Backyard Garden Tour | Tornado Aftermath | 2024 Plans | THE BEFORE

Happy 2024 gardening season!👩🏾‍🌾 My garden is starting to wake & I’m so excited!!

We had a tornado hit on 8.15.23 & I am finally ready to give y’all an update on my backyard. I have not done any gardening back here since the storm other than the major cleanup (clearing huge limbs, moving blown furniture, replanting uprooted trees). My fence damage REALLY took a toll on me mentally. I was in the middle of my office Reno & prepping for my Fall business launch… I just needed a break from my garden. Now I’m back & ready to start the new season!✨

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My name is Jess, and I make videos about indoor & outdoor gardening, DIYs, and Home Decor. I live in North Carolina and garden in zone 7B. I have 2 kitties & 1 dog and I love pretty much anything that allows me to be Kreatyve! If you are a houseplant lover, a gardener, enjoy DIYs, or home decor & room makeovers then please subscribe to join me!

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Hey what’s up everyone welcome back to my channel for another gardening video if this is your first time here welcome to my channel my name is Jess I am a Zone B North Carolina Gardener and today we are going to be kicking off a new season I’m so excited for it y’all I

Know it’s been a minute I had to take a break from gardening last year just because mentally I just I couldn’t deal y’all so I am going to give you guys an update on the backyard I know you all have been asking and wanting to see

It just to prepare y’all it is a mess okay so really briefly I’m going to give you guys an update on how I’ve been feeling what’s been going on and why I had to take a break from gardening um so if you’ve been following along over the

Years you all will remember the drama that I have dealt with in getting my backyard regraded and the fence installed so I was so excited last year to start gardening and making everything look pretty and in July we had a really bad tornado came through here and it

Just kind of completely decimated my backyard and all the hard work that I had done mentally I shut down you guys so needless to say I have not been back here I have not done a single thing I haven’t watered anything I haven’t pulled a single weed I just let things

Be since July so I’m going to let you guys know now it does not look anything like it did the last time I showed y’all so yeah I’m going to flip the camera around give you guys an update on what’s going on kind of like a before of what

The backyard’s looking like I am mentally better and ready to start gardening again so let’s get to Work all right so here is what my backyard is currently looking like everything is still pretty much dormant um but things are starting to wake up I do have a few things starting to show life which is exciting I have already cleaned up most of the huge limbs that had fallen there’s still

Some like small little things and a lot of weeds that need to be pulled but I am going to give you guys an update on basically what happened and what I want to accomplish this season I’m going to go ahead and start on the left side

First this is like the most tidy area this is the bed that I just created last spring it’s a brand new bed I did sheet mulch this bed I’ll leave that makeover video linked if you guys are interested full of expiration it was a complete overhaul this bed used to be what I

Called Rehab row I decided to turn that into a formal planting bed last year so I’m so excited to see how these do this year I do have a hedge of hom strub aritis planted along the backline that have all done well I did come out here a

Couple nights ago and go through every single arbide around my property I have a whole hedge here there’s also a hedge over there and a bunch of my front yard um I do have an issue with bag worms around my property so I came through checked every single one and also

Cleaned out kind of like the dead on the inside if you can see all the dead needles are piled around the base um and I’m happy to report all of my arbues in this hedge are bagworm free for now at least I will be doing more checks as the

Season progresses I will also be preventatively spraying um just to alleviate that issue this year but I really wanted to update you guys on The Replacements or not Replacements but the um replanting that I had to do last year due to I had these three right here um

If you all remember and watch that video these three were dying due to root rot so I did dig them up I replanted them and mounted them up really high and they made it through the season perfectly I didn’t lose a single one I did also

Replace this one here this one was dying so I just popped in a new one so that one’s been in the ground one season now and it’ll catch up with the others so I’m so excited to see this hedge fill in and just make a nice lush green wall um

Not many plantings in this bed I do have a panty that is tucked in down here which I’m hoping oo y’all look at this ignore the weeds please but do y’all see the new growth is coming up I am so excited so this peie here that I have

Planted it’s a pink blooming peie called first arrival and it is gorgeous I will insert a picture so you guys can see beside that I do have a rose tree planted here I did pick this one up from the farmers La last year um and this one

Is called I left the tag on it so I could remember it’s Camille pisaro and y’all I’m so excited about this rose bush I don’t have any other roses in my property y’all know if you’ve been watching over the years how I feel about roses I really don’t like them but this

One in particular I’m excited about so it is starting to push out new growth you see the leaves there so I do need to come in and cut it back to encourage more growth I’m want to do that probably today and then down in front of it I

Have some perennials actually I don’t think they’re here I think they’re here yep so I have one two three perennials that I need to come in and clean up I don’t remember the names I’m so sorry y’all I’ll give you an update once they start coming up and blooming um my bird

Bath here has not been cleaned out it is a little bit Frozen still so this side is still icy but it’s starting to melt we are in the 40s today here in North Carolina today is February 18th when I’m filming this I do still have all of my

Annuals planted here in the ground these were some sun Pati that I have planted I just let them dive back y’all I’ll will come in and clean out all of the weeds and freshly mulch this bed a little bit later in the season and then over here these are

Three deciduous aelas and they’re starting to put on their butt which I am so excited about the blooms on these I can’t wait to give youall an update um they’re a bright orange color um so I’m excited about those three and then I think this is probably dead let’s

See um oh it’s green so it’s alive this is actually a crepe myrtle have another one sitting here those they’ve been in these cans I want to say for like 3 or 4 years now y’all still haven’t decided where they’re going to go but they’re

Going to go in pots at some point I need to come in here and clean out all of these weeds you guys so these weeds have been creeping into the bed from this area this was a Dumping Ground it was a bed that I created and I just let it go

The last couple of years I did remove most of the plants so I have a limelight Prime well actually two Limelight primes in here my peach tree as well which I am going to be relocating this year and then this is my Vitex which will be staying so yeah this

Was supposed to be a bed originally and then just have the arbites and then I was going to have a pathway going down the center but because I decided to extend my bed out this probably is going to become either a pathway or some Turf

Not sure yet and I just want my Vitex planted here so really quickly let me update you the last few plants that I have in the bed down here which are struggling so these are three perennials that I need to cut back as well these are peaches Peak Stoke Aster they blue in

Purple and then right here I have a Rosa Sharon this one is pink blooming so yeah y’all that’s pretty much that’s all that’s in this bed I do have two other perennials tucked in back here I have no clue what they are I’ll wait for them to

Start picking up to update y’all and then lastly over here you can see my steak was completely blown over and if you can see through the fence I’ll left at you guys on the whole tree situation but their fence is still destroyed as well um but anyo here is my lovely Oakland Holly

Which I’m so happy it has leafed out you guys if y’all remember last year it completely balded and dropped all of its leaves so I’m excited to see this one leaf out some more I’m going to do a nice prune job on it just to encourage more growth and then I’ll start shaping

It into the shape that I want it to be over here still don’t have anything I left my cart and everything out all season long so I have some huge uh weeds that are coming up that I need to take care of also will be pressure washing my

Fence my neighbors do plan on PL painting at some point I did Apologize last year and so they weren’t able to get to it last year but I it doesn’t bother me cuz I’m still not still not dealing with this area yet all right and

Then update on my back line first of all my Arch was completely destroyed I did reconstruct it so I just put it back together the best that I could but there are some damaged pieces here that I think y’all I’m just going to get rid of

The arch I’m not really in love with it I’m thinking I want something else to go here so I might be giving this just throwing it away and getting something else um my boxwoods that are planted in my pots this one did get blown over a

Little bit I tried to like just push it back over but I need to replant it also need to shape it and then my Sprinter box Woods lining the pathway m they surviving y’all that’s all I got to say I’ll probably end up replacing those two there just because they’re starting

To show signs of O I can’t even remember what the disease is that my old one got and it completely died so I think I’m going to pop those two out and replace them but the others I think will recover fine once they get proper watering and its temperatures start to rise again

Y’all I didn’t come out here and do anything like they did not get proper water and they were fresh plantings last season so yeah totally user error but definitely fixable as you guys can see I still have some like debris from all of the wind just some small limbs that I

Need to pick up and clean up especially out of my cart there but this tree over here on the End by the way these two right here are emerald green arbites these two right here are deg GRS arbues so they are two different varieties but this one on the end completely uprooted

In the storm I did replant it um I want to say in like August um and then we just had another Windstorm that came through here a couple nights ago and it completely blew over again so it is still leaning a little bit I need to go in and do a good

Nice sturdy plant job on that one um but these two here you guys these have been attacked with bad worms so I am going to go in and spray these once the temperatures warm up a little bit but I did go through and handpick them you guys can see all of this like

Browning that’s from the back worms that were on it so I’m so over these pests I’m just doing some quick checks really quick while I’m over here I don’t see anything I got I think I got them all when I went through and picked them off

This one over here had some bag wors on it as well but I think it’ll be okay anyhoo let me step back okay and then stepping back an update on my arbu hedge on the back wall here these five are all Amber green aritis that I picked up on clearance um

And when I was doing my checks the other night I did find four bag worms in this hedge so definitely will be spraying these and keeping my eyes on them if you all remember last summer this one right here was completely full of bag worms as

You can see the base is still very bare so yeah um definitely will be spraying but also update on my wall I did complete it last year but I did not get around to updating it which I had planed ends to do one more layer just to raise

The wall up just a little bit never got to that so hopefully I can do that this spring and then in front of my wall I did go in and plant four tough stuff I think there’s tough stuff aha hydranges cannot wait to see these Bloom you guys look at the new

Growth they’re starting to come back so I needed to come in and just dead head right underneath the base of the old blooms so I don’t risk cutting off this year’s blooms but yeah y’all they’re going to be so pretty once everything fills in and then okay y’all I’m out of breath my

Bench was completely blown over into my fence over here thank God I have a fence cuz it probably would have gone into my neighbor’s yard so it did take a little bit of some Nicks which oh they’re not too bad like there’s some areas that I can go in and

Just touch up you see the paint chipped off here um so yeah I still have not like leveled the the bench out or anything I want to tell you I did nothing nothing so I do plan on leveling it out getting it place where I really

Want actually I think I kind of like where it’s sitting looks pretty good just needs to be evened out the two Planters on the side I have two small wee bit grumpy um hydrangeas planted in them so I need to pull the weeds out of there and then moving along I

Have I have no clue what that is but that right there is a perennial of some sort this one right here is the puffer F hydranga which I need to come in and just do a nice prune job on I do have a nice little drift of salvia here that is

Starting to come back or is that a weed uh I can’t really tell I think that’s a weed because I think these are the shape of the leaves of the Salvia so yeah need to pull the weed out of the center of those and also give them a

Nice haircut I also have a drift of celines planted here that I need to just come in and clean up my hoki Cypress is doing well I did lose the hosta that I had planted down in here y’all I hope and pray that I do not have gophers or

What are the other little thing bows I’m hoping that’s not the issue because that thing was completely uprooted The Roots were gone have no clue what happened and I did come out here to walk around and I noticed some holes just in this area but I haven’t

Seen them anywhere else in my yard so I don’t know I’m going to keep an eye on that situation but I do plan on planting another hosta to replace it my baby emal green arbores on the back line are all doing well they weren’t affected by the storm thank god um but

This one here I don’t remember the name the tag is still on it let’s see there you go I don’t know how to pronounce that um it’s doing its natural like Browning on the inside all Evergreens do this like shedding from the inside during the winter and it’ll

Flush out with new growth so I’m not worried about that one I just need to make sure I do keep an eye on the watering I have a juniper ball standard here that I need to stake and give a nice haircut underneath it I do have

Some perennials that I need to cut back this is agastache y’all so excited for that to come into bloom cuz it smells so so good um and then oh I skipped one I have two lemon lace elderberries that I cannot wait to see Leaf out um my gearos are doing

Well and then in these two pots I’m not sure if these are going to come back y’all they did say that they’re perennial in our area but I think I was supposed to move these into my garage to overwinter them but these are pineapple lilies um that’s

Gross but yeah I’m just going to keep eye on the pot see if anything starts to come up I don’t see any signs of life right now I don’t know we’ll see if not I can just put something else in there and then behind me let me step back

I am so happy to report that this tree made it through the storm y’all like this was my main worry and out of everything in my yard this tree was untouched like it was not leaning at all the steak job that I gave it I mean the

Strings are dangling now but it was staked after the storm and even after the second storm we had it is still Standing Tall and I cannot wait to see it Leaf out so this is my plum tree and I do plan on creating a bed underneath

This tree at some point I’m not sure if I’m going to get to that this year we’re going to play it by ear y’all sorry y’all I’m trying to wait for the wind to die down in between Clips I don’t have my mic on today so I hope you

Guys can hear me okay and I do apologize for the wind in the sound but I do have a bit of an update in my backdrop scenery so if you guys can see I do have several snapped trees back here I have one right there one here that completely

Split and then a big one right here so all of those trees completely snapped and fell into my neighbor’s fence smashed their fence down um and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about it so here’s what the back side of my fence is looking like we had a ton of huge branches

Fall and then of course this tree right here completely split and then this big one right there also split let me see you can kind see it a little bit better straight through there I don’t even know where the other half of that tree is and then that top part snapped

Off somewhere as well so yeah he’s going to come in and assess what needs to be cleaned up and then they got the worst of it down there unfortunately but you see where these three little strings are that marks the property line so from here to this post that is my property

Line so everything back I essentially can’t touch that is beyond my property line so the people who that own that property um came out and they basically said there’s nothing they can do cuz the city has not approved them to start cutting down I’m not sure if you guys remember but I did

Mention that they do plan on building like 10 and some houses back behind me which is why I really want these trees to grow up so yeah unfortunately I get to look at broken trees for the next few years or however long it’s going to take

Them to fix that so yeah kind of just heartening and I’m really sad about the trees because they were beautiful um there also was a huge one I’m not sure if you can see in this Blank Space here there used to be a really big tree here

They did cut some limbs off of the one beside it um but there was another really big tree here that fell and completely smashed the other corner of my neighbor’s house into my neighbor next neighbor’s yard and missed their house by inches you guys like literally

They were so close I think it scraped like the screens of their windows and that was it so I’ll try to insert some pictures if I still have them on my phone for y’all but yeah it was just like a freak storm and it was kind of traumatic

And it’s still taking me some time to get over it but any who let me give you guys an update on the fence all right what you guys have been waiting to see an update on the fence a moment of silence please Okay let me get myself together so if you all watched any of my backyard makeover and update videos from I want to say 2020 to 2021 you all will understand the frustration and annoyance I have with this whole fence situation so to see this destruction it just it like stabbed me

In the heart and I literally could not even come out here like I didn’t even want to look at it or deal with it at all I just kept my blinds closed and did not look back here that’s how bad it was y’all like I know it sounds dramatic but

I just really did not want to have to deal with this again um but basically what happened let me step down is my neighbor used to have a glass table with chairs that was completely uprooted off of her or not uprooted but it was flown off of her patio and smashed into my

Fence and it completely knocked this section out and the rest of the fence was just leaning um and there was a ton of like glass and debris everywhere we tried to clean this see there’s still some glass if you guys can see still some glass down in here we tried to

Clean most of it up but it’s really hard to get glass out of grass you guys um but yeah it just looked like a complete disaster in war zone there was so much like debris and dirt and pieces of leaves and just it just looked awful you

Guys I just I I’ll see if I can find a picture for y’all I I think I deleted them just cuz I didn’t want to see it anymore um but anywh who basically when they installed my fence they did not use any 4x4s inside of the vinyl so all of my

Posts are cracked at the bottom so last summer I did go and purchase two additional post so that’s what you see here but now that we had a second storm I think I’m going to probably have to go pick up two more so oh wait I purchased

Three oh cool so I only need to go get one more vinyl post cuz I think they’re going to have to do that one that one this one and this one luckily my 8 section is still good um but I want them to use the 4x4s

Inside like I did so as you guys can see the post that my boyfriend and I installed last year ourselves is still standing perfectly tall because it was done properly so I’m just so annoyed with the whole installation the team that came and did it Lowe’s in general I

Highly do not ever recommend anyhoo but the good news is this is vinyl most of the slats are reusable I do have a few that are like dented and broken so I think I’m probably going to go purchase one more like section of fencing so that in case he needs

Additional ones he’ll have them on hand I he’s coming on Thursday next week and I’m not sure if it’s going to carry over till Friday because last time when they installed my fence they set the post one day let it sit overnight and then um came back the next day after the

Concrete had like cured or whatever so yeah y’all that is the good news most of this is reusable it’s all fixable I just had to get over the trauma of the storm and dealing with another fence situation also I lost my tree y’all like I’m am so

So upset about this tree this is a boulevard Cypress that I had in the ground now this would have been the third season um and I got it as a tiny tiny baby like it was smaller than my little anise back here like they were tiny tiny little trees I had two

Originally one of them died this one I was so excited cuz it had like tripled in size and now it’s completely gone y’all and it’s completely my fault I did not come out here and water anything so it just fried in the sun like this gets full sun in the afternoon All Summer

Long however my fire chiefs I know they look dead but this is the color they’re supposed to be they color up this nice red bronze color in the fall they’re all doing amazing so I’m excited about those my uh I think it’s a Goldie golden arbu body let me

See Amber gold arbid is still doing well I did get this one half off last year and that one unfortunately you see the fence is like barely barely touching it so I’m so glad that that one’s okay my buckthorns I’m hoping will come back I think I’m going

To relocate those and I have another plan like more ideas for what I want to do here so I’ll probably be digging those up relocating them um and also possibly my anise which I’m so glad look how well they’ve come back y’all again ignore the weeds but these were like

Balding and they had a whole bunch of like fungal spots on them I rehabed them put them in the ground and they’re doing phenomenal so I’m excited about those I do also have a little mugo pine standard here that’s doing well I have some agastache planted underneath it that I

Need to clean up and cut back and then Lastly my pond y’all like I’m going to tell you I did not do anything I was supposed to come out here and clean up the leaves and like bag up the I think it’s called The Corn for my water lies and my Lotus they’ve been out here all season

Y’all and it looks so disgusting like yeah there’s some ice across the top but I really don’t think they’re going to survive so I’m probably just going to get rid of this whole Pond idea definitely need to get rid of it before mosquito season that’s definitely going to be an issue

And then so turning around here’s what everything looks like from this view so my Limelight traon standard was completely uprooted I replanted it and the second storm has again knocked it over so I’m really thinking I’m just going to get rid of that one if anybody

Is local and would like a hydranga on standard please let me know cuz I want this gone I do have plans to clear out everything in this bed and get my patio extended which those plans have actually change you guys I’ll give you an update when that time comes but it’s still

Going to extend but it’s not going to be all patio um and and then over on this side of the yard this is what I call my bay window Bed total disaster y’all like it doesn’t even look like I live here like this is not my garden who is this look at my tary y’all I definitely need to give that a haircut and shape it I kind of scared to get in there just cuz I think

The birds are starting to net in there I think I have a nest in that top one I really don’t want to disturb them but I’m going to try my best cuz it needs a haircut like I just can’t go through the season looking at this also my topar has

Balded again so I need to shape that one cut it back and just get everything nice and tidy like it’s supposed to look fluffy is doing amazing all of my perennials I need to cut back all of this down here is weeds and annuals that are still in the ground that need to

Come out so yeah y’all we’re going to do a whole whole overhaul Cleanup in this bed I cannot wait because this is normally the first section that I like to work on every year so really quickly let me talk through my goals and thought process of what I want to accomplish for

This backyard this season um just because I’m really trying to take my time and scale down this year y’all I have some goals that I’m trying to reach that is going to take me exercising some self-control when it comes to plant shopping y’all know how I am about my clearance deals it’s hard

For me to pass those up but first and foremost so number one top priority is getting the fence fixed which will be done next week I’m so happy to check that off off my list to do um and then next I want to work on filling in the

Gap underneath my gate here and then also finish building and extending out my beds at least get those formed and then next priority is I want to start formally edging my garden spaces so I want to finish extending this bed out finally ize the shape because what I did

Over here last year is not the final shape so I want to figure out how far out in the shape that I want to make this bed and then start to get my papers and edging done I also want to get my Pathways installed this year

Um and we’re going to work on getting this corner area prepped for the next season so those are the main goals I don’t plan on doing a lot of like planting and changing just because y’all I have so many plants if you guys can see I have plants just in pots that are

Still waiting to get in the ground and I have a ton in my garage that still need to get in the ground as well so those are going to be my main focuses this year um and then of course I want to get everything back here automated I want

Everything on drip or an automatic like sprinkler system so that I’m not coming out here every day and having to hand water which really took a toll and that’s part of the reason why I stopped gardening last year is it just got too hot and the storm STM just mess with my

Mental so yeah y’all that is pretty much the update for today I really am excited to get back in the garden and get the season kicked off and just push this nightmare behind me but I hope you guys enjoyed seeing the update on my backyard and I hope you’ll stick around to see

The transformation I’m so excited about you guys like look at this what is that like that just it looks like you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of the videos that I see on YouTube where like lawn guys go out and do the free cutting

And just completely transform and clean up the yard like that is not my garden who who lives here that is not mine like y’all know me but any who so yeah I definitely will give you guys updates as things progress around here I did ask my contractor if he would mind me filming

The process of them repairing the fence and he said no so this is kind of like a before and I will definitely give you guys an after I also will be sharing my front yard my shake Garden all of that in separate videos because it’s almost go time like

It’s time to start cleaning up and I’m so excited y’all so yeah y’all thank you guys so much for tuning in I hope you enjoyed the update if you did be sure to give this video a big thumbs up it really helps out my channel subscribe

For more and I’ll catch you in the next one Peace