🪴Container Garden Tour + Front Garden Tour + Visiting my Parent’s East Texas Garden and Farm!

Join me for Part 2 of my NorthTexas July Garden Tour 🌿 We’ll start in my container garden and then take a garden tour of the front yard. Then… we are heading out to my family’s charming East Texas farm and my parent’s beautiful and peaceful East Texas garden. It is filled with so much beauty, including huge beds filled with azaleas and blooming hydrangeas! I hope to make it back in the spring to give you a full tour when their garden is in full glory! Whether you garden in Zone 8 or are just curious about Texas garden life, this tour is full of real-life tips, plant highlights, and a whole lot of heart.

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Hey guys, welcome back. My name is Don. I garden in zone A and this is part two of our July garden tour. At the end, I’ll put the link for part one. Be sure to check it out. I’ve also got a special treat. We’re going to head out to the family farm out in East Texas. I’m also going to highlight some of my parents’ gardens. Absolutely beautiful. I’m going to save it all to the end just because my garden pales in comparison. I’m so glad you’re here and I hope that you’ll stay tuned. [Music] All right, we’re going to get started in the container garden today. And I hope to maybe put a before on the screen from what it was like earlier this year because it has just gone wild. And I tend to do the same thing every year just because it’s successful under this crate myrtle and it’s kind of repetitive, but it works for me. And often when I show you guys my Japanese maple, I’m not standing next to it. So you can’t see the scale, but I just want you to see how tall this is compared to my height. And this maple is in a pot and it has been in this pot. We don’t bring it in in the winter. It’s going on probably about 10 years. And also the same for this bloodg good. Same. Look at how beautiful and full this bloodg good is. And I’ll show you how I never have to repot them. I’ll put that video up at the top. But these containers are original and I’ve never had to change them. But you can watch the video and find out exactly what I do to take care of it. Again, just some impatients down below, asparagus fern, some beautiful ivies and ferns mixed throughout with dragon wing beonas. This blood good I did have to train. You can see I have the um training bunggees in here because when I bought it, all of the limbs were very close together. It wasn’t looking very beautiful and full. So, what I do is just pull the bungee in the direction that I want to train the leaf. And I pulled it apart until eventually I got some space between the limbs to make it nice and full. And in fact, I still have one of the bunggees still in the ground. So, I could probably go ahead and pull that up because it’s been several years now and it had trained itself into a nice full blood good Japanese maple. You can see the gorgeous, gorgeous stained glass hosta down here putting on tons of blooms. I’ve got one, two, three. Very happy spot. Obviously, dragon beonas and impatience just kind of add the color to this entire bed. Couple of roses flank the back. I’ve got a Belinda’s Dream and a what is that one? Um I can’t think of the name of it right now, but it’s not in bloom, so I’m not gonna not gonna worry about it. But I’ve got a beautiful beautiful Nachez crepe myrtle. It almost looks like hydrangeas in the sky down here. Another beautiful hydrangeanger leopard plant. This is a jasmine that smells so good, you guys. Smells so good. And my neighbor gave me this cute little plant holder. She wanted a little bit of landscaping advice. So I gave her landscaping advice. She gifted me with this. And then another cute little spider plant holder. And but um another just impatience. And look at the kolas. Look at this thing. It’s like a tree. Look at it. Gorgeous, right? And I just let it I let it go to bloom cuz I think they look very beautiful. When you let it go to bloom, it does take away from the foliage, but I’m okay with doing that in the backyard. In the front, I am wanting the foliage to be more on display. Uh, back here, another shade colus. Some beautiful caladiums. Some mint and impatience all in a pot down there. Sweet little fountain my son gave me for Mother’s Day. And then those are flanked with two beautiful holly ferns that are so big, gorgeous. As we step behind my porch, it’s just lined with a succulent garden. It’s got autumn joy sedums and several other varieties of succulents that last through our winters. Pull some weeds while I’m at it. And then hyasin along the fence. And I’ve got to clean this pent out. See the hyasphanine is growing into it. And if you haven’t grown hyasphanine, you need to stay on top of it. It can be a very vigorous grower. My beautiful jellyfish baskets. You guys see how big the sedum is? Absolutely huge. They did go through the Texas chop. If you don’t, they tend to fall and leave a big open center like this one was starting to do. Do you see that? So, I like to go ahead and chop them and that way they don’t start falling and draping over. All right, we’re coming back around. But let me turn around and show you the this view. Very pretty. I love how this looks here. And I made a full circle. We’re coming back around to the drift roses. The basil here smells unbelievable. But look at all the alysum that receds. Isn’t that beautiful? I don’t plant that at all. It receds every year. It always has. Fills this entire area. More butterfly weed. And then my Colette, which I see a remnant of a bloom here. Not looking starting to get a little too hot for it. I’m going to have a lot of training to do. Can you guys see how much is growing outwards? I really want it growing more upwards or sideways. So, I just need to come in get those attached to the fence. I love the form the Colette takes. So, it’s really filling out nicely. Few more beautiful pots. These are a beautiful colus with the sweetest little salmon zinia. This is lemon thyme I believe euphoria and some dusty miller. It makes these are three different pots but I like to arrange them to make a beautiful little arrangement. I think it looks so pretty. And then on this side we’re just repeating some of the same with the kolas. This is just a boxwood and then some primrose with some more peachy keen verbina and some more morning glory evolvas here with a beautiful beautiful hibiscus. We’re going to head to the front and I’ll just give you an overview of the rest of the backyard. If you missed that video, be sure to tune in. I’ll put the link at the end of this video. This is actually part two of the full garden tour. And then here’s my new beautiful garden gate that I installed about a month ago. I’ll put that link as well. Then right outside my garden gate, my dad just gave me these two plumerias that were in his little nursery. Look how cute. Even with the little pots. I love them. Taking a little miniature bonsai form. So I’m excited about those. None of my plume areas have bloomed yet this year. It’s unusual. Normally, my other one has bloomed by June, but if they’re a newer plant, sometimes it takes a few years to get them blooming. And the one in the yard in the back had some damage from a greenhouse. Um the power went out one year and the greenhouse froze, damaged the plumeriia. So, I had to cut if you cut the branch and replant it, it will um form a new plant. But that takes some time for those roots to develop and that plant to get established before it’ll start blooming. So, I’m just being very patient and that’s why that other one’s so huge with no blooms. But I’ve also got a Texas star hibiscus. Look at this thing. And it had a bloom on it yesterday. I think I caught a picture of it, so I’ll put it on the screen. But I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. But these are all in containers. I’ve got some oleander here. Um, and then also just below I’ve got a lot of the dragon’s breastia that receded, a gorgeous bluepoint juniper and a beautiful hanging basket. This is all outside my gate. I couldn’t put this gate up without having a pretty little arrangement out here, but um, thinking about painting all this. I don’t know. I hate looking at it. And in the front, I’ve had a little bit of work going on and I have not been filming it, but you can see right here, I added a new bed or added an extension to this bed because Shades of Green was having an incredible sale where you buy um buy five, get five perennials free, so couldn’t pass it up. It was something we were planning on doing anyways. And so, I thought I’d go ahead and grab them and get them try to get them established before it got too hot. And so, that’s why I didn’t film it. I was just busy trying to get this done. Sometimes when I’m filming it takes a little more time out of the day and I just had to get them in before the rainstorm hit. You can see all along here just the impatients are still doing beautiful. Same with the lamb’s ear. The rock rolls abilas. It’s so interesting how the bottoms have bloomed, but I’m sorry, Rose Creek Ailas. Guys, every single time I do it, the top has not. And then this, I don’t know if I showed you, but this uh patunia perennialized. This was a either a Proven Winners or a Wave Patunia Silverberry, I believe, and it perennialized. And look at it now. So, that is such an exciting thing for me. If you come up here, you can see the lime light standard full of blooms. Very, very pretty. It put on a fresh new bloom last week. But um it seems to be doing good in its pot. I have not had success with them in the ground. So I’ve started keeping it in the pot and it’s doing great. We had a red bed here at one time, but because of the magnolia and that holly, I think that this area struggles. Again, competition for roots from the trees, but this blood good seems like it’s doing doing pretty good. Beautiful calm kolas down here that I’ve just kept in shrub form. So, I just continue to pull the flowers off just to keep the foliage looking brilliantly beautiful. Okay, let’s jump back to where we were. As you can see back here, I bought some flocks from a nursery. It was supposed to be lavender, but clearly one is John Fanic flocks and the other is a fuchsia color. So, now I have three flocks here. They’re not lavender and they don’t even match. So, I will probably be removing this one. And I’ll keep those in place since those two are the same color. But I got some John Fanic here. But the John Fanic, that was part of some of the new perennials that I bought. This is all John Fanic here. So I think I’ll probably just plug that one in right behind it there. And then I’ve got Mexican mint maringold. I brought some, put it up front. I got some more bomb. I’ve got some white skull cap here. And then I put a lot of the German der and I love it. It resembles a boxwood and I it makes little purple flowers. I have some in the back. It’s under my cat mint so I didn’t show it to you but it has filled out so beautifully. It seemed to be a little less maintenance and less diseaseprone. Actually no disease compared to the boxwoods. So I’m kind of giving up on boxwoods and moving towards these. So, I’ll have this this evergreen color right here along my sidewalk. Thought it’d be really pretty. The dragon’s breast solosia. Gorgeous, gorgeous foliage color. And the loilia still in bloom. You can see this little annual basket here. Lots of colladiums. I saved those bulbs. I pul dug them up in the fall last year and replanted them. They’re coming back not doing as great as they did the previous years, but the ones further from the holly are doing best. Clearly, I think holly roots struggling back there to keep up those caladiums. And as much as I love the flower on the colladium, see it? It flowers so pretty. If you want your foliage to really thrive, you’ll cut your flower off and let those roots not have to compete to give you a flower. So, every now and then I’ll come out and cut them. But they also look very, very cool. More dragon wing on this side. I’m sorry, dragon wing. Dragon’s breath. And this is Salvia here. I think it’s Ria. Supposed to be an annual, but it comes back every year. Oh, as does the dianths down here. The ground cover comes back every year. Just kind of spreads. I’m just really wanting to add more perennials to this front bed. Through the years, I’ve needed more evergreen and more perennials. So, that’s what I’m going after here. And the sunshine lagustrums, the holly, and the rose creek lambs. Those and nandas. Those all give me that evergreen winter interest as long as well as the germander here is going to give me that. And on this side I have my the boxwood and the legustrums that and also more rose creek ailas. So these are blooming on top as you can see. Lots of profusion zenia and then I’ve got some volunteer solosas there from last year. Obviously the gumrina and then also some blue wave patunias that are kind of getting hidden with the gumrina but that’s okay. Oh my that was a big big hog that just flew by. So, you can see the foliage color of the hibiscus. Isn’t it beautiful? And it does its thing even without the blooms, although it’s covered and it’s about to reflush again. Also in this bed, I’ve added some basil. This is Joel cherry denths. Another amazing plant in our Texas gardens. That’s the melanin zenia. That’s the zenia that I threw out all in the back. Beautiful, beautiful landscape zenia. It’s a nice height. It doesn’t get too tall, but it still allows you to cut them and bring them in. I’ve got the butterfly weed. And then all of my lark spur is going to seed down here. Kolus volunteers. And then another beautiful kolas. This is the proven winners. I’m sorry. Kolus Cleomi. Sorry guys. And this Livianths has been moved so many times and I thought I was going to lose it, but all three of them look like they’re coming back. So, you know, these beds are all fairly new. And so, this lizanthus has suffered about three to four transplants in the last few years. But when I step back, I am very happy with the results. I put some evolvus down here as a ground cover. Again, I have to work lots and lots of amendments into this soil. Drainage is terrible in this area. My whole yard is like that actually. So, I have got to add lots of expanded shell and amendments to keep the dirt and clay from just holding moisture and root rotting all of my plants. All right. And as we come around the front, what we’re wanting to do, if these these rain gardens are new the last few years, and I’ll put those links up above on the screen, but we’re going to eventually be connecting that drainage to this drainage and then removing all of this grass. And we’ll also be removing this grass. And that way we’ll only have grass in the very front here and here. But the look at the blue atlas. Isn’t it gorgeous? And it will only get it’s a 15t tree. So it’s not going to get too tall. I think it’ll be really really amazing in this spot if it if it survives. That blue color you just cannot beat. feel like I’m in Colorado. And then just more lamb’s ear, Japanese maple, and he can grow here because he’s under this beautiful oak. It’s a live oak. Well, I say it’s beautiful, but it’s causing us a lot of work. And if you can see all of the little baby oaks that pop up everywhere that we’re constantly having to cut and pull, and they are everywhere. Mole is just making himself at home. So, got my gopher hawk. Everywhere we dig, he kind of has our entire yard is nothing but trails. But you can tell an active tunnel cuz see, can you see how he filled that back up? I was digging out the rock. I want more of a natural creek bed along here and I was using the rock along here and that’s when I ran across several mole tunnels along here and he went and covered them back up. That’s how I know it’s an active tunnel. So hopefully my gopher hawk will do its job. But tons of dlies out of bloom now and just more gumrina and some wave patunias up here. My white drift roses I’ll be replacing. My other ones have rose rosette. So I can dig these up, move them over there. I’m going to make this entire area I think evergreen. Um, I’m going to get more of this grass and put it down here along with some holly ferns and just kind of do away with having annuals in this spot. Both of myself and my neighbors trees have joined at the top. So, this area is just not getting the sun that it used to. So, I have to change how I’m using this bed, which used to be a lot of a lot of sun, but not so much anymore. In fact, I’m wondering about my dlies as well. But I have started slowly moving some of my dillies to back here. All right, now come around to the front. This is a gorgeous This is one of the Hollywood series hibiscuses. I think this is Oh, I would be fully guessing if I told you what it was, but it’s not quite open, but the colors are extraordinary. The colors are so beautiful. And this is an annual that I was just kind of testing and I’m sold. This is annual Capia variety and I am blown away at its performance. It has been endless blooms with hardly any fertilizer. Gets full sun. I don’t add any extra water. So the all the water it’s been getting has been from the rains. So I think I’ll probably be using that in the beds more in the future. And then I added some Goldstrom Rebecca, similar to what I have in the back. Actually, it’s the same variety I have in the back. And then these are, look how pretty those are. Augustaki. Those I grew from seed. I sewed them indoors and they’re about uh two years old now. But I love the love the cool looking flowers. So do the bees. And I started my drift roses. As you can see, they are all cut back and full of rose rosette. And I’ve been very irresponsible in digging them up just because I know how much work it’s going to be. These have been here for gosh, so long, guys. Maybe 10 years or so, maybe even longer than that. Just kind of dreading it and really sad about it, not going to lie. But redo this area. It’ll just force me to rethink how I want this. I think I still want to keep my drift roses here, but I’m not positive. I may move them to this middle section and just make this all a perennial bed. We will see. Loving my grasses. I don’t remember the name of them. I’ll put them on the screen, but they are gorgeous. It’s a variegated blade and I have two of them. One here and one up there. Just beautiful ornamentals. So, my snapd dragons, the more I cut them back, the more they’re flowering. So, some of them are still thriving, others, not so much. Salvia, I did a Texas chop. And then I’ve got a lot of volunteer zenas down here. These cone flowers were so cool looking. I love them. And then this is the mystic spire salvia that I did not cut back. Look how big and massive. See if I can get you a good view of the bees and pollinators on it. You know, I kind of just take turns. Since I cut the one in the back, I left this one. And then back here, some of the dilly still in bloom. I think I also have a yellow cone flower tucked away in there. Here’s another view of the front perennial gardens and my beautiful Japanese maple here. Let me step back behind this hibiscus to show you all of the variegated auga back here. And that beautiful hosta. My radiance ailas look like they’re going to make it. The mole went right through it. I think I mentioned that in the previous tour, but I pressed the ground back down really bad. Added more root fertilizer and just watered them from like a week. Almost like you’re newly planting them is what you have to do. They are starting to bloom and they’re going to pull through thankfully. And I think all the rain helped as well. Here’s another mellan. Look at this zenia, guys. And that’s about as tall as it’ll get. Can you see the height when we step back and let you see how tall that is? If you’re thinking about doing a Zenia for your landscape, that is a great variety. And then this is a volunteer. They love it. It’s a creamy creamy white almost yellow undertones. Absolutely gorgeous. The double play doozy has kind of stayed in bloom all summer. Definitely not the same flush I got in the spring, but fun enough that they’re still adding some little pops of color here and there. And this is Henry Doberg Salvia. This is a part shade area. It gets full sun in the spring until this crepe myrtle fills out and then it gets a lot of morning shade and then afternoon shade from this crepe myrtle. But they’re still doing fine. Putting on the blooms, giving the look that I want back here. The oak leaf. Some salvia. Got a few canalillies coming up. and a rose that I transplanted from the back. But I was going to show you Rob went ahead and fixed this with our water. I think I told you it was washing away all of the dirt. So, he just went ahead and put a hose that shoots the water onto the rock bed instead of washing the water out of the base of the clayas, which is what was happening. And then just let me step back and show you how huge this lower petulum is. Look at that. I haven’t had luck since this. This is my last lower petulum. It has been about 20 years that one’s been there. And I have not had luck planting any new ones. So, all right, let’s walk to the front. I always forget to show you along the driveway. I’ve got some natives growing really well. And I want you to see how the Henry Dberg Salvia multiplies. This is Henry Dilburn. It’ll recede like crazy in your garden. So, there’s benefits to that. Obviously, I was able to put it up here along my driveway and I don’t have to do anything to it. It’s another one you don’t have to fertilize or water. And uh you do want to cut it back. It is good for the Texas chalk. My salvia is coming back slowly. And then always I forget the name of the forget the name. Forgot the name. It’ll come to me. But here’s another view of the front garden from this direction. All right, guys. That’s it for my yard. Let’s head off to the farm. Instead, I bought bell peppers. I know what you tell your mom said you stuffed bell peppers and I got okra growing over there. That’s squash. I I got enough a great big old dish of squash. What kind of What did you do under here with your dirt? For some reason, it produced a lot of squash and then it died. Huh. I wonder if it got a um a bug or something. I don’t know. Yeah. Oh, wow. Look at I got golfers that coming in. Oh, maybe so. Yeah. Wow. It looks so healthy. The deer have been eating the squash off of the Wow. I mean, the flower buds. Yeah. This is watermelon. I just got one where? Right there. And that’s cucumbers over there. Oh, there’s no watermelon on it. No. Oh, okay. Well, there is a one baby somewhere. I saw it the other day. Well, something made it. There it is. A So cute. Anyway, I picked two squash off. They’re sitting in the center, not the house. Wow. Off of this. And they haven’t put any more out yet. Oh, looks really healthy. So, do you have this hooked up to a drip or you watering it? Oh, I water it with a sprinkler. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, you got it all fixed up. These all right now, Lucy. What you eating? It can’t be anything good. They picked up this huge excavator few months ago and they’re clearing out the lake a little bit more. Just judging the edges to make them deeper around the perimeter of the lake and then also just pulling out the dead trees that have fallen. Wow. Every now and then you’ll see a big major splash and that’s the bass eating the drink. You see the fish coming in? I see them. See that big one? That was a bass over there. [Applause] She barks whenever you throw anything in the water. It’s crazy. [Laughter] Where does he look? Oh, he’s looking at you. Mama’s probably right there in the woods eating. I got a feeder right there. Lucy, do you even see him? Oh, Lucy, he’s so vicious. God, it’s beautiful. Did they have um branches coming down to the ground and y’all took those up or Oh, I see them now. They had them on this side, but they broke off with a storm. Yeah, that’s beautiful. Breeze coming through. Any birds in the bird feeder or the bird house? No. Yeah, there’s bluebirds in that one. Take me closer to your scarecrow. And it does its job. Lucy, who is that? His arm springs. They flap in the wind. Dad, that’s just really smart. Very, very good. He needs some new jeans. His jeans have a big hole in the butt. I’d like to come back in the spring when the aelas and hydrangeas are at their peak. But look at them still just blooming so beautifully right here in the middle of July. So many gorgeous colors. They have natural acidic soil. So their natural color is blue here in East Texas. may fade to this beautiful green color. Just the natural. Oh my gosh. Just a beautiful natural color. Wow. She’s not scared. She’s coming this way. Cute. Their tails are just two of them. Yeah. Look, come to this side right here. Totally see them. Look, I have them on video here. The mom looks annoyed with them. Yeah, like the little ones are right here. All right, friends. That is it. I’m so sorry to bring this to an end. I could watch those sweet little deer all day long, even though they do eat my parents’ plants. It’s hard to not admire them running freely in their garden like that. But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this. As always, please leave lots of comments. I love to hear from you, and I’m so grateful that you joined us today. Y’all have a great day. See you in the next one.