May 24 Front Yard Garden Tour | Zone 8B Suburban Gardening | After the Rain Update

Hey garden friends!

The rain let up long enough for me to hop outside and do the rest of the garden tour we were supposed to catch up on last week.

In last week’s vlog — https://youtu.be/A5jUKz9A9bA — we toured the backyard and all of the many projects we’d completed since the garden season started for me back in February, and today we’re picking up where we left off, showing you what’s growing and happening in our front beds.

It’s officially that time when things start to pop out in full bloom, and both areas look fantastic despite the downpours we’ve been experiencing.

I’m looking forward to the updates where everything is blooming at once, and you can see all of the beauty that I get to see on a daily basis.

So grab your favorite drink, pull up a seat, and check out what’s been happening up front since I installed the side bed on the house and now that things have woken up from hibernation in the front beds.

Enjoy, and I can’t wait to hear what you think!

hello my beautiful garden friends it is Tuesday May 14th it is about almost 8:00 in the morning and right around 65° outside and I thought you know what this would [Music] be and I thought you know what this would be a perfect time to do a front yard front garden in bed walk about because we haven’t been able to see the front yard either so last video we did our backyard tour which things are looking absolutely amazing and the front yard is waking up lots of things are nice and full the new bed is coming together over on the side of the yard and the sun is not out and harsh yet so you’ll get an opportunity to see things in their true color for what they really are and how I see them each and every day some things are better than others um now that things are kind of waking up I like some things better than I do the others but today I just want to walk you around give you some updates talk through what some of my vision is for some projects that we’re going to be tackling when we come back and kind of give you a feel for what the front yard looks like so let’s H into today’s video [Music] starting on the side of the house and you and I are both surprised do y’all see what I see oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness we have our first rolls of Sharon flow oh my gosh I’m so excited and look how many flowers are all over this thing okay oh my gosh I’m about to lose it I’m not going to lose it in the front yard but I’m about to lose it I feel like I want to lose it oh my gosh okay so you guys remember this was one of our projects for the spring I had this new bed dug out on the side of the yard we went through having to fix plumbing and all that kind of stuff cuz we Nick the pipe out L to that video um later but since we’ve installed it I’ve made a couple of edits to the bed and I’m not all the way done but I’m almost done if that makes sense so as you can see this bed has grass that is just persistent about growing in it so one of the things that I’ve got to do is come through all of my beds especially because it’s been raining so much these front beds are really suffering from the Bermuda creep but outside of that it looks pretty good so one of the original plants that we planted over here was our little Kim not the rapper but our L Kim uh Rose of Sharon from Proven Winners now this shrub is a zone 5 through 9 and it gets 3 to 4T tall and wide which is why I put it back here on this corner because from the street I wanted something that would kind of get to like right there and kind of fill in the space and y’all she was sleep when I planted her and she is absolutely loving her life this is a full sign plant just like any other Rose of Sharon um the way I planted this bed because it’s in the front yard uh we do deal with deer in our area this season hadn’t had as many problems with them but I was very cautious about what I planted over here because I wanted it to be full without damage if that makes sense so our little Kim has bloomed I’m so excited oh that just made my day that’s totally thrown me off but it has totally made my day but she’s got such a pretty Leaf structure um and this is shaded right now but in a couple of hours it’ll be full sun and it’ll be like that all day this is a directly south to North facing orientation lot so once the early part of the afternoon Comes the Sun is on this side of the house forever in front of her is some pink muy grass and I know that this gets kind of tall too but I thought the ju to position with the tall rows of Shar which they grow pretty fast with the Tall Grass kind of falling over with the pink would be really pretty and would fill that corner quite nicely so I’m looking forward to see how seeing how that grows together and seeing if that Vision kind of comes to life so up here um one of the spots that I talked about a lot was making sure that I had like Miss Miley butterfly bush she’s so pretty um I am in love with butterfly bushes and they do really really really well here and I wanted something that would have color all summer long and could possibly hold their Leaf structure through the winter providing some winter interest for over here when some of this other stuff goes to sleep and Miss Molly will do that as you can see she has already put on quite the flower show but even the spent Bloons look nice and then this is what her beautiful Rich Magneta pink blooms look like she’s absolutely gorgeous in full bloom I may come in here and take some of those spent blooms off before I leave just so she can focus her energy on making new blooms but I’m absolutely loving this look and I think the plant loves it I bought her as a two gallon pot and she’s been really enjoying it now she’s surrounded by a mixture of things um we’ve got some dianas here I kept these in place cuz originally all of this was Dianes but the ones I had right here were doing something funky I didn’t like so I pulled those out but I kept these here these flower really well uh I have to remember to fertilize them but they flower really well and they smell absolutely Divine I got this Salvia which is a dwarf Salvia it only gets to be about 2et tall and wide uh from Proven Winners I can’t remember the name of it I’ll have to put that on there and we don’t have any r rain these holes that you see are from like snails we don’t have any rain for like the next week that goes on right there uh so I’m going to come out and dust everything down with seven and hopefully uh the plants will get a chance to you know recuperate from slug damage we’ve got some new dusty miller here that I started from seed and it’s actually looking really good um I came in along this front line and added some vinka vinka are summer workhorses for us down here in south central zone 7B and they’ll get you know foot foot and a half tall uh but they they flower continuously and you really don’t have to do much to them they just kind of do their own thing and I love that so kind of keeping with some symmetry here this will fill in within the next month or so and with the filling in of the s against the butterfly bush with the dianthus in the middle I think that’s going to be really pretty now this back here is a rescue plant that I moved from the front garden bed where I now have a drift Rose and it’s a Lantana it’s one of the pink and orange kind um and it’s actually starting to put on a flower I moved it here just because I didn’t have anywhere else to put it it’s not going to stay here because I think this one gets big I think and I kind of like symmetry in this bed but for now with as small as it is it’s not really throwing things off and I needed to do something to kind of fill this space in so for now I’m going to let it stay just kind of nurse it back to health it struggled a little bit from the winter storm so I’m hoping that this season it’ll be able to recuperate and I can find another home for it maybe somewhere in the back a little bit more protected so that it doesn’t uh struggle as much but for now you know it’s a teeny tiny something like 4 Ines maybe um so it’s not really causing anything now if it does pose a problem and I got to choose y’all know who going to win but for now she’s good um I’ve got some lahy here that is actually going to flower I’ve never gotten a chance to experience these Dias going to flower because in past Seasons the deer have always devoured them I think we’re getting some relief because this part of the subdivision has kind of come to a completion so there’s a lot more houses here a lot more light at night which is probably posing some type of deterrent for them um I we still see them like I see them every morning walking the kids to the bus stop but they just haven’t been as present and as much of a nuisance in the garden as they usually are um we’ve got some summer Snapdragon here that’s really pretty when it’s In Bloom this particular Sunshine lustrum is doing very well now I’ve got two others that are not doing well I’ll show you those in a little bit but this one seems to love its life I actually have some snapd dragons here that I started from from seed I didn’t have anywhere else to put them so I just planted them all here I don’t know how they’re going to Fair like they’ve been this size forever um I’m new to starting flowers from seed so I I don’t know that I started them in enough time but again this is kind of a rescue spot they’re not so big where they cause a distraction but they’ve got enough space so that if they do fill in and kind of look good that they’ll provide some visual interest right there so I’m hoping that that’s what happens over the summer time but who knows I think these are the variety that do do summer blowing um but I don’t know we’ll see um we’ve got a CRP Myrtle here and this particular CRP Myrtle when I bought it I thought it was a cotton candy cuz that’s where I might have spoken to soon look at that I don’t know we’ll see it looks like Bambi been here no not really they’re not as blunt see that looks like Bambi that definitely looks like Bambi but it looks old it doesn’t look new okay never mind um but when I purchased this I thought it was a cotton candy crepe myrtle which gets to be about 8 to 10 ft tall um but when I brought it home the container said sue which same color crepe myrtle as far as the flowers are concerned like a really soft pink but the Sue crepe myrtle gets much taller 10 to 15 ft um either way however this plays itself out it’ll be fine like the space right here can handle it it’s on the corner of the house and it’ll come to go up there um I’m just looking forward to seeing those blooms I see lots of crepe Myles already In Bloom already with the flowers all over them um I fertilized her once uh I may hit her with another round of fertilizer just to see how things go but for now you know we’ve got some stuff in progress I’m just ready for those to open up cuz that’ll bloom all summer long so this potty is here because this is where we nicked our plumbing so in my brain I was like you know what let’s put something here that kind of trails down and grows big so I got a buan via not one that’s like super big this one only gets like 3 ft and she has these really pretty pink flowers but we’ve been getting so much rain that it has been day near impossible for this thing to get its feeding under it uh I did do see some new growth so I’m hoping that in the next week it’ll be you know able to dry out and kind of do its thing because I love that chartreuse color of it and I really want that to fill in and kind of be an accent to this side there but all in all you know with this bed being new I am really pleased um with where it’s going really pleased with what it looks like um now what we’re going to do is put a paer trail from the driveway over here to the fence line back um to the trash cans we’re going to line it off and make that nice and neat so that we can rehab the grass and stuff over here here’s that Eden rose that I was talking about I need her to come on cuz we want to put an arch right here and I can’t do it without you girl I need your help I need your help but yeah so that is the side bed now I’m going to take you around um and give you a quick look at my struggling pots that I just planted in one of our latest videos y’all the rain is killing us but they look Fair they just don’t to struggle bu a little bit so let’s go over there real quick all right so remember we just poted up these two Planters what a couple videos ago look how pretty that is though OMG um and look at all the yellow leaves that I pulled off this morning just because the rain won’t stop raining um like I said the forecast is clear for the next week but that is also you know not reliable in the other planter I do have some super bells that I got that I was able to plant here I need to go pick up two more um that I’m going to put there but things look good it’s just getting this habiscus back to where it needs to be so the other one has some yellowing leaves too I’m just today focusing on clearing that out um and I will tell my Folks at a house sitting not to water this for a couple days it is in some really fast draining soil so their indication to water will be these leaves started to kind of droop but still looks good still going to meet the need it’s just having a rough start because of all the rain that we’ve been getting but she’s gorgeous she’s going to be pretty you see how pretty that flower is our Yuka is doing well this one will actually flour and I think ouch this thing is so Pokey I think that’s a flower ouch shoot I think that’s a flower in there I think it’s a really pretty purple flow um but it’s doing its thing it’s really Poky um and the pokes really really hurt but I got to straighten it up all of these will run off of a drip line that I’m going to connect over there and I will connect these to drip um in just a second here just to make sure you know we do a lot of traveling during the summertime track on the weekends particularly on the weekends I’ll be able to water um and they won’t suffer during the day so here’s those super Bells I put Coral ones in there um this plant oh she is struggling on the Struggle Bus I may replace her she wasn’t that expensive so I don’t I don’t like that look so I might take that out I don’t know if I have the patience to wait on that but look how this Ming habit does on this one and it’ll kind of Trail a little bit very very pretty I can’t wait till all of that kind of throws in um here are other pots that we also talked about in one of the last videos this is a self-watering pot so anytime it rains the water just but look at these dipl is like I love that that pop of pink just child I also got some bird of paradises for each one and just stuck it back there I don’t know if we’ll get flowers on those but it just adds another Leaf structure and those when they’re ready they can you know fall back and kind of attach themselves but I love love love love the look of that oh so pretty all right so in this front bed um she is actually coming to life too there are a couple of edits that I’m going to have to make though I think we’ll talk about those in just a second so the sun’s coming out so it’s about to get hard y’all look at how big this laah p is OMG now she doesn’t have any flowers on her but this white trailing Lantana is growing into her exactly like I wanted to so this Lantana spreads quite aggressively and I’m hoping that it’ll spread and cover over there as well um to provide some kind of like ground cover up here I really don’t want to see mulch this Mexican heather is recuperating quite nicely um she’s got these really pretty pretty dainty purple flowers on her um very pretty now this m as well look at all this grass this Bermuda baby she do not care you give her a little rain and you got to come out child and pull her up cuz if not she will take over she just wants all the attention I hate her she is quite an attention seeker gosh um but this also gets quite big it’ll get big like that grass so I’m looking forward to that kind of filling in that spot right there another laiia ping this right here is a crysalis pink but Leah this one I want to say kids 2T tall 2 to 3 ft wide but it’s got these beautiful beautiful flowers she’s just starting to flower and I absolutely love kind of the round mounding habit of that plant I can’t wait to see her kind of grow in she’s connected to another white trailing Lantana this is the flower on that Lantana and as you can see she’s been flowering up but she’ll be covered in flowers here in a couple weeks I’m going to drop some fertilizer on that and it is going to absolutely do its thing but you see like the J position of the lantana the laiia PE the Mexican heather the butterfly bush the Salvia look at this now the Salvia against the backdrop of Evergreens right so our evergreens are a rosemary which I think I’m going to change out next year cuz she’s wild I hedged but she already got a stray um but we’ve got these Hol here that I have not done anything to since we moved in 3 years ago and this year I think at the end of the season it will finally be time I’m trying to let them connect but in this connection process they do look a little wild I’m not necessarily pressed about it right now but as the season grows on and as these things start to wake up I really want this to be the star so I may come in and do a light hedge on these just to formalize them up because I really just want them to be the background right um we’ve got this Salvia here which this is the second year it came back after the storm and y’all look at her this is going to be a huge huge girl and the hummingbirds love this plant so this one will look like that one um I’m thinking about there’s some pink ones this is the same plant that is the pink plant um in my backyard so I’m thinking about getting this plant and putting it by my utility box I’ll will explain that in just a second but I love this and so do the hummingbirds um um so this friends is a pink um drift Rose and I am taking chances like I said we usually deal with deer but I am also like infatuated with roses so I found this drift Rose and I was like ain’t nothing to it but to do it let’s try it so she has had a flush I didn’t get pictures of her when she had her flush but I’ve come through and kind of dead head her a little bit and she is preparing for a second round of balloons this is where that other Lantana was I moved it because I don’t think that Lantana is a trailing Lantana I think it is the bush type Lanna and I wanted something to kind of Trail and fill in this space so I’m looking forward to that growing out now this friends is is my red Yuka and look we got a single flowers D and I am so so excited like when we did our tour back a couple of months ago y’all know I was fussing because my Yuka had not bloomed and I thought I saw a bloom and look I got one so I know I’m doing something right the other one still hasn’t bloomed so there’s another one on the corner over there but my heart’s happy um the the height on that bloom is incredible like I just really love the way this is coming together besides the grass and don’t mind our yarder needs cutting cuz of the rain but we’re going to get to that but when I come in here and pull all the grass out um it really really really really looks good so when we get back from vacation I’m going to get some composting mulch I think that’s the route I’m going to go and just kind of come in deweed degrass and leave a light layer to cover all the holes and stuff just kind of clean the bed up so that it looks fresh because I am pleased um with this bed even down here look at my Pia I mean the slugs have just she’s still fly flowering like crazy but golly seven is on its way um but down here we have some African Violets so pretty we’ve got pink skull cap I’ll show you this one cuz the light isn’t as harsh it’s open in the middle like that cuz we had some rain yesterday it’ll pop up this kind of bushes up and I trim it quite often um but in the center of it look we have another crysalis pink but butterfly bush and look at her blooms oh my God I’m obsessed I’m obsessed now this is like my little butterfly Haven down here My Little Hummingbird Haven they love it we have another African violet here um I’m going to hit everything with some fertilizer before we go now here we got some dwarf patunas and I grew these from seed and I don’t know I I don’t know what what defines dwarf I thought they were short but they’ve been blooming in these really pretty colors of purple and like this lilac and this white and I’ve got them I think it’s one two 3 four five plants here and they’re in front of this Salvia which will get like that Salvia if not bigger so I love this little corner down here because there is no very little dirt right this Dalia should fill in if we can get the Slugs off of her she should be fine I might add two more dollas right there just to kind of really fill that spot in that dollia doesn’t get any more than like 2T tall um and then we have another garden rose back here I can’t remember the name of this one and if I can find the label I will but she has a very coraly pinkish rose bloom too very pretty very very very pretty um so I really love how this corner kind of just grows into each other I told you a long time ago I don’t like to see dirt and this bed finally after 3 years is coming to the place where I’m not seeing a whole lot of dirt even if I don’t do dalas right there I think those purple proven winter plants that I have up there might be good up there so I might plant two of those there I just kind of want to feel that hole in like I don’t want anything here but doing that that also kind of helps me to suppress the weeds you’ll notice it’s not as much grass down here as it is down there and that’s because it really don’t have nowhere to grow so we’re going to try to fill this in a little bit more and then the areas that are not filled in will just layer a lot layer of composting mulch on it um to kind of clean it up so that you don’t see stuff like that from where I dug in here to plant like the roses and stuff but all in all I really like where this front bed is going like she’s doing exactly what I want her to do can you like these butterfly bushes I’m like obsessed just totally obsessed look how fat that is oh it’s so pretty so so pretty okay let’s go over to the utility box because this is a space that has that is an area of opportunity to tea so I got two butterfly bushes down here one is a buta Leah white and one is a buta Leah blue Blue’s doing great white struggling a little bit but just like the other butterfly bushes I have no out that they’ll do well it’s just rain has been killing us so we have a Autumn Sage here that actually flowers white it’s doing well these Lamb’s Ear I started from seed and they seem to like this spot here is and I’m going to show you on this side so you can see it without the sun here’s another Sunshine lustrum that is just not loving its life so I’m thinking I’m going to pull these out and I’m either going to do two more of those crysalis butterfly bushes that I have up there or the pink Salvia like the kind of coraly ones that I have up here I still haven’t decided yet um but when we come back from St Lucia those got to go cuz they don’t like it here this is their second year they don’t have to like it I’m totally going to pull it out I planted there was a Oleander here and I got rid of it cuz we got the puppy and because it also didn’t like its life right here and I replaced it with this plant called the thales which is actually what my neighbor plantet right there and it’s loving its life so I just need to find the right plant for this bed and I don’t think that’s it so we’re going to change it because I want it to be full like this I know thales will do that but you know I like to mix it up with textures and stuff so we’re going pull those out and do something else another Autumn Sage white flowers she’s doing very well very happy with her spot got to come out and desider some of these places um but again finding something to kind of fill in space right here so that it’s not just open I don’t know what I’mma put right here but likewise down there just want to fill this bed in like this bed is filled in so there’s not a lot of opportunities for weeds indoor grass like this grass looks so crazy y’all my son is going to cut it probably tomorrow um up here around the trees this is the last little part of our tour and I am so not pleased with my trees now when I had the the bed Dugout on the side of the house I also had them plac like these little metal borders around the trees that’s going to come up like I don’t like any of it so I was trying not to Stone around my trees just cuz I didn’t want to do the work and or pay for it but the time has come so when we get back from vacation one of the front yard projects is going to be to pull up this metal ring and actually put some Stone around it so I want a layer of stone standing on the side and then I’m going to lay it down uh really do a better job of pulling out all the material in the bed laying down some cardboard so I can suffocate that grass um and then composting putting some soil in and replanting the bed what I love about this bed is that I didn’t spend a whole bunch of money on plants I think like $10 at most cuz I just wanted to give it a try but it’s not working for me um so I’m going to actually come back and do it myself um to make sure I get it the way I want it make sure it’s level make sure the soil isn’t up against the trunk of the tree just to give a better presentation cuz that’s just it’s not doing it it’s not doing it we going to fancy this up a little bit just to make it look better cuz right now this ain’t it so that’s a project that is on the list for when we get back so yeah guys this is the view like if you’re standing back from it it’s so pretty um I wish the sun was still kind of down so you can see but everything is coming in nice and full like by the time June comes the Salvia will be like that one like there will be some defined levels here of ups and downs and textures and stuff and I love it I love it we’re going to add a few more trailing things to the front and clean it up real good um and it’s going to be set for the actual summer season oh let me show you these Rose pots up here before this Rose pot up here before we go so on the front patio ignore the dirt I got to clean up it’s been raining y’all I’ll clean up when I get back but on the PA y’all from patio I usually will sit up here I got to clean these cushions um I might get some more I might just run a Target and get some more cuz I kind of want to change the color but we have Neighborhood Cats and they come sit up here drives me crazy I hate it but usually when this is clean you know when the kids are outside playing in the evenings so when I will sit here kind of just to watch because I can see through my plants but when I’m up here I don’t have to be social um but on the patio we have a fiddly fig this is the spot that she was in last year and she loved it so I’m going to fertilize her get her watered in today before we leave so by the time that you see that she will already have it but she grew quite nicely here so now that it’s warming up on a regular basis I expect her to do the same thing here because why not um but as for this Rose this is my eustacia VI and she is actually a eustacia VI I got her from the same Nursery that I got the other generous Gardener from and look at her oh she just looks so pretty so I actually she’s had her first fles of Bones and I will insert pictures of what that looks like like she’s on her way to her second and this is what her new growth looks like it’s like this lemon lime color it’s gorgeous the flowers are amazing and they smell amazing so I’m looking forward to getting the front patio cleaned up so that we can sit here and when she’s in bloom smell the roses watch the kids drink lemonade and enjoy the views of my front bed because this is what it’s giv when we’re up here oh my gosh it’s so pretty all right guys so that is the front yard tour as you can see there is a lot going on up here too uh mostly beautiful a few things that need to be worked out now the front bed takes a little longer to work through than the backyard because it is directly south facing so after about 9 9:30 all of this is in full sun so it’s a little harder to get out here and get things done so we may not have as many front bed or as quick of front bed updates just because it’s so hot but we’re going to try to get those knocked out as quickly as possible just from a curb appeal standpoint U but so far so so far I’m pleased like I absolutely love where we are everything is doing what I wanted to do all the pinks and the purples and the corals and the whites it’s so pretty I’m so excited about our first rose of Sharon flower like I was not expecting that until like the end of the month and for it to be the 14th and we already have a flower like my heart is just and did you see how many buds were there okay another mission accomplished another things are doing what I want them to do now we just got to decorate up here a little bit add a wreath to the front door you know make things cute to finish off the C pel really want to get those tree rings addressed so that they look the way that I want them to look um and the front yard is going to be good to go so that is our front yard tour thanks for sticking around and I can’t wait to see you for the next video enjoy your garden friend bye now