Backyard GARDEN TOUR, July 2025: Finally, the Garden is Growing!

Join me for a summer garden tour in my zone 8a garden! Despite some challenges with poor soil, I’m excited to show you the greenery and plants that are thriving. Let’s take a look at my garden journey this July! My garden is finally starting to take off, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to share its beauty with you. From vibrant blooms to lush greenery, every corner of my outdoor space is teeming with life. In this July Garden Tour, I’ll show you all the plants that are thriving, those that are still struggling, and share some tips and tricks along the way. We will stroll down Pepper Aisle and Citrus Alley and admire the abundant butterflies and bees in my garden. So, sit back, relax, and let’s take a leisurely walk through my backyard oasis.

Videos you may enjoy:

Cucumber Garden Tour: https://youtu.be/z4flhSpy7Mo
Patio Garden Tour: https://youtu.be/LKEJ3Ipv0Y0
Growing Bitter Melon, a Superfood: https://youtu.be/JVX3Ukx-Ioc
Armenian Cucumber, a Fake Cucumber? : https://youtu.be/UURKn9dbZKo
Planting out the Greenstalk Vertical Planter: https://youtu.be/bnxPmS1NV8U

Hello garden friend. It is time for the July garden tour. This is early July in my zone 8A garden. Let’s look around. Welcome to finally enjoying the garden. Now this garden is the garden that almost wasn’t. I had a really hard time with soil that was not properly broken down. So a lot of my plants are stunted. But would you look at the greenery? I am so excited that I get to garden this year despite all the troubles I had. Everything looks so lush and green. I have things growing up the trellis all the way to the top. Do you see that? I have cucumbers, Armanian cucumbers growing up either side of this trellis here. And oh my goodness, I believe this is one of the most beautiful sites ever. The bees are busy. You see little bee. Hi little bee. Hi little bee. They are everywhere. And that tells me my garden is happy. So let’s back up and start the garden tour from the very front of the garden right over here. So this right here I have considered the very front of my garden. My garden does not have a fence or a gate, but I consider this our trellis the front of my garden. And this here was what I dreamed of. I wanted white flowers popping up from these two containers to mark the entrance of the garden. And I am getting what I wished. This is the snow white gumrina. And as you can see, these flowers are just so beautiful. I got this idea because I grew the red grumpina, the strawberry fields grumpina last year and I thought they looked so beautiful and I wanted them to be in here front and center. My other plan was to have some vines growing up the sides of these trelluses and they were supposed to be white flowers. Unfortunately, the blackeyed susan vine turned out to be yellow. Still beautiful, just not what I was looking for. And they did struggle a bit cuz they had that same soil in the bags. But they are starting to grow up the trellis. So, in a month or so, I expect to see even more flowers here. The grape vine is thriving even with all the damage from the from the Japanese beetles. And these are just about to bloom. This is a white flower called the blue disk African daisy. And I can’t wait to see the flowers, white here. And these white ones here. I have right here another flower which I hope is white. So if this all blooms white, I’m going to be tickled beyond imagination. Moving on. White gumrina here. Red Gumprina over there. Look at these. This is where the love began. This is the strawberry fields gumrina. Don’t they look like little pops of strawberries? So beautiful. Right next to this Peruvana ziga, which has turned out to be one of my favorite zenyas this year. I have zenyas everywhere. Just I’ll show you. But this Peruvian zenya is my first year growing it. It is very beautiful. Goes really well with the strawberry filled grumpina. And in here I have some snapdragons. I believe this is the rose snapdragon I got from MI Gardener. These ones came from a mix from the Dollar Tree. These white snapdragons. And then this one, I forget the name, but I will put it right here. And then some more of that white Snapdragon. Now, these here are my tomato tunnels. Aren’t they pretty? So, I have one here and one in the back. The one in the front here is supposed to be for cherry tomatoes. Although, I do have one tomato that’s not a cherry tomato here. So, I’ve got the sun sugar, which is this orange variety, the super sweet 100 here, and then the black cherry, which I don’t have any ripe ones, but the black cherry is here. Three of my favorite cherry tomatoes. On this side, I have this one here called the blunt corf chin tomato. Very sweet. It has multiple flowers on one bunch. Most of mine did not take because of the heat. Uh but hi little bee. I get so distracted by the bees. Now this here, I did a video showing my cucumbers and this was heavily featured. This is the suyolong cucumber. And this one has been my pride and joy in this garden this year. Done so well. I’ve had trouble growing cucumbers, but as you can see, no trouble this year so far. This is a su long cucumber, which I should have picked. It’s pretty big, but this is how they look. and it has gotten all the way to the top of the trellis and is making its way across. Now, this is a testament to leaving your volunteers alone. This here, I did not plant any of this basil right here. This is the lemon basil. I planted some here last year and it went to seed. Some of the seeds obviously fell in here and the rest is history. Look at all this basil. I’ve been picking basil off here for weeks. It’s a big bush. I do not water it. I have not fertilized it. I’ve done nothing to it. And it is healthy. This might as well be my basil bed cuz this sea of basil, I have probably eight or 10 varieties of basil in here. Lime basil, lemon basil, uh Thai basil, a siam queen Thai basil, uh aokco mesa, uh I think this is the either the genevies or the sweet basil. Just so many types here and there and literally everywhere. And I’m just harvesting and my aim is to get enough basil to store for the year. And I think I’m going to do it this year. Some more herbs. That’s the long leaf papalo. Never grown it before. Never used it, but I liked the name and I was like, let’s let’s try it. So, if you’ve ever used it, leave me some ideas in the comment section. I hear it’s supposed to be like a cilantro. So, there’s that. And some more Thai basil. Let me back up so you can see the trelluses from this area. More tomatoes. I’ve got tomatoes here. These are my larger tomatoes. Non ripening right now, but definitely setting fruit. Got fruit down there. I got fruit up there. I think that’s the better boy. Tomato. More basil because uh why not? I have some zenyas. Now, these zenyas, they look like sticks because they are. I planted them somewhere else in my garden and the rabbits came and ate them down. So, I’ve moved them over here as as well as some gumrina. These are strawberry filled gumras that volunteered in the garden from last year. So I just move them over here and we shall see what they do. More volunteer basil. These are the blue spice basil. And there’s always a bee here because nothing draws bees like the blue spice basil. Um they just came up in this container and I let them be. I did not plant a single seed cuz I knew they would volunteer. And I don’t quite like the basil. I don’t like the taste of it or the smell of it, but the bees adore it. So, I’m growing it more as a pollinator plant. Look at this. Who doesn’t love zenyas? Like, why why would you not love zenyas? Now, in the back of these trelluses, I have some watermelon growing. I didn’t think I would be able to grow watermelon this year because of the challenges I had with the soil. But, do you want to see my little watermelon baby? Of course you do. Look at that one. But in here at the bottom can get to you, baby. Let’s turn around. There, I’ve got another watermelon. And it’s still in the soil. So, I do need to get something to lift it off the soil. But there it is. It’s a watermelon baby. I think this might be this uh sugar baby, but I’m not quite sure what I put here. So, let’s look at this trellus from this angle. I love tomato trelluses. Now, here looks like a little disaster cuz I left my leaks to go to seed. I wanted to see how they look. And I’ve put in some more herbs. This is an English time here. Some walking onions right there. And more cucumbers. This is the year of cucumbers. I said it was last year, but I I changed my mind. It’s this year. So, I’ve got a Persian baby cucumber and baby alpha cucumber here. And I have been picking cucumbers every year. Have you ever grown this? This here is the rat’s tail radish. And it’s a radish that goes straight to flower. Um, it doesn’t really grow a bulb and you eat the seed pods uh instead of eating the root structure. So, this tastes just like a radish. You can put it in your salad. You can eat it raw. I just snack on it. It’s a beautiful plant. I have a video about this plant if you’re interested in know about it. Where to get seeds, I’ll put it in the description box. Back to the front cuz I wanted to show you these here. These are bitter melons. This is a little fruit right here. I have three different varieties if I remember correctly. This is the futo spindle and I just picked one off of it yesterday, but it has quite a few fruits. So, let’s see if I can show you how it looks when it’s a little bit bigger. See those? I have two fruit right here right there. And then I believe this is the Okinawan white. And I have another variety that hasn’t yet fruited. But these are really healthy for you. I have a video I have a video for everything, don’t I? I have a video showing these if you wanted more information about it. I’ll leave it in the description box as well. But they are bitter. So, if you’re not into bitter, this might be a hard cell for you. But you can cook with them. I eat them raw. They are great, and the vines are so pretty. I’m training them to go from this trellis over this to this trellis. And as you can see, they’ve already started making their way across. Look at that. All right, moving on. I have some tomatoes trellised up on strings. I’m growing tomatoes many different ways. This one’s our string trellis. And then more Armenian cucumbers because I planted them literally everywhere. Zenas. Now, these are the zenyas the rabbits left me. I had a bunch in here that they came through and cut. So, I just put some onions in here. I have uh green onions everywhere. So, I just got some of them and chopped them up and threw them in here to see if I can dissuade them from coming to my garden. But these are so pretty. I grew zenyas here last year and I found myself coming to the garden just to look at those zenyas and that’s why I have them spread everywhere in my garden this year because I just want to look at zenyas apparently more of that pervana zena. Look at that little worm on it. Look at that. It’s trying to pretend it’s not there. Look at it. I’m distracted. Look, a bee. Okay, I was distracted by a bee. But it’s trying not to move. But I see you, sis. You can’t stay here. I don’t know where you got to go, but you can’t stay here. See, it’s like an inchworm. Look. Look at it dancing. Look at it. It’s trying to pretend to be a stick. You are not a stick. You got to go. Oh my gosh. Now it’s stuck to my finger. Look at that. Can you see it? You see it? I don’t know if you can see it, but it’s dangling off my finger. You got to go boop. All right. So, right next to the perugana zena, I have the snow white gumrina. And oh my goodness, look. It’s a double flower. It’s a twin. Okay. See, this is how the flower usually looks. Just one little ball. This one’s like I’m going to be dramatic. It’s like one big ball and a second one. That is so pretty. That’s so pretty. And it’s the only one I see that’s doing that. I had a zenya last year right here that had the same theme faciation. And so it looked like two zenyas fused into one. That was so pretty. I made a short about it cuz I needed to share that with the world. All right. Now, in this bed, I’m going to swing around. In this bed, I also have some corn. The corn wasn’t quite knee high by Fourth of July, but it will do. Uh, the one over there is starting to tassle, but yes, I just threw in some corn here. I was late planting it in. It is what it is. Here’s my Armenian cucumber. Do you see her in all her gorgeousness? Some dill. More dill. Dill is so pretty. The flowers are just gorgeous. I know I’m going to have a thousand volunteers here. Yeah, I’m going to have a thousand volunteers here because here are the the dill seeds. See that? They dried up and they’re just going to splatter everywhere. So, I know I’m going to have volunteers, but that’s okay. That’s okay. The basil over there, that’s the large or lettuce leaf basil. And the leaves are really huge. You can wrap a little piece of chicken in it. So, that’s great. Oh, butterfly. The butterflies love these zenyas. If I ever want to see a butterfly, I know where to go. Now, if you’ve been to my garden before, you know that this is where I grow my okra because the rabbits, the affforementioned rabbits, they love to eat my okra plants. So, I built this little cage for my okra, and I grew them here last year, and they did really well. This year, I’m growing two varieties. I’m growing the heavy hitter okra, which I grew last year, and these are the leaves. They look like they look like five fingers. So that’s the heavy hitter okra. And then over here is the inka 10en okcra. And the leaves look like more fused and then just three or four with stubby fingers. Very different. I haven’t had this one uh fruit yet, but it is flowering. So it won’t be long. Ooh, the flowers are even different. The flower little flower buds are different. Let me see if I can show you. See, this is the heavy hitter okra. And you can see how how the flower heads are elongated. These flowerheads are stubby and short. Interesting. And this is why you should check your okra plants daily. I missed this okra right there. It’s big. I need to come get it. And lucky for everyone, we get to see an okra flower today. They don’t stay open for too long. So most times when I’m showing my okra, they’re not open. But that’s an okra flower. It looks like a hibiscus flower cuz the okra and hibiscus are related. Look at that. So pretty. So pretty. There’s the wasp. You see her on the dill? Yeah. I’m going to stay out of your way, lady. You can have that. So these are my older beds, more established beds. And here are my newer beds that I put in this year. So, these four beds are new. So, let’s go through these. You see the itty bitty bee? This is a helocchrism. I don’t know if I’m saying it right, but it’s an everlasting flower. In the night, they close up and in the morning they open up again. That’s so that’s so cute. But this bee is working on it. Working. So, I have two of those. I have this one. And I’m not sure if this is just a regular straw flower. I’m not sure. She hasn’t opened up yet. So, I don’t know what color that’s going to be. These are completely covered by the Armenian cucumber. I’ve got some pepper plants in here that are struggling struggling for their lives. Look at them in there. Yeah, struggling. But I have some zenyas. Zenyas will do well in poor soil. They will do better than peppers and tomatoes. So this is a Persian carpet zena. It’s much smaller than the regular zenyas. It has smaller leaves. It has smaller flowers. It seems to be more mildew, powdery mildew resistant. And it’s a mixed pack. So it has different types of flowers. So I planted just one pack. And I got this kind of flower like these. This one out of just four plants here, they’re all different. See my yellow yellow peppers struggling, I said. But you wouldn’t you wouldn’t be able to tell if you just looked at the trellis. It looks happy. Doesn’t it look happy? I have a marold. I think this is the Kilamanjaro white marold. And there’s a flower in here that was opened and it was so pretty. Look at that in there. Right there. The bees. There’s so many bees. I can’t even stick my fingers in here cuz there’s a bee waiting for me. Look at look. Just look. I got bees, y’all. But yeah, that’s that one margo plant. And it’s on the other side of the trellis. It’s on this side of the trellis. I’ve got basil in here. The purple ball basil. Hard to see. Ooh, the bees. They don’t want me here. I’m in their way. My gosh. Literally, there are like 10 bees here. Okay, so purple ball basil there. And I think that might be the dwarf Greek basil, but I’m not quite sure. More basil on the inside of this trellis here. And my watermelon. I’m telling you, I feel so blessed to be growing watermelon this year. Look at that. That’s beautiful. And there’s another one in here. Look at her. That’s the bigger one right there. I’ve got watermelon and bees. I’ve got watermelon and bees. Okay, I need to stop gushing about the bees and move on to the next bed. So, these two beds, let me show you for context. This is the front of the garden. There you go. And these are the new beds we put in. I put zenyas in front of these beds. They struggled for the longest time. and they were just stunted and they finally took off. These I put the larger zenyas here and the smaller zenas here. I believe this was the lily zena I put in here and the glory. Look at this. Look at this. I mean, come on. This is so precious. There’s a butterfly on this one, so I won’t touch it. But it’s so big. It’s so healthy. I have some more purple basil here. I need to come cut these flowers off, but they were pretty, so that’s why I left them in. I have enough basil where I’m letting some of them flower. I have the portala or moss rose. The leaves look a little sad, but it flowers every day. Every day a new flower. The flower only stays one day, but then you won’t know because every time you come out, there’s another flower for you. And these are easily propagated. If you pinch off a piece of this and put it in the ground and keep it watered for a little bit, it’ll make a whole new plant and they recede easily. I love this moss rose porcha. I put snapdragons literally everywhere in the garden. I just fell in love with snapdragons last year when I grew the black prince one. So, I’ve put them everywhere and every every so often I get to see one of these just pop pop pop off in the garden. That’s beautiful. All right, some more zenyas. The little red one with my marold, the Kilimanjaro, I believe. No, you know what? I think this might be the sugar and spice marold is very pretty. This one fell over. This is where I planted it and it fell over and started rooting. So, I let let it I put some more soil over the the stem here and it’s doing so well. I think it’s cuz it has more roots to draw nutrients from this soil that is not very nutrient-dense compared to this marold. This one’s just see just on the soil right here and it’s doing nothing. Of course, here I have weeds. I have bermuda grass I believe and it pops up in every garden bed. It’s tenacious. Tenacious. So, look at that. And some more moss. Isn’t this so Look, you got You got to agree with me, right? Let me You must agree with me. These are so pretty. And if you’re wondering why I have some cardboard, this is right here. I put my compost, my um kitchen scraps and leaves from the garden in here in this little wire basket. And so I can compost stuff in here and build this soil up. So that’s what this place is here. I just put some stuff in here. So I just covered it with this cardboard just so the sun wasn’t beating down on it. But back to the tour. Now this is some ladder mesh. Let me show you. Made a little trellus with it. And on that end, I have some cucumbers growing up. And they finally have started producing cucumbers. I saw them this morning. I was tickled. Look at her. So, we’re getting production. I’m trying to secession plant my cucumbers so that I have fresh cucumbers going on for months. I have her sister on this side as well. And I do believe I saw a cucumber as well right there. So, we are in business. So, this trailer should work well enough for just one cucumber plant. Um, on the other end, I have some more zenyas, some maragolds, and this gorgeous lossia. So pretty. I have peppers in here, but they’re stunted. This one is trying to produce, but she’s so small that I’m I think this is just I’m going to die, so I should make some babies before I do. But I’m not worried. Next year will be glorious. the soil will be properly broken down and this garden will be a thing to behold. So, I’m not too worried. See what I was saying about the Persian carpet zenas. You never know what kind of flower is going to pop up. They’re all so different. So, I planted a group of them here and I’m getting all these different flowers. Some moss rose. I’ve got some coropsis which I need to dead head cuz if you let it make seeds then it stops making more flowers and I’m here for the flowers. I have enough seeds. So quick tip, prune. There’s some flowers that don’t really need to be pruned as much but most of them will benefit from some pruning. So I like to prune my coropses. For sure you want to prune your patunias. So, like this one here needs a pruning. I have these three flowers that I need to take off because they’re trying to make seeds and that will make the plant concentrate more on that than on making more flowers for me. I’m here for the flowers. There are some patunias that you can buy. I think they’re hybrid ones that don’t need pruning. Like the superb bisma patunias, but I don’t have any of those. So, I just walk around the garden and prune as I water. This also needs to be pruned. This has made some it’s making some seeds and I need to take this off because this plant is struggling. Anyway, let’s move on. Some more solosia. I planted so many different types. See, that’s purple one. That’s one red one. We are surrounded by bees. some more maragolds that haven’t flowered yet. And this is a bambino maragold. This one right here. It’s a really small a shorter variety. See that? Compared to these ones that are towering. So these are much taller. In this bed here, I put a lot of zenyas. It’s pretty much a field of zenyas. I direct sewed all these here probably a month or two after I planted out the garden. And look at them. I think it’s the lilyut variety that I got from the Dollar Tree. Look at these flowers. I think I used one pack or maybe two at most. So that would be like 60s something cents to get all of this here. This is just so pretty. I just need the rabbits not to come here. That’s all. That’s all I need. But my goodness, so vibrant. I do have some eggplants in here. I had a squash plant that is on her way out. She was hit by the vine bore. I just need to pick this. This is the trumpet diabena variety of squash. I’m trying to leave it on here to dry out a little bit. Um, but yeah, she’s a goner. That’s sad because last year I had a really big squash plant here and I loved coming out here and watching her grow ginormous squash. That was fun. So, we’ll do it again next year. We’ll do it again next year. This here is what happens when you leave the Armenian cucumber on for too long. Look how big this thing is. She’s mighty. She’s huge. So, the Armenian cucumber is a melon that is grown as a cucumber and you usually pick it smaller size like a regular cucumber. I left this thing on too long. I have another one here I left on too long. So, what I need from you is if you know how to use an Armenian cucumber when it’s this big, please leave me a comment in the comment section so I can do something with this cuz I would hate to waste it. So, right in front of my field of Zenya, I have this plant here, which I encourage everyone to grow. This is the Mexican sunflower or tthonia. And she is huge. She is tall. She’s almost at the top of this trellis. It’s a big plant. I do have it tied to the trellis cuz it’s a heavy plant and the wind can blow it over. But look at all the flowers from one plant. This is one plant. All of this here is one plant. The butterflies love it. It’s really easy to grow if the deer will leave it be. I had another plant on the other end of the garden that the deer chumped just before it started to bloom and I was quite upset by it. But the flowers are so beautiful, so beautiful, so vibrant. I can see them from inside the house. They sit quite nicely with the bitter melons and another suyong cucumber. Pretty. just beautiful. Now, in the distance, you can see my green stalks. I planted those out maybe two months ago. I have a video showing how I planted them out, and they are lush and full. I have peppers. I’ve got lots of flowers. These are patunias. I have the edible chrysanthemum, which has edible leaves, but I just let it flower. And the flowers are pretty as well. Look at the flowers on this edible crysanthemum. Aren’t those pretty? So, I just let it flower cuz I like to see flowers. I’ve got beans, tomatoes. Oh my goodness. If you would like to see a video of the green stalk, let me know. Put in the comment section. I’ll make a video showing you the green stock cuz it’s just so pretty. I love growing in these. Pepper aisle. Pepper aisle. Oh my goodness. I didn’t think this thing would do anything. Now granted, usually by this time of the year, pepper ale is jumping. It’s full. You can barely see the containers, but this year we are working on gratitude. And I’m just grateful that this pepper alisle is still standing. It’s so beautiful. I’m glad that I decided to put some flowers here in the middle because this has made me so very happy. I found this sign at the thrift store and I said, “You have to go home with me.” And it just fits perfectly here. fresh cut flowers with my fresh cut flowers. Now, the flowers I do not cut, but the birds come through and they slash through them like it’s their full-time job. The butterflies, as you can see, are all over all over these flowers. All over. Look at that. So pretty. I had some black eyed susans, but they’re finishing up. And that’s the beautiful thing about growing in containers. I most likely will take this container out and replace it with another container that is flowering just to pretty this place up. But lasers have been the star of the pepper aisle show. Isn’t that weird? Now, in this front part of the aisle, I have overwintered peppers. So, these peppers were grown last year or some even 2 years ago like this one. This one is 3 years old now. Um, and I took them in to my garage last year and brought them back out this year. They are a little stunted because remember the soil. Okay, so they’re not doing as well as they should be, but they are alive. At least most of them are. And look, this is the purple pepper. Look at look at the color of these leaves. And I have a little pepper forming right there. Look at that. Okay. Yes. So, these are all older peppers. I have one ripening here. This looks like the AI Amario pepper. So glad to see you, baby. Some more zenyas because why not? These ones were volunteer zenyas. And behind it, I stuck in my sage. This is the pineapple sage. These are almost done flowering. This is the blackeyed susan. They volunteered in this container and I said I’ll allow it. Some more overwintered peppers. These look like habanero type peppers. I think this is like the second time I’ve overwintered this pepper plant. And it’s that it’s so it’s a red habanero. I have these little itty bitty uh bird eye chili or cayenne type pepper. I bought a pepper seed that was supposed to be a habanero type and these ones came up. They remind me of my dad these peppers. So I overwintered it just for that reason. I didn’t want to plant any cayenne peppers, any smaller peppers because it’s a hassle to pick. But when I saw this plant, it reminded me so much of my dad who liked to pick my peppers from my garden when I was younger. And so I overwintered her just so I could look at it and smile. I have a lemon drop pepper here. Oh my goodness. So pretty. Lemon drops take a long time to fruit. Same thing with the Ai Amario. So, if you’re going to overwinter peppers, you might want to look for peppers that just take a long time to fruit. So, this one, I think it says 100 days on the pack, if I’m 90 or 100 days. Same thing with the Aiario. AI peppers in general take a long time to flower and fruit. So, those will be great candidates for overwintering. On this lather mesh here, I have planted some black ice susan vine and I was wanted to uh climb up the trellis and flower. So, it’ll just be covered in yellow flowers. That’s my aim for it. Let me show you what I planted it in. It’s funny. I wish I hope you can see it. If you can look in there, that’s a yogurt container. Can you see it? The little white thing there. It’s a yogurt container. Oh, see, it’s better this way. You see it here? There you go. That’s a yogurt container. I cut the bottom off and I just stuck it there with some soil in it. Planted the blackeyed susan vine in it and then it broke through to the actual soil. So, it’s not just in that container. It’s in the soil now. Uh you can barely see it. I had to move leaves around for you to see it. But in a month or so, this should be all over the trellis. I put some extra wire here so it’s going to cover this area and they’ll be all yellow flowers. it. Wouldn’t that be a great entrance to my pepper aisle? Some more of those aamarios. And then these here are the baby peppers, except for this one, of course. This is the striped sugar stripey. I’ve picked three or four peppers off of this, which if you’ve ever grown sugar stripey, you’ll know it’s rather early to be picking peppers, but because it’s overwintered, it had a great head start. But I have one eggplant there. And then all of these are peppers. Most of which I don’t know what they are because I lost a lot of my tags. Everything that volunteers that’s a Zena I let grow. So this one volunteered. I said yes. This is a black eyed susan that volunteered. I said yes. So do I do have peppers? Some of them are fruings. Like this one here. You see I did pick some peppers off because these plants are small. So, when they’re this small and they’re fruing, they won’t grow that much. So, see these ones? I could come through and pick these peppers and let the plant actually get some size to it, which is what I most likely will do. Look at the Oh, is this the blood? No, this is a violet sparkle. This is my first year growing it. I’m so Oh, I’m so pleased. Okay, I will come through and pick these ones cuz I do want this plant to get bigger so I can get some more fruit off of it. This is really pretty. And there is pepper isle. Look at her. We’re done with pepper isle. So, let’s walk through citrus isle, which right here I have lemongrass. I grew lemongrass last year. It was so pretty. And now I have it in three different places in my garden. It’s actually I never even thought of it. It’s at the beginning of citrus aisle and at the very end of it. I did not think about it. So, walk with me. We’re going to walk all the way around. So, this citrus aisle wraps around the back of my house. And then the front of my porch, lemongrass, another Mexican sunflower or tethonia. This one is not yet flowered. And then I have a citrus plant. This is the swingle. I think it’s a citral. Swingle citral. And that’s the plant here. I have some white straw flowers which only just started flowering last week or so. And it is beautiful. And it sounds Can you hear that? It sounds like paper. ASMR. All right. Some more citrus. This is the brown select satsuma. More straw flour. More straw flowers. So, I put the straw flour in between the citrus cuz it was This area was looking sad. This is the sugar bell, which is a satsuma. If I’m correct, you know what that is? Straw flour. And then this is the citromon, the trifolate leaves. That’s a compot, the fukushu kquot. And these are the remnants of the hedge that was here. And I had them all cut down. Of course, they’re starting to sprout again. I was thinking of covering them and trying to kill them off, but I think what I’ll do is shape them into this little ball and leave them there. So, we’ll see. I got sunflowers. I’ll show you in a minute the big sunflower that is actually flowering. But this is I I’m uh succession sewing my sunflowers. I learned from last year. I had one sunflower and it flowered and it was it was done. So this year I’m trying to plant some more. This one hasn’t flowered yet. And then these ones seem to be a shorter variety. I think I got a pack that was mislabeled. I think it must be the teddy bear sunflower cuz I planted it in other areas. is supposed to be 5 to 6 ft, but they all ended up being really short. So that’s sad. These are dalas, and these are from cutings. So I planted dalia somewhere else in the garden, and I cut the tip of it, the tip of the dalia, so it would spread. And then I planted the tips, and I got these two plants here. So they are from cutings and they haven’t flowered yet, but can’t wait to see what they are. Some more straw flowers. I have two lemon plants here. This one here is the Harvey lemon right here and the improved Myers lemon. This one is grown from seed. I had a grapefruit and the seed was already germinating in the fruit. So, I just threw it in some soil. It grew. I’ve had it for 3 or 4 years right now. I just grow it for fun. I’m not expecting fruit from it, but I may decide to graft something on it. But she’s happy. Another meer lemon. an Nagami Concquat. And look at my Zena. This is a volunteer zena. Came up right there and I left her be. And look, like if all you get are these few flowers and then you cut it down. I mean, who’s complaining? I don’t hear any complaints of any kind. I put a bird bath there. I have never seen any birds there, but it may be cuz I startled them when I open the door and come outside. Citrus. Citrus. So, for perspective, citrus starts over there where the lemongrass is, wraps around this way, and then to the front. You see that? All the way over there. So, the citrus goes all the way over here. This one is actually fruing. This fruit has been here since last year. This is the nippon orange quad. It’s ripe. It’s ripe, people. I need to come pick it. Look at that. I’ve got citrus. There’s another one ripening here. And this has so many fruit back there. This is very productive plant. And I promised I would show you the sunflowers. That’s the velvet queen sunflower. This one here is being attacked by birds. I keep seeing birds flying up to it and pecking around. And this one just opened up yesterday. That’s so pretty. They are so tall. They’re at least, let me see, probably 7 ft. And they have multiple heads. So after these die off and I cut them off, I expect the other ones to bloom as well. So I have this variegated lemon. It’s a pink lemonade. Why is the bee bothering me? What I do to you? Okay, so that’s the variegated lemon. And these are also volunteer zenyas that I picked from different areas in the lawn and just put over here. and they’re doing so well. I have a lot of herbs in front of citrus aisle. So, I’ve got lemongrass, lavender, lemon thyme, lemon basil, English thyme, tooth eggplant. Have you ever grown this? It’s supposed to be good for tooth aches. I’ve never used it. Um, but I just grew it for fun. Tell me if you used this before. Some more of that large leaf papillo sage. French thyme. French thyme seems to be dying back. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, but here’s some French thyme. Savory chamomile. More lemon thyme. And a big old rosemary bush. Here is the basil I use in cooking because it’s right next to my back door, but I have three or four different varieties of basil and some gardio because I like pretty things. And at the very end of citrus aisle, I didn’t plan this, I promise people. Some lemongrass. So, I have lemongrass here, lemongrass at that corner of the aisle and at the very beginning. Can’t wait for it to grow up. It was glorious last year. If you would like a tour of my garden oasis, click on this video. Or if you would like to tour my cucumber garden, click on this video. Like the video if you like the video. Subscribe for more videos like this. And until next time, may you always find joy in your garden and your life. Bye gun friends.