Struggling to keep your summer garden looking cohesive, lush, and vibrant when the heat cranks up? ☀️🌸In today’s Wednesday Walkabout (filmed on Thursday due to some crazy Oklahoma storms!), we are diving deep into the art of color drifting and color echoes. Discover how positioning specific palettes of whites, lavenders, and pinks can intentionally guide the eye, creating a sophisticated, designer look that ties your entire landscape together.
We’re highlighting some standout showcase performers from the Southern Living Plant Collection, including the spectacular White Wedding Hydrangeas, Miss Lemon Abelia, and our experiment with the ultra-tough, blight-resistant Better Boxwood series. Plus, see how a few happy, self-seeded surprises from nature completely stole the show!
✨ PLANTS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO:
🛒 Shop the Southern Living Plant Collection at PlantsbyMail:
White Wedding® Hydrangea: https://plantsbymail.com/shop/white-wedding-hydrangea/
Autumn Empress™ Encore® Azalea: https://plantsbymail.com/shop/autumn-empress-encore-azalea/
Miss Lemon™ Abelia: https://plantsbymail.com/shop/miss-lemon-abelia/
Dear Dolores™ Hydrangea: https://plantsbymail.com/shop/dear-dolores-hydrangea/
Better Boxwood® Series: https://plantsbymail.com/shop/buxus-better-boxwood-renaissance/
Other featured garden stars: Butterfly Candy Buddleja (Little Lavender & Little Raspberry), Sky Bossa (Scabiosa), Sapphire Agate Agapanthus, Indigo Frost Eggplant, Zinnias, and Balsam.
🌿 TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Hydrangea Heaven & Intro to Color Drifts
01:30 Mapping the Front Yard: Moving the Eye with White & Pink
02:49 Creating Triangle Color Echoes with Encore Azaleas & Window Boxes
05:33 Structural Secrets: White Wedding Hydrangeas & Miss Lemon Abelia
07:00 Heat-Loving Foundation Plants: Butterfly Candy Buddleja
10:32 Saving Seed & Letting Nature Take Over
12:41 The Ultimate Summer Surprise: Reblooming Star Magnolia
14:22 Transitioning the Color Ribbon to the Backyard
19:28 Pruning Fun: Turning Boxwood Villages into “Boxwood Pancakes”
22:36 What You Can Safely Plant & Transplant in High Heat
33:44 Special Thanks to Today’s Sponsor: Manukora Honey!
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A Year Of Garden Inspired Living: https://a.co/d/4AAxr4k
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SOUTHERN LIVING PLANT COLLECTION: https://southernlivingplants.com
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31 Comments
Love your early videos linda, see your beauty early
You are so right about the storming and the lushness. I got up at 5 and just came in from pulling crabgrass, deadheading, pruning and I'm getting ready for the Japanese beetles to create havoc any day now. The white weddings are so cool. It was cute to see that cleome coming out randomly like that. I have carrots that I planted in pots and one of the seeds made it into the crevice of my social patio and the Green Top is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and I'm just going to leave it alone until it becomes a full carrot and I can pull it out but I'll probably pull out a brick too while I'm at it
BEAUTIFUL!!!
❤️🧡💛🐝💛🧡❤️
I noticed that you don't have any Asiatic lilies. I guess because they multiply prolifically and you have to split them every few years. I realize the blooms only last a couple of weeks. What I do after my lilies are done blooming is I let them just sit there for about 2 or 3 weeks and then I cut them all down.
Your garden is stunning. It looks so lush and colorful. Not an easy feat the end of June in Oklahoma!
Do you know what kind of zinnias you have? They are the perfect pop of color.
Source for your hat please and thank you!
Nice video
Thank you Linda for All the Great information. Residing in the Hot N.Dallas,Texas area. 🤗
Lantanas are a perfect plant to have for all the heat … I get the smaller growing ones❤
Gardening Queen! I made a huge flower bed under my oak with tons of flowers. But then close to my house below the windows I only have boxwoods…. should I add flowers with the boxwoods or is it ok to just have the flowers around the oak… boy this gets confusing
My color combination in the front of my home is lavender, white, and pink. On the back side the color combination is yellow, orange, and purple. I like the cool colors, and my husband likes the hot colors, so this garden scheme keeps us both happy. I also wear an apron when tending to my gardens. I keep my handheld garden tools in the pockets, and it keeps my hands free.
Linda my Encore Azaleas are blooming too, zone 9, on the Gulf Coast.
So when you say the encore azalea in front picks up the color in another plant and then in the flower box…. Did you sit down and think i want this color to work here and in the distance of the flower box. Is that all in your head when you’re planting or did you initially plan these color waves back when you started this garden?? Did you plan on paper??
That's such a charming color scheme, Linda with those billowing white fluffs and drifts of purple lavender pink. The indigo frost adds even more lovely. And when nature agrees and sends all those matching color surprises, that's magical. One of my most heat tolerant besides the wax begonias have to be the moss roses. Love the drone views of past few years to now! 🌱🌿🪻
My opinion your window box is the prettiest that you have had. Love the combination & color. All of your hydrangeas are just gorgeous.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this!!! A garden can never have too much color!!! 😊Liz
Wow, that's beautiful ❤
I love this video as when I point out things out to my husband like you are doing he always says OK I just wished he could see what we do 😂
❤
Beautiful as always! I look forward to all of your videos! Linda, I have learned so much from you, even being the avid gardener that I am already. I grew up on a farm where my grandmother, born in 1899, gave me my first flower seeds. They were Balsams!
Why not collect some of the red Balsam seeds, and introduce them to the red geraniums in the back yard? They would probably do great in some of the shadier spots.
I lost a 100 year old pecan tree, planted by Grandmama, in a microburst in 2023. You can imagine how much shade I lost because of that. Watching your videos has given me such good ideas. There are now cottage gardens where that tree was. Larkspur, cleome,
zinnias, and white wild petunias reseed themselves among the perennials and shrubs. Newcomers find it hard to believe that this beautiful space is such a young garden. Thank you for giving us good suggestions. You are a part of many people's gardens. Most of them you will never see!
Sending love and best wishes from a hot and humid SC!
I have an area under a very dense Oak tree that I'm getting ready to plant shade loving plants. I've got a collection of hostas of every size and color and I'm also planting Coral Bells with them. We've also had plenty of rain and beautiful weather here in Kansas.
Your garden is gorgeous and a true labor of love.
Just beautiful, Linda. I've wondered how much maintenance do you do as opposed to hiring someone to do it? I'm thinking deadheading, trimming, and clean up.
Linda do you have any trouble with rabbits? I've just converted my grass front yard into a woodland garden (work in progress!) and the rabbits are killing me!
😂my Alexa , named echo picked up on Linda saying how the Jane Magnolia echoed the color of the petunias, and says she doesn’t quite know how to help me with that 🥴
Go Jane, go! The blooms on your magnolia give me hope for mine. How do you get such prolific blooms on your pincushion flower? My clumps seem to stall after the early spring flush and the clumps aren’t as wide as yours. Tell me your secrets, please 😂. Your garden never fails to inspire!
L🌸VE ME SOME LINDA‼️
I live in rural southwest Oklahoma and want to plant hydrangeas. Yours are doing wonderful on the south side of your house, but is it partially due to some shade from those trees? If I planted some, would they need afternoon shade or can they handle the hot full sun and wind we experience?
Beautiful tour of your garden as always. I was so excited to get a butterfly candy lavender last year. I planted it in my sunny back bed and it did very well, but it never came up this spring. It was the only thing in my whole garden that died over winter. I have no idea why very very disappointing. I have another butterfly bush that I bought at the farmers market that is a no name variety bought for eight dollars and it came back beautifully and is blooming it head off right now. I wanted to add more butterfly candy to my garden in the front but now I hesitate to do so. So disappointing I don’t know why it would’ve died when everything else survived.
Is that a white Mandevilla in your window box?
The yard looks amazing!!🇨🇦😎