Summer Was Tough… But Look at My Garden Now

The seasons are changing, and so is my garden! In this video, I’m sharing a look at my front yard as it transitions from summer to fall. After a long, hot, humid summer, the garden is finally bouncing back — with fresh color, texture, and new life just in time for autumn.

This video is all about inspiration for the late summer to fall garden transition. Whether you’re curious about what survives summer stress, how plants revive with cooler weather, or just love a peaceful stroll through a real-life garden, I hope this front yard walk inspires you in your own space.

My name is Nicole Roggeman, and welcome to My Carolina Garden! I garden in Zone 8B, Wilmington, NC, and love sharing seasonal projects, plant inspiration, and garden updates to help you enjoy your garden year-round.

Here’s a link to my other garden walks/tours:

In This Video You’ll See:
• My front yard garden in September
• How plants look after a tough summer
• The transition into fall color and texture
• Inspiration for your own late summer to fall garden

#FallGardening #GardenInspiration #MyCarolinaGarden #Zone8Gardening #FrontYardGarden

I am feeling so good and happy right now with the way the garden is looking and I want to show you the front yard today. Partially it is because our temperatures are cooling off a little bit. Actually, that’s most of it. I mean daytime temperatures and secondarily is we’re getting that relief in the nighttime. So things are cooling off at night. Now behind me you can see we are in my front porch area. I have this gorgeous, fabulous Lantana next to me that every single year turns out to be a star. So, I’m starting here for that reason to show you the things that are blooming here. And let’s get on with it. I mean, holy cow, right? It’s almost amazing to think that this thing completely dies back in the winter time. So, it’s big. It’s beautiful. It’s got a million blooms. It’s got some tiny little berries on it. I’m not even sure if you can see them. This baby’s a pollinator attractor. We got a orange butterfly down there below. I was trying to grab them, but I can’t. Um, yeah. So, I sometimes just let this grow right onto the pathway like that cuz I think it’s so beautiful. Sometimes I clip it back. Right now, this is where we are. These two huge mom containers are not for me. I bought them as gifts to give away to some family members in the north who probably have them by the time you see this video. My paos that I had gotten on clearance is still absolutely outstanding. And my front porch containers are still absolutely outstanding. I mean, you just cannot beat the size of these caladiums. So, this is the heartto-heart hot flash colladiums. I think I made these containers. What was this? My spring containers, I believe. I’m not even sure now, but the colladiums have just been performing awesomely. And then, of course, I have some things that are ready to switch over my front porch for fall. Just haven’t quite gotten there yet. Before we leave my front porch area though, I just want to show my diplenia is still looking good with my snake plants in the back there. This is the same kind of arrangement that I have in this pot every single year. And I just carry this huge ceramic pot inside and it just lives in my art studio for the winter time. Along my front walkway here, I have the lemon coral sedum. My biggest complaint with it is that the weeds do grow right up inside of it like this. So even though I mulched underneath and all that kind of stuff, I still get the weeds that pop through. And that really messes with the illusion of a full chartreuse blanket. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. I’m going to just keep filling in and adding into these holes. And maybe I just have to painstakingly weed through that. I’m not sure. These mums, these were the Vitams from last year. So, they have like a starburst looking flower. Uh last year, I put them in the ground here and I put them in just for fall interest. Well, you can see these actually look pretty decent. In other words, kept its sort of roundish shape. So, we’re going to see how that all comes together once the fullon fall comes. And the same deal with the cabbages. I just kind of put this one cabbage at the time uh into the ground last fall and it stayed. It stayed living with me. I have clipped off these stems before and then rrooted the heads of the cabbage into the ground in other spots. And I could do that in containers as well. So, this one just kind of delights me be that it does that because I didn’t realize it was going to live through the brutal summer and the brutal heat and everything. And this is another Vitam. Same sort of situation. So, it’s going to be blooming perfectly right on time for me this fall as well. Since I’ve said that I appreciate when other gardeners take a step back to look at their gardens, I just want to show you my three kaleidoscope ailas. I planted them all uh 2 years ago I think yet they are not created equal. The one in the middle is way smaller clearly and I don’t know what the difference would be on that. I have an irrigation line running directly behind them. So that that should have been the same. And of course they’re all facing exactly the same way as far as the sun goes. And I groom them the same way. So I’m not sure what the story is with that. This area here is where my DIY garden easel had been living. I need to fill in this space. So, how exciting is that? I have an area that I have to fill in. Now, I have a boxwood tucked into the back there. It was one of the things that the builder had given us when we first moved in, and I didn’t like where it originally was, and now he’s crowded. Maybe he’s something that needs to come forward. This is my weeping yaw pon holly getting all of its winter berries ready. So right now obviously they’re green, but this baby is going to put on a show with red berries for the winter interest. This was not the direction I was headed, but this caught me by surprise to see. I have this blooming dalia. It just opened up literally. I This is like a Bella Grande, I think it was called. And I was just so happy to see that being right here next to the purple mandavilla. Okay, let me get back to the direction I was headed though. This is the way I was actually going. This is another boxwood also from the builder originally. So you can see the one that’s tucked in behind the holly tree. Tiny. Uh so this one has just been amazing. Needs a little grooming though, honestly. And then what do we have happening in here? This is my Kilmer willow bed. I have some things that are okay, some things that are not great. That’s the story of it right now. But the two things that are showing up magnificently are the dragon’s breath salosia and you know what it is? It’s all about this foliage. I still don’t have blooms on this guy. So October is probably going to be the time for him. But he looks amazing. the dusty miller that goes right around the willow. That looks so cool as well. Oh my goodness. I just realized this is just a volunteer crepe myrtle. I’m not sure if I realized it was even here, but just because of the pops of color around the dusty miller is so funny. That’s what I dug out from this space right here to put that willow zenas. Yep. Some are looking like garbage. Some of them are looking vibrant. So thankful for some beautiful flowers. And then one of the things I so rarely talk about, but some people really love is the vermillionaire that’s back here. And of course, it’s really feeling glorious now because it’s fall and we have the orange like firecracker style blooms on it. So I always have it sitting there. I just forget to talk about it. And right behind it, the golden yanmus. From here, we’re doing the peninsula garden. So we’ll walk on the back side first. this way and then loop around the front. So this is the Denver daisy rudekia. Got those on the Labor Day sale. More dusty miller that was planted way early in the spring. Silver armia down below. Kind of just getting shaded a little bit by these grasses. The grasses always start to go wild this time of year. Fall opens them up. It’s breezy. They look big and kind of beautiful. It’s funny though as you take a look just the whole back line of the peninsula garden which is all these grasses. I mean they’re just crowding over everything right now. I have a couple of seashells there by the bird bath. But this is that elephant ear that keeps coming back that’s kind of weedy for me that I hate. Sorry. I love elephant ears but not when they’re weedy like that. keeping in line with the whole back here. Our blanket flowers right here. And then that the purple mandilla. And then of course the little dalia we just talked about. Okay, my friends. Here’s another area we don’t talk about usually because it’s not really that delightful. But I have pink mui grasses right here. I only planted them last fall, so they’re not overly huge, but I can see all of the pink showing up. So, they look really cool. And then what we got is the peninsula garden right behind it. Hey, we’re doing all right in here because we got some mums blooming. Let’s never mind looking at the blackeyed susans. But we got some gorgeous pink echanatia blooming. We have some Oh, shoot. Now I forget the name of it because it’s not the autumn joy. Autumn fire sedum. So, that’s looking cool. The golden sword yaka of course. looks good like 90% of the time. Blanket flowers and behind my frog statue is some Vinka that was planted I think what was that Fourth of July sale. Some things are looking kind of ratty. Some things are looking kind of good. Still a lot of blanket flowers and they’d be even more gorgeous if I deadheaded even more. I have some more Denver daisy riddia back there. Besides that, [Music] not so great over here. My gumrina looks like it went through a little bit of a war and I tried to cut off some of those seed heads that look caterpillar long. I mean caterpillar long. This is the first year I had confrina though, so I assumed I was supposed to do that. But I’m thinking perhaps this is disease on the foliage and that’s what it’s showing me. It’s definitely not that happy. Oh, that’s right. We’re going for it. We’re going to check out the Island of Misfit toys. So, I have this gora right here. It’s just looking whimsical. Very tall. The flowers are light and delicate, which is not my favorite style flower. I like flowers that are much more showy than that. But hey, if that’s just kind of what’s leading us out to the island of Misfit Toys, let’s see how things are here. Just a couple of weeks ago, I started clearing out this area. I was weeding. I was trying to get my um line straight, my edging straight, straighter. And I thought, “Okay, yeah, I’m going to be ready to start planting some things in here.” But guess what? I didn’t find anything any plants that were on such a fabulous clearance sale, which is what this island is made up of. So, I didn’t actually make any purchases. And now, look at what’s happening. We have our weeds are coming back up from the grass. This is literally I think it was two weeks ago I straightened everything out here cuz I was working on the rocks and straightening them out. Nope. Full back of weeds again, which is such a stinking bummer. And it’s not even springtime. Why are the weeds growing so fast? Golden sword yucka though. Okay, that looks amazing. I do have these aelas that my neighbor gave me blooming in red. So these are obviously fall bloomers as compared to um other times, you know, you have other ones that bloom in in the spring. Eh, none of this is looking good, you guys. None of it. And then I have the two agave. Agave. Yes, two agave. These guys will really hurt you. The prickers around the edges of this will really hurt you. So, I don’t plan on moving these anyway. Uh they’re probably going to get quite large here, but that was kind of the purpose. Now, last year I went to a fabulous clearance sale at my local nursery and I got these two Anna’s magic balls that are meant to be this yellow evergreen ball tiny. And I purposely went for these because I wanted them to be the front portion of the garden here. So, I have this holly bush, which I can’t remember the name of the holly, but it has iridescent leaves inside of there. And then its new growth is just more green. So I suspect it will turn more iridescent all around. Well, anyway, I wanted something evergreen, taller in the back. I wanted these little tiny evergreen balls for the front. And you can see I didn’t even finish taking the sod out of the area here, but so be it. It’s one step at a time. I don’t know what else to say. I think all things considered, if you take a step back, this garden looks fine. So people who are driving by on the road, it’s decent. But of course, we’re up close and personal here and we’re gardeners. We don’t love the mess. So, it’s almost like let’s pretend I didn’t even show you the front yard cuz there’s not a lot of amazing things up here. But that’s okay. It’s fall time, which means this is the season for planting. So, a lot of things are going to be transplanted. And hopefully I find some awesome deals on some brand new plants that I can put into the ground for the first time and get them acclimated uh during a time when our soil is warm, the air is cool, and it’s before we have any severe heat stress on us. Like, you know, happens quickly from the spring to summer transition. So, this is a great time of year for planting. I just got to get out and do it. And I got to also do some clean up cuz guess what? I did decide I’m gonna have some garden parties. I have a couple of things set up actually. So, and this is the area everyone’s going to be walking by to get to the backyard where the party’s going to be. You know, I’m going to fancy it up. Thanks for watching. You know, hey, it’s not really inspirational here, but at least you get to see a real perspective on what a garden looks like this time of year here. Follow me on social media, though, cuz I have lots of awesome photography and pictures of my garden to share with you. And until next time you guys, happy planting.