Flower Power for the Texas Sun: Peach Abelia 🍑 + Easy Agastache Seed Saving!

🌿 Looking for flowering shrubs that can take the Texas sun? In this video, I introduce you to Peach Perfection Abelia, a colorful, drought-tolerant shrub that thrives in full sun and Texas heat. I’ll also show you how to collect seeds from Agastache ‘Licorice White’—a fragrant pollinator favorite with soft, minty-white blooms. Reminder: I am in 8b, about an hour North of Waco!

👉 Whether you’re designing a pollinator garden, upgrading your curb appeal, or just want low-maintenance beauty that doesn’t quit in the heat, these plants are Texas-tested and gardener-approved.

🌸 PLANT PROFILE: PEACH PERFECTION ABELIA

Zones: USDA 6–9

Height/Spread: 2–3 ft tall and wide

Sun: Full sun to part shade

Water: Drought-tolerant once established

Bloom Time: Spring through fall

Foliage: Peach, orange, and bronze tones—colorful even when not in bloom!

Bonus: Attracts pollinators & deer resistant

🌿 PLANT PROFILE: AGASTACHE ‘LICORICE WHITE’

Zones: USDA 5–10

Height/Spread: 24–36″ tall, 18″ wide

Sun: Full sun

Water: Low to moderate

Bloom Time: Summer to fall

Scent: Sweet licorice/mint fragrance

Bonus: Great for bees, butterflies & hummingbirds. Easy to collect seeds for next season!

💬 Timestamps:
⏱️ 1:53 – Introducing Peach Perfection Abelia
⏱️ 7:00 – Planting the Abelia in the ground
⏱️ 16:17 – Collecting Agastache ‘Licorice White’ seeds

I was kind of talking bad on this Dalia. Y’all might remember us starting it from a tuber like over the winter, right? I bought some tubers and stuff in bags from Home Depot and Walmart and things like that. I’m real big on buying bare root in the fall and in the winter. So, I had bought done that with this tuber and it didn’t even show signs of putting a bud on until like late June late June, early July or something like that. And I was kind of disappointed in it. But now that it has started blooming, it’s nuts. And I love Look, you really honestly can’t not look at this thing. Look at her. Isn’t she just crazy? I’ll show you all this beautiful garden sun climbing rose. Also, I have four of these. It’s a climber that’s on the smaller side, but I just absolutely love this color, this peachy color. It’s so gorgeous. Anyway, I want to show you guys the shrub that we are going to plant a duplicate of today. I have had this shrub in the ground for probably like six months or so. It’s in one of my newest flower beds and it has performed so much better than I ever could have hoped. It’s absolutely spectacular. It’s in full bloom and I finally found another one the other day. So, we’re going to plant that somewhere else. But first, let me show you the one that I have been triing. Hi, Miss Marty. Hey, Miss Marty. You’re a good girl. Okay, let me try not to cast my shadow on it. Look at it. Is it not spectacular? Let’s get closer. The morning sun is hitting it and it has been doing this big bloom thing for a couple of weeks now. This is an ailia called peach perfection. And I’m sure that you can surmise why it’s called peach perfection. Because this new growth is this gorgeous peachy color and the older growth is that more glossy green that you can see in the interior of the plant. This is what the blooms look like. I’ll also say that the fragrance on this is incredible. It’s not going to be one of those plants that perfumes your whole yard and things like that, but when you do get up close to it, it is so it smells so good. And the bumblebees absolutely love it. I’ve been so impressed with it before this garden really starts to fill in in the spring. That peach color just shines like a beacon out there. It’s so beautiful. And we are going to put another one in a different area of the garden and remove something that I have not really enjoyed very much at all. I thought I would love it. I was super excited when I found it. It has kind of turned out to be a bit of a dud. So, we’re going to rip it out. Can y’all hear my cat? That’s my Tom Cat Pringle. What you doing, baby? What you doing, baby? Here’s what we’re going to take out. This is a variegated Lantana that I found at HB and I thought I was really going to like it. I don’t like it at all. Those are some of the first blooms that I have seen from it and I just haven’t been impressed. I don’t really like it. So, we’re going to come in with another Ailia right here. Y’all may remember from last video we brought in those pink skull cap and put them right there. Oh, look. They’ve started to color up just since we planted them. How fun. Awesome. Okay, our Ailia is going to go right here underneath this almond verbina. I love this plant. It smells so incredible. So, it will be very nice to work under this as the pollinators buzz all over it because they love it just as much as I do. Let me go grab the other Ailia. Okay, we’re over here at part of the plant stash. Man, this former daisy is not very happy with me. I’m not really sure what’s going on with that. I might be giving it too much water. Who knows? Anyway, here’s our Arabilia. I found this at Walmart actually, which was pretty cool. Here are the specs on it. Hardy to negative five guess 3×4 and all the other details if you want to read them at your leisure. This has been in its pot overly long. I’ve had to really be consistent on watering it and it wants to get in the ground real real bad. So that is what we will take care of this morning. Okay. Oh, I really like that. I think that’s going to look really good. I could let them coexist for this season. No, I’m just going to take the Lantana out. I’m sick of it. I’m going to put the Ailia in. Let me center it a little bit more. How about right there? Yes. I was just over here filling up my watering can for this project and I just have to I’m sorry. I can’t help it. If you don’t like to look at butterflies, you can fast forward like 15 seconds. But I just keep having to highlight how cool it is out here in the morning when it’s still nice before it gets like 100° how the butterflies just flock to this space. and they’re on a lot of things, but the main attractor is that Miss Flower. Let’s get a look see. Oh, that’s not bad at all. I kind of thought it was going to be really rootbound in here because it’s been acting kind of like a baby. It’s looking good though. I can feel that I probably shouldn’t be too hasty in handling this. it. I expected it to be really rootbound just because of the way it was consistently wilting in the heat of the day when I would come by to water it. It wasn’t looking happy. But now I’m thinking it might not be very it might be fairly new to this size pot, if that makes sense. I think this just got potted up. This plant feels very wobbly in my hand. So I don’t think it’s very well established in this size pot at all. I think it just got potted up. before it hit the shelf at Walmart. I’m at Walmart like a couple times a week. And I always walk through the garden center. So, when I found this, it had just got put out, so maybe it had just arrived on a truck from somewhere. Um, it hasn’t known this size pot for very long, but that’s okay. We’ll put him down and be just kind of gentle because I don’t want to accidentally pop the top off or anything. Let’s get this Lantana out of here. Stand by. I need my pruners. Had to go get my pruners. Had to search for them. They’re normally in my pocket. They were in the passenger floorboard of my car. I don’t know. Anyway, we’re going to take out this Lantana. And I’m not going to pull it up by the roots because this sibilia isn’t going to go exactly where this is currently. I’m going to cut it off at the base. It is not likely to regrow from where I cut it, but even if it does, it’s no big deal. I’ll just keep cutting it back. Um, this is very likely to be an annual for me. The wind comes through here in the winter time pretty severely. It’s not going to return, but I also don’t feel the need to disturb this uh area so much and leave a big hole when I don’t need to. Not only that, but a lot of times when my annuals are spent, I do just come along and cut them off at the base. the roots will decompose and improve the soil structure, improve uh feed the soil and just kind of decompose and do do their thing. So, I’m just going to come in here and remove my lantana like that instead of instead of digging it out cuz it’s bound to have, you know, those zenas that we pulled in the last video. I went ahead and popped those up. They hadn’t rooted in very well at all. They didn’t leave any kind of big hole. Um, and it was no problem to just come by and like pop them up. But for this guy, I figured I’d show y’all that method. All righty. I brought y’all a little closer so y’all can see what’s going on. Like we talked about in the last video if I’m going to plant straight through the heat of the summer, which I usually do for smaller things, I don’t plant things like trees during the summertime. I think those are all best fall planted, but other things, perennials, small shrubs, stuff like that, I’ll plant that straight through the heat of the summer. And one of the most important things you can do when you are planting in the heat of the summer is filling your planting hole with water and letting it drain. You might ask, “Well, how many times should I let it drain?” You know what? Follow your intuition. I would say a couple of times. I’m going to um stop and start the camera while this just drains into the soil. What the point of that is, even if you have a really wet root ball, you’re putting that straight into this very dry hole and it will not encourage your roots to spread out. Your plant is much more likely to dry out much more quickly. If I completely saturate the hole and the root ball, I will ensure that the plant is settled into its home much more quickly. It’s much less likely to shock. it’s going to be much more able to get those roots down and going. The roots are going to seek the water, right? They’re going to seek the water source. And if they feel and sense that that water is present and available further out into the space beyond where you’ve dug the hole, they’re going to seek that. They’re going to get established much more quickly. So, I’m going to let this drain. a couple times and then we’ll come back. Our planting hole is saturated. So, I’m going to situate my little guy right there. Oh, I can’t tell youall how excited I am about this. Let me get his tag off. I can’t wait. to see this thing fill in. I’ve been so impressed with this shrub. I’d be really excited for y’all if y’all found one. My root and grow is prepped. For those of y’all that are new, there’s the product. And when I’m planting most plants, I hit them with this. I I don’t make any money off of that recommendation to y’all. I have truly just found much much more success in consistently using this. And you want to drench the root ball in it before you back fill the hole. Right. So, what I’m doing is just making sure that all of the roots of the ailia get a little bit of dose of that. Here’s our soil. We’ll replace it back into the hole. The soil is actually pretty good in this space. I’m not complaining. This This plant definitely looks a lot better than those Helanths y’all watched me plant uh last week. Thank you troopers for sticking around for that because I had forgotten to water them that day and when I pulled them for the video, they were so angry and wilted and it probably wasn’t very fun to watch. So, y’all are troopers. At least you get to see something pretty go in this week. I love finding plants like that to share with you guys. I’m not even a big shrub person. I am an herb an herbaceous perennial weirdo. I don’t know why. I just get very locked in on those kinds of plants. I love learning about them. I love planting them. I love seeing them. I love propagating them and learning about how they were cultivated and things like that. Shrubs are just never those that thing that I’m drawn to at the garden center, right? I’m usually you can find me in the perennial section. That’s where I’ll be. The way that some people get about roses or the way that some people get about annuals or cut flowers or whatever, find me in the perennial area every time. But speaking of perennials, we’re going to collect seed because I started something from seed this past winter. It has been an absolute full hot sun rockstar and the bumblebees have loved it. I love this plant. It’s an agistaki and the germination rate on these seeds was fantastic. I’m going to go ahead and collect some today. I want to go ahead and put them in the fridge and get that stratification process started. And I want to show y’all when is the proper time to collect the agistaki seed. Incidentally though, I’m standing right in front of this English lavender. I almost don’t even want to look at it. It’s so spectacular, you know, cuz I don’t want to. Y’all saw my last video. Had to say bye-bye to one of my phenomenals. But this super blue loves its life right here. I cannot believe how much it’s grown. It’s still throwing these gorgeous blooms and is butted up everywhere. It’s wild. It has done so well this year in this spot. It loves it right here. Anyway, let’s get our little seed collection packets. You know, I bought a whole pack of these seed collection envelope things from Amazon. Don’t There were hundreds of them in there. Don’t ask me what I did with them because I don’t know. I’m sure when I clean out my seed starting shed this fall to start my seed starting, I’ll come upon them. But this is what I have for now. So, we need to label it. And when you’re collecting seed, you want to put obviously the name of what you’re getting. We are collecting Agistaki licorice white and we’re going to do it on what’s today? July 31st, 2025. Here’s the plant that we’re going to be collecting from. This is licorice white. And that right there is par for the course all day. The bumblebees cover this plant all day. And it may appear to you to be looking kind of uh careworn. It is on its way to setting seeds. So it doesn’t look as spectacular as it did when it was at its peak couple weeks ago, but it’s nice and tall. I think it gives a lot of beautiful height and movement to this flower bed. I really like the white blooms, but as they go out of bloom, they kind of turn like burnt marshmallow a little bit, but they have been big bang for my buck because I started these like in the I don’t know January, February time frame probably, and they have really filled in this space. It was very, very inexpensive to do. It has provided a lot of pollinator benefit. and agistaki are just tough as nails. I have found they don’t really need anything for me. Could I come in here and dead head these? Yes. And after we collect seeds, I may come in here and just kind of give it a little bit of a haircut and we’ll get some fresh new blooms like that one down in there. We still have a long time in our growing season, so a lot of that new growth will be really pretty. But as let’s see, let’s find one to cut. Try to do this onehanded. Here’s our bloom. Hold on. Hey, great kitty. Here’s my old lady. Hey. Hey. What’s wrong? It’s okay, Mrs. As y’all can see, just when I sat it down, we’ve started to get some seeds that are falling out. This little guy is full of these agistaki seeds. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to cut several of these little seed heads and I’m going to shake them into this envelope and we’ll seal it up and put it in the fridge for a couple months because I really liked this this plant. Try to keep an eye on the things that I enjoyed. and go ahead and get my hands on their seeds. There’s another look. I’m actually going to leave this envelope here in the shade so that all of the bugs can disembark from their unexpected envelope journey back into the garden. I don’t really want to seal up an envelope full of bugs and put it in the fridge, if you know what I mean. By tomorrow, they’ll probably all be out. Just while we’re right here, this is another agistaki that I started from seed over the winter. Getting going. Didn’t get going quite as quick as the Agistaki, but I like the look of this bloom a little bit better. It’s much more dainty. Isn’t that beautiful? I really like it. Funny story about this plant, though. I’ll order seeds off of just about any website. Um, any website. I’m a seed hoarder. I ordered some seeds off of Etsy. The Agasaki was one of them when the packet came. It was not in English. And the uh it was not even the English alphabet. I know nothing about the Agasaki because I couldn’t read it. I don’t even know what Z what zone it’s going to be. I don’t know if it’s going to come back uh next year. I don’t I don’t know. I will probably take some cutings off of it this weekend though and go ahead and get those started or collect seeds just in case it doesn’t come back because I really like it. I think it’s really pretty. I’d love to have it everywhere. It’s out there in the full hot all day sun and it still looks beautiful. And that’s like that’s something to keep an eye on if you garden in Texas. Things that are looking good this time of year that really kind of makes a light bulb go off in your brain. So anyway, that is today’s projects done. the um Ailia’s in the ground, the seeds are collected, and I hope that y’all have a great week and a great weekend. And I will see y’all next time. And thank you for watching.