August Front Garden Tour! 🌻🌸🍃 The Garden is Still Holding On!

Welcome, gardeners! The garden is still looking quite beautiful even as things start to wind down for the season. Come join me for an early morning front garden tour to see what is looking fantastic even with the heat and dog days of summer! 🌻 Enjoy!

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[Music] Hi everyone, Janie here. Welcome back to my garden and welcome to my August front garden tour. So, those of you who are regular watchers know that I have been MIA for the past week. I apologize about that. Jason and I had a rough week last week. Really rough. We both got really sick like halfway through. I have a video that I was filming that I just stopped halfway through just because I had to go inside and I had to lay down. So, I apologize about that. We’re feeling a lot better and I’m starting to get back out into the garden. But, I have to be honest, I haven’t been out in the garden for a week and I kind of did a little walk through this morning just to look and see how everything was looking and I have to say it still looks pretty good. We are coming to the end of summer. Thank goodness because it’s been really really hot and it’s going to get hot today as well. But the garden is still holding up which is absolutely lovely. So, let me take you around. It’s early in the morning. The sun is just coming up. Let me take you around the front garden and show you what we’ve been doing for the past month. So, one of the big changes this month was decorating our gazebo. We are so happy with this, you guys. The girls helped me. We added some furniture to the gazebo, a rug. We moved our fire pit from our old property into the gazebo, and we absolutely love it. So, as you can see, the sun is rising over here. So, this direction is east, and then our backyard actually faces west, and we had planned when we moved into this house, we had planned to spend a lot of time in the backyard, right? We were going to kind of set up a dining table and couches and all that kind of stuff in the backyard. But after living here for about 2 years, we really realized that we don’t spend a lot of time in the afternoon in the backyard because it’s just too hot with the setting sun. So, we end up spending way more time out here on the porch, on the gazebo. So, it is so nice to have this here, especially when it’s hot and then we finally get a little bit of shade once the sun sets. It’s absolutely lovely. And then I have to say, who wouldn’t want to see a sunrise? So, we end up spending our mornings out here as well. So, we just like the more you live in a property in a in a house, the more you realize how you actually use it. And we end up spending the majority of our time in the front garden, which is absolutely lovely. the back garden. You know, we’ll still use it as like our working garden, but it’s just funny how much the front garden kind of pulls you out, especially because it’s beautiful and there’s tons of flowers and all that kind of stuff. So, that makes a huge, huge difference. Before I go on, I want to show you over here. I want to show you our meadow. Our meadow is coming along. It’s looking so good. So, this is our California Nomo native meadow that we h I seeded this year and it’s really starting to take shape. We’re still watering it a lot. You can see there’s water uh on the ground and so we’re hoping uh I overseed it just a little while ago just to kind of fill in the patches. But it is doing really really good. I’m so excited about it and I can finally start seeing what it’s going to look like once it’s all nice and full. I think I’m going to put maybe some pots here or maybe some tatur or something like that. And then in the fall, I’m going to seed some California poppies as well. So, we’ll have some poppies sticking up. And it’s just it’s just going to be beautiful. And I think I might even put some bulbs in here, right, as like, you know, like a meadow. Like, it’s just I’m so happy that we did this. And it was relatively very cheap. We put a couple inches of compost. I ordered the seeds. um I can’t remember sto I think it was stover seeds that I ordered from and I just kind of spread them out super super easy. We are using this hose link oscillating sprinkler to water it. It’s not even hooked up to a sprinkler system or anything like that. The hardest thing about this Nommo meadow is the weeds because we are watering it so much every single weed seed is sprouting. So, it is something that we’re constantly coming back towards and picking out the weeds just to make sure that the weeds don’t take over for the lawn. But, I think we’re getting a really good handle on it and I think it’s looking really, really great. Over here, I want to show you one of three El Nino Chelpas that I have in my property. I just planted this one not too long ago. If you all remember, it was very, very tiny, nothing really to show, and it just burst into bloom. It This plant is a unicorn. This plant is so absolutely fantastic. It has beautiful, beautiful blooms on it. Beautiful pink blooms. It’s been blooming all season long, and it grows super fast. So, if you’re looking for a plant that grows super fast and can kind of take over a spot, this is definitely a really, really good option. Now, I have this one over here, and this one was from last year. And I did prune this one last year. I cut it back, and I actually pruned it so that I only had three leaders on it. And I’m interested to see. I think I’ve decided I have three of these plants in my garden. I think I’m going to prune one of them. I’m going to leave one. And then I’m just going to um just do some heading cuts on the third one just to see what pruning method kind of works the best for the most blooms and the most beauty and all that kind of stuff. So I’ll keep you all updated on this. But this one, this past I think January is when I did it. Um maybe even earlier than that, I can’t remember. But basically it was, you know, to here and only had three small sticks on it and that was pretty much it. And it was I mean this has been fabulous fabulous all year. Absolutely all year. Coming over this way in my center island. You can see our pathway and it is looking so good. Oh my goodness, it’s looking so good. I have Super Tunia Bordeaux in the front. I have Super Tunia Miniv Vista Yellow, which is this year’s uh annual of the year. And that has just been an absolute showstopper. Absolute showstopper. It’s been amazing. and it’s been taking over my kindly privet right there. Um, it’s just been really really fantastic. Coming over here, I have some denim and lace Russian sage that’s looking fabulous. Uh, and then I have my raspberry superbina. I have one that’s not doing really well right there. I don’t know what’s going on there. Um, and then over here I have uh my Augusta lavender helotrope which is just beautiful as well. And I’m at that really fun time of year when I kind of get to start thinking about next year because I actually order a lot of these plants through Proven Winners. They send them to me to plant in my garden to try them out. And so I actually have to start thinking about what I’m going to do next year. And I have to like pull myself back, hold myself back from basically copying what I did this year cuz I loved it so so very much. I just think everything is looking so so good. Even in this time of year when things kind of start to fade and start to kind of get a little tired, things are still looking great. Oh, I want to show you guys. This is my third El Nino Chalpa and I just planted this. Like I want to say like two months ago or something. And look at how good it looks. It’s it’s just such a fabulous plant. If I could recommend any plant for anybody like you know in in the proper zones, it would be that one. That one is such a fantastic plant. Another plant that I would absolutely recommend to anybody, well, anybody that can with their zone is this one right here. And this one is called Niagara Falls Panacum. Like showstopper. Absolute showstopper. It’s a grass, but it’s a grass with kind of strappy silvery blue leaves. Really beautiful, gorgeous. But that’s not the main thing about this plant that makes it a showstopper. It’s the seed heads, the blooms that make it absolutely fabulous. And this time of year, they start coming out and it’s going to look like this almost all winter long, you guys. These are going to brown out. And if you just leave them, they are going to give your garden so much winter interest. I cannot say enough about how fantastic this grass is. I wish I learned about it sooner so I could have planted more of them, but they are just they’re the most beautiful things. Right behind that, I have my Chinese pistache tree that is looking really, really good. I planted it last fall. And at first, it was a little stressed out when we planted it because we got a really big um specimen, but now it’s starting to bounce back and it’s looking so so beautiful. So good. Oh my gosh, you guys can’t see, but there’s a huge spiderweb there. I’m going to go around this way. Uh right here is my Temple of Bloom, seven sunflower. really really gorgeous. This plant has so many different seasons of interest. And you can see in this season we start to get all these beautiful, beautiful blooms going on. Really, really gorgeous. And then we’re going to get these uh kind of like rosy pink bracks going. And then it has the beautiful bark during the winter. It’s just a really really cool cool plant. It’ll get about 10t tall. So mine’s still a baby. It’s probably only about 6 ft tall right now, but it’ll it’ll keep growing and it’s just going to be like just it’s going to be really beautiful right here. I’m really excited about it. Back here is an area that I haven’t really been paying too much attention to because we’re going to focus on this area next year. You can see I have my bottle brush plant that I planted. This was from one of my blooming gardens. And you can see I’m getting a fall little mini fall bloom as well that’s really beautiful. And then I have my favorite plant playing the blue salvia. So there are just a couple plants that the more you learn, you know, um about what works well in your garden and what doesn’t. The plaint salvia, the Niagara Falls panacum, the El Nino chalapa, those guys, they are just rock stars. Absolute rock stars in my garden. And then coming this way, this is one of the plants that I’ve tried. This was one of the plants that, you know, we all have zone envy and we all want to plant the plants that we can’t plant in our garden. This is called serendipity alium. It’s a really really beautiful plant. It’s got these purple like cake pop- like uh blooms on them. And I have been trying to make this work in my garden. It’s only hardy to zone 8 and I am zone 9b. And a lot of plants I can get away with in zone 9b. I just don’t think this is one of them. I mean, you can see it still blooms. It’s still living. Uh, but it browns out so quickly for me that I’m constantly just waiting for the purple blooms and then you can see as soon as as soon as they really bloom, they start to brown out. I think we’re just too hot here. I mean, we’re going to get 100° today. So, I just wanted to show you all this so you can see because I do often will show you guys plants that are rated to zone 8 but work really well in my zone 9b garden. Like um, uh, cat’s pajamas nepida is one of them that works really well. But this one I just don’t think works fantastic. I’m just not I I can see how it could be an absolute beautiful plant in a cooler environment, but we just get too hot here. Another plant/tree that’s not doing its best is our lime tree right here. It’s just so sad. Oh. So, uh, we had the arborist come and take a look at this lime tree. He said it wasn’t wasn’t long for the world. They kind of cleaned it up a little bit and thought maybe they could do something about it, but it just it’s just not good. Not good. Every day it looks worse and worse. So, this fall we will be taking this sad lime tree out. Oh, look. You can see there’s there’s um birds nests in there. I just noticed that. Um we will be taking this lime tree out and hopefully replacing it. I don’t know if I should plant a lime tree in the same spot it was in, you know, just because we don’t know what actually killed it. Um, but the arborist did tell me that he thought that it got a couple cracks in it and then the frost and heat, the back and forth frost and heat, frost and heat was just too much for this lime tree. So, um, it wasn’t anything that anybody did. It was just kind of time for it to go. But I hate seeing it because you can see all the limes that were developing. Like look how many limes we could have had this year and it just didn’t quite work out unfortunately. So, this needs to come out pretty soon. I was like I was just thinking the other day, what if I just came out and I just used my um my saw and just cut it just to make it go away just so I don’t have to see it anymore because it’s just so sad. It’s such a bummer. But that’s okay. You know, things like this happen. Uh our fig tree is looking absolutely fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It is so ready. I really I wanted to make fig jam last week. That was kind of my plan. And um I didn’t obviously didn’t get around to it cuz I was sick, but they’re even more ready now and I’m so excited. I’m going to try and make some fig jam this week and hopefully I can film it for you guys. But it’s just I can’t The smell of the ripening figs is so sweet and so lovely and just this is just summer to me having these figs here. It’s just so wonderful. And I’m I feel so lucky to have this mature fig tree in my garden and all these figs that I get to use, which is which is just wonderful. Before I go too far into the orchard garden, I want to show you guys what I did over here. So, this whole area I ended up cleaning out. I had a bunch of bearded iris in here and lav lavender lavendula in here and I ended up taking it all out because I just really wasn’t a huge fan of it. It just didn’t it just wasn’t really speaking to me. And I actually had a big barrel cactus over here as well that I put on Facebook Marketplace for free and some gentleman came and picked it up, dug it out, and he was so happy to have it, which was great. But now I have this open blank space and I kind of didn’t really know what to do with it, what to plant with it or not. Uh, but I had my friend Michael Glassman who’s a landscape designer. He helped me design almost this whole landscape, the gazebo and the dry creek bed. That was all him. all his idea, but he gave me the fabulous idea of making this raised bed right here into my trial garden, which like you guys, that is that speaks to me so much. I am. When he said that, I was immediately like, “Yes, that is exactly what it needs to be because I love triing plants, trying out new things, seeing what I can push, seeing if I can push a zone, you know, all that kind of stuff.” And now I have a garden bed specifically for a trial garden that I can try things out in, which is really, really fun. So, big plans for this garden bed next year. I’m so so very excited about it. I’m going to stain uh the wood on the back. It’s, you know, it’s not the nicest raised bed. It’s definitely falling apart, but at least I can use it for a couple years before um you know, while we still have it, and use it for the trial garden bed, which I just, man, I’m just so excited that Michael came up with that idea cuz it’s just such a fabulous idea. And right behind there, you can see there’s my Robbie the Willow tree. My friend Robbie from Visit Our Garden, he gave me that tree. It was one of the first trees we planted, really the first plants we planted in our garden. And it’s just beautiful. I just love it. It is so so gorgeous and it is just uh you know showing you it’s proof that get those trees planted early because you’re going to be appreciating them in the long run. So over here in the long border I have to say the long border has brought me so much joy this year because I didn’t put too much time or energy or thought into the long border but sometimes that can just make the most wonderful plantings you know the most like almost accidental plantings I would say. And that I have to say is what happened in the long border. It’s looking so gorgeous and I really didn’t plan this out at all. It was whatever plants I had I planted in there and hoped that they would look good together. And I think that they look absolutely beautiful. So here I have Star Diva White. This is a fan flower that’s actually in the shape of a star, which is really fun. I’ve tried the Star Diva Pink. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Star Diva pink because it kind of bleached out by the end of the season, but the Star Diva white is absolutely beautiful. And I’m excited to try this Star Diva blue because, you know, gorgeous, right? But this one is really pretty, especially paired with the vibrant virtuoso um vibrant violet virtuoso vibrant violet dalas back here. They’re really starting to come into their own right now and starting to bloom and they’re looking absolutely gorgeous. Um, I have unplugged white behind it and then I do have a butterfly bush that is kind of bloomed out right now, but I really really enjoyed that and I’m excited to see how it’s going to look next year even taller. Uh, I did put in a whole bunch of um, Superunia Vista bubblegum. I do have to say one of the things that hasn’t really been working this year, um, but I’m still holding out hope are the Dalia that Claudia sent me. I think I waited too long to plant them, unfortunately. Um, and they’re taking a little bit longer, but of course, Dalia are more uh fall flowers, like later in the season flowers. So, I have to wait and see if these guys will start um start going. She did tell me to be really really patient. This is the first year I’ve actually planted angelonia and a lot of you have just told me how what a fabulous plant this is and you’re absolutely right. This is a fabulous, fabulous plant. It’s really really pretty and it’s holding up to our heat which is really really huge especially this time of year when we get days on end of 100 degree temperatures basically. And then coming over here I just look at my Monterey Cypress. Uh what does Jason call this one? Miley Cyprus. That’s not the official name. That’s Jason’s dad joke name. But look at what a beautiful plant this is. Oh my gosh, I love this plant. I love it. I So, it’s like a lemon cyprress. Um I can’t remember the exact name, the variety of it right now, but it’s just like a lemon cypress. I just got it at the garden center. It was like half its height and it has grown so much and it is looking so beautiful. And I love that it’s flanked by the two pod carpus graascilia which are more of a blue color and this is more of a chartreuse color. Really, really beautiful. I’m so so happy with that planting right there. And then coming this way, you can see my summer break alia. Gorgeous, you guys. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Oh my goodness. So gorgeous. What a beautiful plant. Like I am so so happy with this plant right here. really. It’s a new variety from Proven Winners and I’ve planted alstraia before, but not I don’t know like I haven’t really like focused on it at all and this is the first time that I’m really like wow this plant is absolutely beautiful. So I can’t wait till it kind of fills out a little bit and we’ll you know we’ll kind of see how it goes. The long border is definitely a hard spot for me because I have really bad soil and um we have watering issues, but this plant can definitely handle handle what we’re what we’re giving it. Coming this way, I have my purple hop seed that’s not quite purple yet. It’s still totally green, but these leaves are going to start turning purple as it gets a little cooler, which is really, really beautiful. My kufia has been incredible this year. I planted this last year and it came back and it is just doing amazing. And I have to say when I look out into the garden like like from inside I look out the window I notice this. And I think the reason why I noticed this is because the hummingbirds are constantly over here. So there’s constantly some movement going on over here which has been so fun. So fun. So really good. This is vermillionaire kufia. Um, and then coming this way, I just have some lavender. Um, more Superunia Vista bubblegum, more of the angelonia. Just just really really beautiful, beautiful things. Oh my gosh, I have to show you guys this. Oh, this is terrible. My stock tanks over here, I had surefire rose beonia in them. And one day we had like we had beautiful 80° weather and then one day it hit 100° and I think it burned all of my Surfire Rose beonia and I hadn’t cut it back which is I called Proven Winners and I asked them what I did wrong, why it, you know, why half of it kind of fell over and they told me that I probably should have cut it back earlier on in the season. So learn from me. cut your Surfire rose or Surfire your Surfire beonia back so that it doesn’t get so topheavy that when you hit a really hot day, it kind of does this. Yeah, this is this is not great. Um, in the video that I started filming last week, right before I got sick, I was talking about cutting back the Sapphire White, and I actually was able to cut back all the Surfire White in my secret garden. I’ll show you guys that in tomorrow’s back garden tour. Um, but yeah, it was one day every single one of my sharfire bagonas in my garden did this and it was just it was it was sad. It was crazy. But lesson learned. I need to be better about cutting back my plants, you know, before it gets too late. Like I got to set a timer on my phone, a schedule on my phone, and cut back these plants because this time of year I will be so much happier and that I don’t have, you know, this a half half broken plant. I mean, they’re still alive. I just have to come and I just have to prune them all. Anyway, just had to show you guys that so you could see what the stock tanks are looking like. Now, the other thing that I did this month is I added this beautiful, beautiful specimen. This is a star jasmine. And before I had a clatus here, and the poor clatus just was not happy. And I’m pretty sure the reason why the clatus wasn’t happy is you can see my zigzag planter is made of cinder blocks that we painted black. So, not only is it concrete, which is hot, we painted it black, which is hot as well, and um this is south facing this way. So, it was just getting blasted with heat. And so, the clatus that likes cool roots just basically couldn’t handle it. So, I ended up taking that out and I replaced it with the star jasmine. And it’s already growing. I can see it’s already happy. I’m going to train it along the pergola that way. And I’m just so happy that I planted that there because that’s going to be one of those plants that’s really going to be a showstopper, especially come next May when star jasmine really starts blooming like crazy. It’s just going to be absolutely beautiful. Then underneath here, you can see what the zigzag planter looks like. Um it looks it looks beautiful. It looks absolutely beautiful. Um, we do have sweet potato vine that I thought was going to get swallowed up by the Superunia Tiara pink. It came back. It for sure came back and I decided I was not going to cut anything back on the zigzag planter this year just to see kind of what happened. Um, here I actually plant I did plant a uh a sweet potato vine and you can see that it did get swallowed up by the superunia. But everywhere else the sweet potato vine is now swallowing up the superunia which is kind of fun because you can kind of see uh the eb and flow as the year goes on of what kind of takes over. Earlier in the year I had stratosphere pink gar that was absolutely gorgeous in the zigzag planter. Absolutely beautiful. But then the tiara pink started growing and it took over the gar and started kind of pushing the gar over. So it’s kind of just depending on what time of year it is, that’s what’s kind of taking over. So now you can see the sweet potato vine is kind of taking it over. Um which is kind of sad cuz I really liked having the super tuna be the star of the show, but that’s okay. And then you can see my grasses here. These are actually um uh totem pole panacums. So, they are not the Niagara Falls panacums. They’re totem pole. They get taller than the Niagara Falls, but they still have the same beautiful seed heads that I’m going to leave up all winter long and I’ll have some nice, beautiful winter interest. And my plan for next year is to leave these grasses in here um so that I can have them even bigger next year because they can get up to 6 feet tall. So, it’ll be really interesting when I plant different plants. I’m I’m still deciding what I want to plant in my zigzag planter next year. So, if you guys have any suggestions or ideas, let me know. But, I have a couple ideas that I’m going back and forth. I was just talking to Jason about it this morning. Um, but I am going to leave the totem pole grasses in there um because I want them to grow to full height. And then behind there, I have my hanging baskets that have just been showstoppers this year. And I think the reason why they’ve been showstoppers is because I cut them back. And that is like I got to learn my lesson. I ha learn from me you guys. Cut your annuals back midseason because it just makes such a difference because these baskets could be completely overgrown and gross looking right now, but they’re not. They look so beautiful. And I cut them way back in June, like way way back, and they look so beautiful right now. So this is the Vista View combination. It’s a combination of Super Tuna Vista Bubblegum, Super Tunia Vista Jaspberry, and Super Tunia Vista White Out Snowdrift. Which one? I’m always get confused. One of those. And it’s just uh combined and it just looks beautiful. And then we have Stratosphere White Gara up top, which is Oh, I just love it. I do have stratosphere white gar in my back garden that has been completely taken over by aphids by the way. Um so next year when I plant uh gar I’m going to spray for aphids uh religiously. Like I’m going to be on top of it as soon as I start seeing them. But I’ll show you that in the back garden as well. Okay. And then I also have to talk about our little patio right here. This was in the video that Jason and I just filmed halfway through and then stopped. Um Jason came and he sprayed gravel glue on this patio which we had done before. This is just a patio that we diyed and uh put decomposed granite gravel in between each of these concrete paving stones. And we were, you know, it was it it it’s beautiful. We love it. But the gravel kind of spreads all over the place because initially Jason had spread or sprayed gravel glue on it and it really didn’t work very well. Well, the video that we only filmed halfway through and then went inside sick. The that morning Jason had sprayed gravel glue again, but the difference was when he sprayed gravel glue, he put it on super super thick. He did a super thick coat of it and he thinks that’s the secret to making this gravel glue work really well. So, he sprayed a second coat yesterday and then he’s going to spray a third coat in a couple days again. and he thinks that that’s going to make a huge difference. And it is it’s like rock hard right now. Really, really great. So, when I’ve talked about this gravel glue before and said that I didn’t really think it worked really well, I think it’s because we didn’t spray enough of the gravel glue on. So, we’ll keep you all updated on that as well. Um, then over here in my espier, my star jasmine espalier is looking so great. I cut it back again in that video that you guys won’t see because we were sick. Uh but I didn’t cut up cut off the top because I didn’t end up um taking out the ladder. So I still got to get up there and I got to trim the top of the star jasmine espalier. But isn’t it looking so beautiful? And then underneath there I have my platinum beauty leandro grasses and then that is interspersed with this mahogany auga. And just this this combination of these three plants is just fabulous. I am so so happy with it. I think it looks so pretty. It’s exciting to know that like this is the right planting for it. This is exactly what I want to leave here, you know, for the rest of my garden. I mean, not the rest of my garden. I might change my mind eventually, but I am really, really happy with this, especially with this patio here. I just I just think it looks absolutely beautiful. up in our front patio. We cleaned the front patio last week and it’s looking really good. You can see I still have water pooling there. A lot of you had a really great idea to convert these pots into um aqua pots, which I think is a fabulous idea, and I think I might actually do that. Um and then maybe even transplant these uh coral bark maples somewhere else. So, I’m thinking about that. I’m kind of deciding what to do. Uh but it’s nice to have this area kind of cleaned up. We also had a barn swallow nest up there and I cleaned that up as well which has been really really nice cuz we don’t have bird poop in by our front door all the time which has been great. Those of you who are hose link fans like I am uh hose link retractable hoses you probably noticed this new one that doesn’t really look like the normal hose link. This is the new Evolve series of hose link. They sent this one to me to try, you know, I’ve been trying it out for the last couple months. It’s fantastic, you guys. As all hose links are, they’re absolutely fantastic. I can’t imagine regular watering in my garden. Like, there’s just there’s no way I would be able to use a regular hose now. But the new Evolve series of hose link retractable reels, they have two different kinds. They have one extra long one that’s 100 ft, and then one high flow one, which is 90 ft, which is what this one is. Um, it’s just basically they took a good product and they just made it better. Um, so this one is supposed to have better materials. It’s supposed to last longer. Uh, the old variety they or the old version, which is still great, they tested it up to 4 years. So the number of retractions of daily watering that you would do in four years, they tested this one up to 25 years. So basically, it’s just supposed to be that much better of a hose reel, which is just fantastic. So if you see this in my garden, you’re probably going to see this in a lot of content creators gardens over the next um couple months cuz Hoseel Link is definitely pushing this as they should because it’s definitely a great product and I love it. I will leave a link to my code, my affiliate code, you know, just I work with them and all that kind of stuff. But obviously I think it’s a great product. All right, then coming this way into my orchard garden. My orchard garden is looking really beautiful. I have all my denim and lace Russian sage looking gorgeous along with my lemon coral sedum border. Miss Molly butterfly bush is looking beautiful. Uh this past month, Jason and I have been dealing with some watering issues in this part of the garden. And this part of the garden is actually connected to the left side of the willow tree garden bed. Very weird, I know. But it’s definitely We’ve had some issues. One thing I will say though is we were having some uh pooling water issues right here. This whole area had like standing water in it and these um holes had standing water in it and we removed a lot of the drip irrigation that we had here and it’s I mean as you can see it’s totally dry now which is really really great. So luckily I don’t think we have any big leaks or anything like that. We just have to be a little bit more on top of our drip irrigation and figuring things out. We do have room to add more zones to our manifold, but we’re trying to limit that because that’s just going to cost money and all that kind of stuff. Um, so we’re just trying to be responsible and not have um emitters like that are going to nowhere, which we definitely had because I plant so much and Jason does all the irrigation. Sometimes I’ll just plant and then he’ll add drip and then he won’t take away uh drip from plants that I had taken out, which is my fault because I haven’t told him about it. All that kind of stuff. So, we’re trying to be a little bit more organized about our drip irrigation. And you know, everything’s of course a work in progress. But I’m really happy to see that this area is kind of kind of fixed, kind of figured out. And then I definitely want to plant something here that is low water use because this area is another area of our garden that just doesn’t drain great. And so I just got to have something that um uh is like we won’t have to add a lot of emitters to basically. Coming over here, you can see how much more room I have underneath my orange trees once the uh arborist kind of trim them up. I’ve come through and I’ve cleaned them up before and I’m going to try and be really on top of it because these orange trees definitely get a lot of suckers. Um, but things are looking really good. Here you can see my cat’s pajamas nepida. Again, this one is one of those plants that are only rated to zone 8, but it does absolutely beautifully in my zone 9b garden. Absolutely beautifully. Uh, this is my Helen Vonstein lambs here that I think I’m going to divide. I think I’m going to do a big project of dividing these um and and uh propagating by division later on this fall. So stay tuned for that. Uh one thing that I will say is looking fabulous fabulous is my white vinka right here. Look at how good this vinka is looking at this time of year when everything is kind of tired, the heat is really getting it. The white vinka is just looking absolutely fabulous. Really, really great. And a lot of you who grow vinka regularly to said this to me and said you got to put more vinka in your garden because it can handle the heat. And it absolutely can. It’s looking really beautiful, especially right next to the lavender. Um coming over here, this area right here, I have uh my sunburia. I have plain the blue salvia. I think this whole area is going to come out and I think I’m going to put a seating area back here. I think I told you guys that the other day. Um, but I just think that in between the two orange trees, it’s just really, really a beautiful spot with some nice shade that is always so nice to have. And I think I’m just wasting this spot. Not wasting it. I shouldn’t say that, but I think it would be a better use if I had like a little sitting area there and then kind of planted around the sitting area. So, I’m just kind of starting to think about changes that I want to make and things that I want to do. It’s just that time of year that my brain kind of starts it kind of starts going crazy a little bit. I do have to show you guys my July blooming garden plant. This is my princess flower or tubisha. It’s so beautiful. What a good choice. I love this plant. It is looking so good. You can see the blooms are just looking absolutely gorgeous. It like settled in so quickly. It’s so happy. And I think it looks so good right next to my chiclet orange Tacoma. Look at how good those two look together. They’re just looking beautiful. So happy. I have to show you my beyond pink karaopterus. If you are looking for fall interest karaopterus, absolutely. This just started blooming. It just started going crazy. This is the pink version. There’s also a blue version. And it just is really, really pretty. It’s just fun to come out here and see that all of a sudden it starts blooming. Now, for the rest of the year, it’s just kind of like a shrub. It’s just kind of like a a a foliage shrub. So, just know that you’re not going to get any interest until the fall. But it it is really nice to have some fall interest for sure, especially when other things are kind of fading. Like the knifia is kind of fading. Even the denim lace right there is kind of fading a little bit. Coming over here, I’m excited. Um I think I’m going to take out the plain the blue salvia this year. I know that’s crazy because it’s so beautiful, but I think I’m going to kind of change this whole area up. Um, that’s what’s fun about kind of using annuals a little bit. You can you can try something new every single year and see what else you like. Um, the plain the blue salvia isn’t technically an annual for me. It’s a temporial, so it’ll overwinter. So, I think I might dig them up and transplant them to another area just to kind of save them. But I think I want more space in this area. The space gets this garden bed gets really really overgrown really easily. So I think just having a little bit more open space will be really beautiful. Even though this abundance is gorgeous as well. This is a volunteer sunflower. I’m assuming this is the delta sunflower which is one of our native sunflowers that grows on the side of the road. Uh you can see our ember rise up row or rise up rise up embber climbing rose right there. My agasaki is kind of done for the season. I need to cut that back. Really beautiful. Oh, I just noticed our pomegranate. Look at that. Is it ready? Not quite. When you do that, you want to hear it. Uh you want to hear a hollow sound when you do that and then you know the pomegranate’s ready. I didn’t get very many pomegranates this year because I did a hard hard hard prune. Um, you can see it’s it obviously was happy with that prune job I did. It’s like taller than ever, but I definitely didn’t get as many pomegranates as I did last year, but that is okay. I am totally fine with that. Okay. And then I just turned around the other way. This this is the other area that I’m going to kind of trim back or or hold myself back on planting. You can see I have this maestro coral maestro agistaki. Really beautiful. Totally taken over the pathway. Like totally taken over the pathway especially this time of year. Um so I’m going to I’m going to limit myself from planting here. I’m going to be pulling out this um uh calandrina spectabulous because it’s just not a good spot for it. I’m going to probably plant this in uh in front of my fence along the road. I think that’ll be a really good plant to plant there. Um, but you can see from from kind of this view, it’s beautiful. It’s absolutely gorgeous. But I do think I need to kind of hold back a little bit. You all know I like planting a lot. I like it when things go over the pathway. You know, I’ve had people say like, “How come you always plant so close to the pathway? Then it then it kind of, you know, crawls over the pathway.” I like that look. I think it’s really really beautiful. It’s very cottage gardenesque to me. I might have gone a little too far in this orchard garden. So, I will be pulling back next year. And I’m telling myself this on video. So, I remind myself to kind of pull back because, you know, in the spring you get so excited to have lots and lots of beautiful plants. And so, I’m telling myself, okay, you have to pull back a little bit next year so that there’s room to walk. All right, you guys. So, that’s going to be it for me today. That is my August front garden tour. Things are looking good. They’re looking really beautiful. They are holding up, which is really, really nice, especially with Jason and I really not doing anything for the past week or so. So, anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this and I hope you all had a chance to get in your garden today. [Music]