2 6 feet tall right now. Um, so it’s just going to get a little bit taller, but I do want it to look like kind of like a baby standard tree, which I think is going to be absolutely gorgeous. And I definitely needed that that look there. Here are my Niagara Falls panacum that I I just love this. I love this grass. First of all, it’s this beautiful blue color this time of year. It’s a gorgeous blue grass. Absolutely gorgeous. But the thing that is the most beautiful thing about this grass is the seed heads that it gets in the fall and then the winter interest. And it is just stunning. It is just so beautiful. I love this grass. Get your hands on this grass for sure. And then behind there, you can see my Chinese pistache. I was really worried about my Chinese pistach um because it definitely went into shock when we first planted it. But you can see it leafed out. Everything’s looking good. All the branches are alive and now we just have to just kind of baby it and let it grow. All right, let’s head over to the center island now. Oh my goodness, it’s looking so good, huh? So, on either side, I planted Superunia Bordeaux as kind of like a welcome. Um, I am thinking about putting an archway right here. Let me know what you guys think. I actually have an archway. I’ll show you over in my long border. I have an archway there with Eden roses that are supposed to be climbing on it. And I don’t really like it there, and I’m thinking about putting it here. So, I haven’t decided yet, but I’d love to hear your input and see what you thought. Um, so then coming over this way, we have a kindly privet that’s still a baby. It’s kind of growing, looking really good. We have Super Tunia Mini Vista Yellow. More Superbena Raspberry. That’s looking gorgeous. And then Oh, what happened to this guy? Why are you Why are you leaning over? Oh, I think that’s a Monty thing. Monty. Hey, somebody told me he’s going through his terrible twos. I’m Yeah, he’s he’s been a handful lately. Okay, so this trio of plants I planted here. And even when I planted it, I wasn’t totally sure I was happy about it. And I’ve decided I’m not happy about it. I am going to take it out, but I am going to give it to my friend Raphael at Park Winters. I’m going to give him these two topiaries here. But you can see the privet is blooming right now. It’s not the time to transplant it. So, we will transplant it at another time. I do want to take you through over here and I want to show you this El Nino Chapa cuz it’s so beautiful. Look at this plant. Oh, I just love this plant. It is so so gorgeous. So, this shrub is on my best for the west. It is such a fast grower. It is so beautiful. I love the pink flowers in it. And this guy is going to get about 10 ft tall and wide as well. And I did prune it up pretty significantly. I actually trimmed it so that it only had three main branches on it. And I’m really glad I did that because I’m going to limb it up and I’m going to make it look like kind of like a standard tree, just like my seven sunflower tree and just like my rising sun red bud over there. I just I cannot get enough of this plant, you guys. It is so beautiful and I just got two more in the mail. Um, so I’m going to be planting more of them. So, I’m really excited about it. Now, I’ve heard a lot of people say that this plant is supposed to smell really good. It has the slightest smell to it, but I really don’t think it has that much of a smell. But don’t take my word for it because I cannot smell verbina de lamina at all. And Jason says it’s his absolute favorite smelling flower in the garden. So don’t take my word for it. Go smell it yourself. But I can’t I just I can’t really smell anything. I have to be honest. So coming over here, these are my rising sun red buds. I we are Jason and I we try our hardest to stay on top of, you know, drip irrigation, making sure everything’s hooked up to water, making sure everything’s fine. We messed up again. The these guys, well, actually, the whole center island was only getting 3 minutes of drip irrigation. 3 minutes a day, and that was it. And everything was surviving. Everything was doing okay. But you can see my my uh Chandler, what is this guy called? Chandler juniper. I’ll put it on the screen right now. You can see it got kind of got brown on the inside. And I kept looking at things and thinking like, why does everything look like it’s suffering? What’s going on? And I couldn’t figure it out. And it turns out the drip irrigation was only on for 3 minutes. So, we definitely bumped that up, but that’s why you can see a little bit of of crispiness out here, but you can see it recovered like no issue at all. It’s it completely bounced back and it’s completely fine. Uh we have our little gem magnolia. That’s looking so good right here. Looking so good. That is going to be such a beautiful specimen tree. Some more denim and lace Russian sage underneath. Some more um shasta daisy pink profusion salvia. And then of course my weeping atlas cedar over here which is just looking gorgeous. Gorgeous. And then let me take you around here. Oh, let me just show you the crepe myrtles. This is my These are my Tuscora crepe myrtles. I just want to show you them before they start blooming and then when we see them after they start blooming, I’ll be really excited to show you guys. Okay, so this area right here, this is uh what I planted up for hopefully for the gardener’s idea book, Proven Winners Gardener’s idea book next year. We are featuring a spread on warm weather planting with use of rocks. And so you can see my dry creek bed right here that’s going to be featured and then the plantings behind it. So you can see I have lemon coral sedum. I have ladybird sunglow calopus. I have whirlwind blue scavvola. I have some lantana. Um and then I have another of those totem pole panacum and little stem um blue star little stem grass. I’ll put it on the screen right now. So it’s still it’s a baby it’s a baby planting um but it should fill in very very quickly. I just wanted to show you guys this in May. Uh I am I actually think I’m going to call them this upcoming week and get a load of compost delivered so that I can spread it all over this left side of the dry creek bed. And we are going to be planting more seeds of this uh California native grass right here. And um I’ll probably just get one of those sprinkler heads that kind of go back and forth to water it. And I want to see if I can make this area kind of look like a meadow, like a little grassy meadow or something like that. So, I think I’m ready to tackle it. I think I’m ready to tackle that this year. Um, while I’m over here, let me get started with the long border. The long border is the area that I’ve really been working on this past month, and you can definitely see it. I still have more work to do. Um, but what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to be really focused with the areas I’m working instead of like working one day here and then another day over here and then another day in the backyard, which is what I normally do. I’m going out of my way to try and work like uh five days in a row in the long border and then move to another area. So, it’s hard for me because that’s not how my brain works, but I’m trying and I’m definitely seeing the benefits of really focusing on one area because the long border has got so much progress in the past month. I’m really really happy with it. So, first on my chain link fence, I have some honeysuckle growing. It’s actually blooming. These are babies. I just planted these earlier this year and they’re looking really good. So, that whole thing is going to be covered with honeysuckle which is going to be beautiful. I have three of the kindly privets that are have a lot of new beautiful growth on them. So, I’m excited for those to get big. They’re going to get four to six feet tall I would say. So, they’re going to be another hedge that’s going to block off this ugly area. Then here we have this superunia blue sky. It’s a new one. It’s a perennial salvia for Proven Winners. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Monty likes it, too. It is a gorgeous salvia with beautiful blue color. I would definitely recommend it. Um, and then you can see my gladiolas. They are just absolutely foolproof. Like, this is such horrible soil. And I did not think, you know, I I I did not plan on anything surviving here, but the things that are surviving are looking really good. And the gladias are thriving. So I kind of knew that gladias are like weeds for us. I would say like they are absolutely weeds for us. Okay. Then over here I planted a bunch of annuals that I had. I had vibrant virtuoso dalas that are going to look really good. Right here I have some unplugged white salvia back there. I have some stardiva scavvola. Some superunia vista bubblegum. You can’t really see much right now because they’re all young and I cut a lot of them back, but they’re going to grow very quickly and look really beautiful. These three yellow ones right here, these are candy corn spyhea and this is the color they get this time of year, which is a really vibrant yellow. Earlier on in the season, they’re like this gorgeous, oh, it’s my favorite, this red color. And then the new growth on them is supposed to be orange, which is why they have the the name of candy corn spyhea. They’re a really, really beautiful plant. a really interesting plant that gives a difference in foliage color which is definitely needed in a garden. You can see my uh crepe myrtle right there. This is a smaller version of crepe myrtle. Uh it’s about to start blooming. I usually think around June is when they start to bloom. So that’s looking good. Same with my summeric hibiscus. Those are um just starting to grow up, just starting to come out of dormcy and looking really beautiful and are going to start blooming as well. These superbina raspberry we did get attacked with budworms and you can see we we sprayed them and they’re starting to grow back. There’s a bunch of buds on them right now which is really exciting. So that’s just something that you have to do. You just kind of have to stay on top of it and make sure the budworms don’t totally decimate your plants uh or you will be sad. And then coming over here, this is where I started planting my friend Claudia’s Dalia. I ended here because I ran out of nice thick uh canes like these guys and I only had these flimsy ones. And with Dalia, you really want to uh put you want to stake them before you cover them up with soil. So, I ordered canes off Amazon actually cuz I could not find any around me. Um and I’m waiting for them to get delivered. So, this is a project that’s not quite done yet, but I’m going to continue adding more dalas down that way. Really, really beautiful ones. Um, this is the arch that I’m thinking of putting in my center island right kind of on that entrance with the two Eden roses um over here. I think it’ll be good. They’re not too old yet. I planted them in fall. Was it fall or was it January? Anyway, I planted them last winterish, fall winterish, and so I feel like I could transplant them pretty quickly if I needed to. And then you can see over here the long border is starting to fill in and starting to look really, really good, which is what I wanted. These back here, these are cookies and cream summer habiscus. They’re starting to come up, which is really beautiful. And they have some dark foliage to them, which is gorgeous. And then you can see I have my honeysuckle. This is my I can’t remember the name right now. I’m blott. Yeah, Miss Wilnot’s ghost honeysuckle right there. Um, so that is going to look good and hopefully will grow up over my fence, which will be really beautiful. and then have the cookies and cream, the dark foliage in front of it, I think will be really gorgeous. I have some white veronica here. I have some uh sweet romance lavender, some more super tuna vista bubble gum, uh some regular verbina benerians. This is not the meteor shower verbena. So, this guy is not sterile and I’m kind of okay with that because I think it would be really pretty to have it reed itself all over here. And then this rose right here, this is the honey apricot flavorette rose that’s actually edible. So you can pull these and you can sprinkle them on a salad or candy them or something like that, which I think is really gorgeous. Okay, so I know that was a lot. I hope you guys are still with me. I am on the gazebo right now and I just wanted to show you one last view of the garden from the gazebo view because it’s just a couple feet up from the ground, but it makes such a difference. I just love standing back and looking at the whole garden and seeing what it’s looking like. Uh because I can kind of look at it and I can say, “Oh, I really want some orange right here or I need a little bit more pink over here.” To me, I can I can just I can get a whole view of the garden and see what else I need. So, you saw the zigzag planter and now this is the orchard garden over here. Looking really good. Beautiful. I cannot get over that cardon. It is so such a gorgeous plant. I want some more of those over here in the center island. You can see the center island is looking really gorgeous. And the dry creek bed, which we’re not done yet. We’re not done with yet, but we have all year for this year. Our project is the center island. That’s what we’re focusing on this year. Anything else we do is just extra credit, but it’s just this year. We got to finish the center island. And so, we are going to be putting some boulder fountains and like I said, working on the meadow here. We do have to stain the gazebo and everything like that, but we have plenty of time. It’s only May. And then you can see the long border over there. And it is really I’m so excited to have that a little bit more planted out because um it’s going to be really beautiful once everything starts growing and we start getting a little bit more color in there. So, everything’s looking good. Oh, and then you guys can see we we ended up moving that Korean maple. Um we had a Korean maple right there just to see how it would work with with full sun. didn’t work at all. We actually moved it back by the chicken coop. I’ll show you all that in the back garden tour that should come out on Monday. All right, so that is it for my May garden tour. I love May. I love May so much and I love June so much. It is just such a beautiful, beautiful time of year where all your hard work starts to really pay off and you get to just reap the benefits of all these gorgeous flowers, gorgeous blooms, and you can just sit and you can just enjoy your garden, which is it’s just it’s so wonderful. So, I want to encourage all of you, get your phones out, get your cameras out, go document your own garden. Like, I don’t care if it doesn’t look as good as you think that it should look. document it now so that you can compare it to next year like you saw in my video um the clips that I took from last May versus this May. What a big difference and it’s just so fun to see. So anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this and I hope you all have a chance to get in your garden today. Hey, [Music]