Southern Spring Garden Tour Filled with Flowers & Inspiration

Good morning friends and welcome to Gardening at the Creekside. Today we are going to take a tour of the gardens immediately surrounding the house. It is the beginning of May, of course, and y'all, oh my goodness, it has been such a spectacular spring here in our North Carolina Zone 8A gardens and I just have to share my messes and my successes with you today. So, what I want you to do is, if you need to, pause the video, go grab your favorite beverage, get nice and comfy because we are going to take a stroll through the garden just like two friends walking through the garden talking about things that are doing great, things that are need some love, and then some future projects that I have planned like this season. So, it is going to be really fun. Cannot wait to share this gorgeous beauty with you. You know, over the past couple years I have fallen in love with the David Alston roses. I mean, hello! I think you can understand why. It has been a glorious rose season here in the garden and the roses are just exquisite, absolutely gorgeous. This is the Generous Gardener from, of course, David Alston. There are two of them on this trellis. This trellis came from Kinsman Garden Company. So, if you need a nice trellis, you can head over there. They have a couple of options for you. But, the Generous Gardener is a very soft, pale pink, has a lovely old rose fragrance to it. You can see that she has been blooming for a little while because we have got some beautiful rose petal debris here. I have not deadheaded my roses. Time has just been crazy and so I do need it to do that and come through and deadhead and take care of them. But, the Generous Gardener, y'all, when I say that she lives up to her name, she absolutely does. Of course, your roses really respond well to being pruned every year. You were with me, I think, I showed you when I pruned this one or maybe I just showed you right after I pruned it. And, strong pruning encourages all of these blooms. And, how pretty does it look right now with this is Blueberry Sunday, I believe, Baptisia from Proven Winners. Just, you know, in all of her glory, beautiful blue with that Generous Gardener. So, let's back up just a little bit and let me show you this garden from how we see it coming in. I just had to start with the Generous Gardener because she is beautiful. It drives Jerry crazy because we have to duck. I need to come in and kind of tidy her up a little bit. That is the constant battle with this rose is because she is so generous that we constantly am having to, like, tuck in, train the rose because climbing roses, they don't attach themselves to different structures, right? So, as opposed to, like, a clematis or some other kind of climbing shrub vine, roses do not. They just have super long canes and then the gardener has to go in and attach them to whatever it is that they want them to, quote, climb. So, that is kind of that constant maintenance that you have to do with those guys. All right. So, if you're coming in, our garage is just right here. So, there's the garage. You can see Jackson's Tools in there. Let's start here. I have these urns here on each side of our garage. Unique stone urns. Love them, but they can be a little bit challenging because the urn looks like a nice size, but actually inside the actual planting space is somewhat on a small side. And I say that because, of course, I have a really long growing period and so some of the plants can get really root-bound in there. So, I have to choose wisely. Plus, my sun conditions here are very interesting. So, we get lots of good morning sun here. So, it's considered probably, I don't know if it would be considered full sun, definitely a part sun area, but then it gets break in the afternoon. So, it's in complete shade. So, I've got to have something that's versatile enough in that area. So, this year what I did is I put the selenia apricot begonias in here. And yes, I put three because I wanted to have a really nice full habit. So, what's going to happen is this entire bowl will be covered in those beautiful blooms. I love the selenias. They are fabulous. This apricot is a gorgeous color. They do not like to have wet feet. So, it works really well having him in a container like this. They do not do well in my clay soil in the landscape. So, if you buy selenias and you have like thick clay soil, I would highly recommend you put them in a container, not in directly in the ground. And I just had to. This may not be the absolute perfect color pairing, but I had to try the selenia. This is the chocolate orange. I believe that's what it's called. And y'all, I love this begonia because look at that black foliage. Absolutely black. And then you have these reddish orange blooms in here. This is southern comfort euchre, which is fabulous. Again, may not be the most perfect pairing as far as coloring. I don't care. I didn't have anywhere else to put these and I wanted to put them here and they literally like they are doing great. Yes, southern comfort may kind of hide these eventually. It's fine. I'm enjoying them now. So, that's all that matters. And then when you're coming in the path, this is one of my favorite, favorite parts of the garden because everything just looks so lush. We have worked so hard on this area for years and it is coming together and it just makes me happy. So, let's start here on the left in what we call the emperor one bed because I have an emperor one Japanese maple. This is definitely a full sun garden. It is early in the morning, so we have not, the sun has not come up over the trees. Once it does, it's here all day. This is, oh my proven winners. This is, oh the name just went out of my head. I'll think of it in a second. And so, this is gorgeous blue lavender flowers on it and is doing a glorious job. My amsonia is just now finishing. This is storm cloud. So, you have just a little bit of those blue flowers left on that. There's three, there's three of these in here. And yeah, I mean they are extremely happy and doing really well. Look really pretty with, I have the lemon coral sedum going all the way around the border here. It currently is in bloom. Really shouldn't be blooming, but it is. So, that's all right. We will take it. This is webmaster. The name came to me. All right, so there's three of them in here. Really happy, really vigorous. Yes, and they have a little fun little yard art popping up through there. Have another of the same baptisia that I have down here. So, kind of tying everybody in together quite nicely. Let's come around here and look at the Boom Chocolata Geranium. I mean, they're loving life. They are doing fabulous. This is a perennial geranium. Very kind of upright, very different than the geranium I'm going to show you here in just a minute. Still those lovely bluish purple flowers, full sun. It loves the sun, my friends. You can see, remember we put in the puffer fish and they are doing really well. They are quite happy and yeah, coming along quite nicely. Grasses are coming up nice and thick and full. My azaleas are done. So, they are finished for the season, but that's all right because coming in right behind them, this is Serendipity and look at Serendipity Allium. We are already starting to get buds on it. We're getting some a little bit of crack of color. Of course, the alliums are a great pollinator attractor. Your bees love alliums. They just thrive and just are attracted to it big time. So, the Emperor One, she is doing quite well this year. Coming along quite nicely, filled out lovely. We only planted her, it was June of last year. So, she's not even been in the garden for a year and doing really nice. So, yes. So, this area is coming along quite nicely with, of course, the Generous Gardener in all of her glory. Then, we come over here to the Forest Pansy Bed. We call it the Forest Pansy Bed because we have a big, a beautiful Forest Pansy redbud and definitely is the star of the show in this section of the garden. The area right here that we're looking at, this part of the garden gets really good morning sun and I would say five to six hours of morning sun, but it can handle it. We do have drip irrigation in these gardens running it every, I don't know, during the heat of the summer. We run it for maybe once a day for 10-15 minutes. Look at the Astilbees. I mean, dear heavens, they love life, don't they? This is unbelievable. I want to say there's three in here doing really well and, yes, I have a hosta that is in full sun. It does get a little bit more lighter because of the sun, but it has those beautiful, like kind of that creamy yellow centers with that blue edging. Love this one. The name escapes me right now. Y'all, with hostas, it's called go to your garden center, go to your neighbors who has a beautiful garden and wants to divide some hostas and just find the ones you like. Don't get so particular on the exact variety sometimes because there's literally thousands of hostas out there. So, find the one that's the right size. This is a shorter one doing really well here and I love the color, love the color contrast on that. So, the sun does set kind of, this is west this way, so this gets a break in the afternoon. So, we don't have hot afternoon sun here, so it does really well. Hydrangeas coming along. This is, let's dance, blue jangles. It's through here. I took a little page from Mimi's garden and have a little collection here of some pots that are up on little stones. Honestly, I'm not sure if I like the stones. I know this is not exactly how Mimi does it because my pots are not the same, but it's all right. I'm moving in that right direction. So, we have some mini hostas in here, a pulmonaria, a Jacob's ladder, that kind of thing. Just having some fun. I'm just playing with it, y'all. Gardening is an experiment. Just go with it. Have fun. The ferns, this is lady in red fern, beautiful. And then, the crested surf from Proving Winters, that one's doing quite nicely as well. And look, y'all, my pitcher plants, they're blooming. Isn't this great? Pitcher plants are really fun. They love moist areas. They are a carnivorous plant, so what happens is they have this hood right here, and they secrete this liquid, and it's a sweet kind of smell. So, you'll get flies and gnats, spiders maybe go in there, and then they get trapped, and then the plant actually consumes, breaks down the proteins, the nutrients from those critters, and that is one of the main food sources. But yeah, this time of year, they bloom, and they are gorgeous. Wee bit innocent. I planted this last year as a quart. She is coming back quite nicely. It is a very petite hydrangea, so that's why I put her right here in the front. We have got our first bud. It is pH dependent, so it'll be pink or blue, but a very, very pale color. Hence, why it's wee bit innocent, because it is a very soft, soft color. So, she is doing well. Just, yeah, everything in here. Having fun with your hostas, your hydrangeas. This hosta clearly is loving life. I believe this is Diamond Lake. Diamond Lake may have to either, either Diamond Lake's going to get moved, or, but you can see it is kind of overtaking this fern right here, and then I have another Blue Jangles hydrangea back here overtaking that one as well. So, yeah, I've got some thinking to do, but clearly this hydrangea loves its spot there. So, there you go. We'll just kind of deal with it and figure it out, and then you'll notice I have, there's actually two of them in here, containers. So, I've got one here, and then I put one back there in the back. These were the eucaryllas that were in those urns by the garage, and so I didn't want to leave them in there during the summer because I thought they'd get too much sun and kind of burn. So, I put them in these containers that I've had for forever, and then just plopped them in the garden. Clearly, they're happy. Clearly, they're doing just fine because it is blooming gorgeous color on it. Yep, so everything here is doing well. Remember, I cut back my Edgeworthia. It's flushing back. Buttonbush, oh my word, I tell you, she's a beautiful beast as well. So, she is coming back stronger than ever. Before I know it, we will have blooms on her. So, yeah, so great selection for your native. If you're looking for those native shrubs, it is wonderful. So, buttonbush, no, sugar shack buttonbush. There we go, doing quite nicely, and then, oh my gosh, y'all, you know how much I love these roses, and they're kind of on their end, but they're still looking glorious, is the Ruau doll. Now, this bed is one of those beautiful examples where you can have messes and successes all in the same space, so don't think that there's beauty in the chaos, my friends, and so we're going to focus right now on this beauty. Look, first of all, at these Globemaster Alliums. They're doing spectacular, are they not? Look at that huge, beautiful blooms on them. Looks so pretty with these peachy blooms of this Ruau doll, one of my absolute favorites. It smells divine. It is the most lovely old rose fragrance. It is just spectacular. So, remember, there's three of these planted here, and then I added six more here so that we'll eventually have a beautiful hedge. Imagine this all the way across next to the fountain. Great. They're a little slow. They're coming. I see this first one has a little bud on it, so they're fine. It's just going to take some time, y'all. This is where we think long-term, not instant gratification. The quickfire fabs we planted, they're doing great as well. Now, we're talking about messes and successes. What's the mess in here? Well, the mess is... I'll let you figure out what the mess is. So, obviously, I've not touched this as far as for my summer plantings. My anemones, they're done. So, you can see I have come in here and deadheaded some, but then the new ones, blooms, were coming along. So, that is my project today is after this video. We're going to get off of here. We're going to clean up the anemones. They are perennials for me. My alliums will be perennials for me, so I'm leaving them. So, what I'm going to do is come in here and just kind of chop off all of the old bloom stalks, leave the foliage because that's giving the energy for next year. I need a weed. Y'all, there's weeds in here. You can see that there are weeds. You can see that they're on the corner. You can see my little pile right here. My motto is if you see a weed, pull a weed. I didn't pull these weeds because I'm getting ready to work in it. Those were the weeds that were in the path. Everybody has weeds. If they tell you you don't have... they don't have weeds, well, they're just lying to you. So, what we're going to do is we're going to fill that space in amongst the alliums because the alliums will be done, you know, here in the next couple weeks. So, we're going to plant between the alliums and then here forward. And what we're going to do is we're going to plant the unplugged sow blue salvia. This is a nice petite salvia. When I say it's petite, it's petite compared to the Rockin' series. And so, it'll be in that max two foot. Very much reminds you of Rockin' playing the blues, but in a smaller version. So, we're going to add that. And then in front, we're going to add the pinkerific dahlias. They are just doing great. I have an abundance of them. I just thought they would be gorgeous. Imagine, like, see all that together. Those roses. All this will be absolutely spectacular. So, next door here at the at the little garden shed, we have... I have an atlas rose in a container. This has been in this container for a couple of years. Again, I need to come through. I need a dead head. It's all right, y'all. There is beauty in the messes as well. So, I love this one. It is gorgeous. It smells like a rose. I think roses should smell like roses. If I'm going to go to the trouble of having roses in my garden, I want them to have a fragrance. Love this one from our friends at Proven Winters. It does a great job. Now, what I did over here, you may remember the saga of these urns. They used to be in the cottage garden. When we redesigned it, we moved them. Still don't really know what we're going to do with them. They're hanging out here. This is not their final home, but I was like, heck, while they're here, I am going to use them. Y'all, this is the new Fairy Trail Fresco Hydrangea from Proven Winters. Look at the color, my friend. This is brand new this year. Of course, the Fairy Trails are more of that trailing hydrangea. Fresco is going to be the first that has the colors to it. It is pH dependent. So, whether you're going to be more acidic and you have those blues, they have a nice kind of buttery yellow in there. Gorgeous. These were quartz. So, if you order from Creekside Nursery and you order this, this is what you can expect. I literally went up and got some quartz, planted them in these urns two weeks ago, and this is what it looks like. So, just so you know, you absolutely can get a hydrangea. You can put it in a container because, again, I don't know where their final home is going to be. So, this is their temporary home. They should be able to last throughout this summer. Again, not a huge amount of soil in these containers, but as long as I keep them watered, they will be fine. And then this fall, I can go ahead and plant them. But, oh my gosh, I absolutely am in love with this hydrangea. So far, so good. Everything here is filling in quite nicely. All right. So, let's move around. Oh, let's go this way because I haven't shown you this. Remember, gosh, this was back in the fall sometime, and I planted this little area. So, these are tea olives, Sweet Osmanthus. We call them tea olives. Some people call them sweet olives. It just depends on where you are, still what you call it. It is definitely a southern shrub. It is a shrub. It'll look like a big, tall, upright, narrow tree. It is evergreen. They flower. They smell divine. Love them. Great privacy screen. So, behind them, I wanted to add some interest. So, I added some of my favorite perennials. So, here we have, in the back, this is Ascot Rainbow. And Ascot Rainbow, y'all, I love this perennial. It is, quote, in flower right now. The flowers, yeah, not really spectacular. You know, not that quite that big of a deal. They are petite. So, what I need to do is about that time to come in, and I can cut the blooms off, like right here. And then you have this beautiful, variegated foliage. It does have a fragrance to it. It's kind of a musky smell. So, it depends on what your sniffer prefers. I happen to love it because it's very, like, earthy, and I enjoy it. Somebody else was like, oh, my gosh, it stinks. So, you know, the smell is in the beholder of the nose. And then I came down and put the Candy Tuft. The Candy Tuft is on the end of its bloom cycle, but it is doing really well. Lovely in here. This will fill in. These were very kind of small, pathetic little plants, if truth be told, when I planted them. They are doing great, but I do love this layered look. And again, this is all just going to continue to grow and fill in as time passes. I have told you many times that I battle walnuts. My parents have a whole field of walnut trees, and every year the daggum squirrels bring these walnuts and bury them. They forget where they are. They don't eat them. And then I have walnut trees sprouting up in the middle of plants. So, the thing with the walnut trees is they have very deep roots. And if you were just to cut it off or try to pull it and it snaps, it's going to come back and be multi-stemmed. So, you have to get the entire nut, root, everything. And so, oh, I battle these all the time. All right, coming through the backyard. Let's just take a moment and look. Oh, glorious. Let's start where the sun is because that's going to be the warmest spot. The backyard beds, we have been here several times this year already. The annuals are filling in. This is the Supertunia Mini Vista Plum Vane. And then we have the Unplugged White Salvia here in the back. They are all coming along quite nicely. Double Play Doozy Spireas. We moved those. They're loving their new home and doing really well in here as well. Yeah, we also moved, remember, the Poet's Wife, another David Alston Rose. So, they were up by the fountain. Moved these three back here again to form a hedge. Y'all, I could not be happier, more pleased with how well they are doing. I've got my, one of my first blooms, a very soft, pale yellow. Look at that. Doing great. Love it. Got buds all over the place. I have my friendly little ladybug. She's eating some aphids because, yes, the roses have some aphids on them. That's all right. Even David Alston's is like, y'all, don't worry about the aphids. They're not going to hurt the roses. It's all right. But they're doing really well, covered in buds. And then this one, of course, look, just lovely. Tons of buds all over them. Very happy with, wow, how they are doing. And then the peonies back here are doing quite nicely as well. They are on their end of their bloom cycle. And this was, these are all Ito peonies. So, this was Scarlet Heaven, Julia Rose, and then Bartzella. Bartzella is that gorgeous yellow. Y'all, look how massive this thing is. It's about as big as my head. It is huge. These plants, it has been a very good peony year. And so, I am loving that. Now, in this bed, I do not know why, but it's going to drive me insane. This is one that I'm going to have to absolutely battle. People will ask me, well, how do you keep your beds free from weeds? Well, if you see a weed, you pull a weed, right? In this bed, I don't know why, but I have got this infestation of briars. They are coming. They are everywhere. They literally are all through this bed. And they're thorny, and they're pokey, and they are a pain in the rear. So, they're here, like you can see them. They're here, like literally all throughout the bed. And if you, all down through here, they were all up there, literally everywhere. So, what I'm going to do is, I'm honestly, I am going to find an herbicide, and I'm going to paint them, because I'm probably going to cut them. I might use my brush and stump killer, where you cut it and then you paint it. I'm not going to spray the whole bed. I'm not going to do that. I am simply targeting the thorns, that if I don't get them now, they will literally overtake this entire flower bed. So, if you can find them while they're young, get them while they're young, and eliminate them. I've been pulling. It hasn't been working. So, we are going to, we're going to nuke them and get them out of here, but in a very responsible way. Yes, so everything, like look at that, just glorious, beautiful. Now, the double-play doozies are also here on this bed. They are about to explode in full bloom. You definitely want to prune your spireas. They have doubled since I pruned them. They are very happy. These are mature plants, but your double-play doozy spireas, they are sterile. They produce these gorgeous raspberry blooms on them. They will rebloom because they are sterile. So, they think they're supposed to keep producing so they can produce seeds, and they just keep producing flowers, but all of these are buds. They're going to be glorious. Mini Vista White down here doing really well, and then behind those are the Incrediballs, and y'all, the Incrediballs are incredible right now. They are covered in buds. It is going to be a beautiful hydrangea season here with these Incrediballs. Let me show you an up-close of what is going on. Look at all of these blooms. It is going to be spectacular. So, the idea is that when we are sitting on the patio, to kind of give you the perspective from this perspective, yeah, so we have a hedge right here of those hydrangeas in full bloom, and no, we don't mind one bit that it kind of blocks from this perspective when you're down low on the patio that this gives like a wall. That is what we wanted because we literally built our house 20 years ago in the middle of a field, like wide open field. There was not a tree. There was not a structure. There was nothing, and so over the past 21 years, we've tried to create areas where we feel more nooked in, intimate, private, not so exposed. Not that we have neighbors. The woods are our neighbors, so it's not that kind of an issue, but just so you just feel a little bit more snugged in and homey. So, this is part of that way that we do that. Now, when you're up on the front on the back porch or you're in the house, you absolutely can see completely over. It is fine, and credit balls do great. This is full sun. They are on drip irrigation. We run that irrigation again once a day in the heat of the summer for maybe 10-15 minutes, and that is it, but yes, full sun. Again, early in the morning, the sun's coming up. They're getting ready to be exposed. So, yeah, they're doing quite well. The Supertunia Mini Vista Whites. I continue that. Look how they have filled in here underneath the lantern. They are just doing exactly what I wanted them to do. I have not used any water-soluble fertilizer yet. That's that great thing. Use good soil. Remember, we use that Ultra Outdoor Planting Mix, and man, they are loving life. Remember, we're talking about the Boom Chocolata Geranium. Well, here is a classic, probably the most classic geranium. This is Roseanne, and Roseanne has, you can see, completely different than Boom Chocolata. Nice green foliage. Nice, really pretty purple, blue, whatever color you want to call that, and we'll have that trailing habit. So, she's going up, and then I will have to trim her here probably in a couple of weeks because she will come this way and kind of really fill in this area right here along the edge. Now, those of you that have been following us, you know last year we had bunnies for the first time in the garden, and they loved this area, and they were eating plants, and I battled the bunnies, and I thought, oh, maybe they won't come back this year. We were sitting on the patio, and a teenager ran from the lanterns into the forest pansy bed. I was like, dang it, the bunnies are back, and of course the dog. Does the dog go after the rabbits? No, she just sat there, just watched them. I'm like, at least scare him. I'm not asking you to go eat him. I'm just asking you to scare him so he goes somewhere else. So, the bunny saga continues for this year. All right, Rose is here. Let's look at this. Elizabeth, oh my goodness. This is one of the newest ones from David Alston. Elizabeth is glorious. She is beautiful. She got moved. She was in a container, so she got transplanted this year. Doing great. The clematis, oh my gosh, it's going to be a beautiful year. This is Purnell, I believe. Brushwood Nursery, great place to get clematis. All three of these are the exact same. Bring that continuity in. The trellises came from Gardener Supply, so you can order those. Gertrude Jekyll, she's about done, y'all. She's been beautiful. Again, need to come in. Need to deadhead her, and then Scepter Isle is doing, Scepter Isle, whatever, I don't know, anyway, whatever you say, is she too is doing really, really well. And then, remember we're talking about the walnut trees? Yep, there we go. Walnut tree right here. So, we'll take care of that one for sure. Now, remember a couple of weeks ago, we were at the garden center, and we planted up the green stalk vertical planter, and I said I have one that I'm going to use on the backyard, the back porch for herbs. Well, a couple of Sundays ago, one afternoon, I put them together, put it together, and here you go. So, this is the five-tier, and I wanted to do herbs in here. So, I did a mixture of, this is a mazel basil. So, I got that from the nursery, right? So, I just planted it in there. So, mazel basil. We'll see if she can handle... mazel basil does get big, so we'll see how that works out. I love mint, but I didn't have any mint seeds, so I just went to the grocery store. Our grocery store will sell in the produce section, like little potted herbs. So, this was organic mint. I love putting mint in my water in the summertime, so I have three of those. And then, I've got, we've got chives, we've got thyme, we've got oregano, and then we have got parsley down here. So, everybody has sprouted. I used the Ultra Outdoor Planting Mix in the bottoms of the container, and then the top, I don't know, fourth, maybe, if even that, I used the Black Gold Seedling Mix. I used the Black Gold, the Ultra Outdoor Planting Mix, and then, of course, the Seedling Mix because those are all listed OMRI certified organic. And so, because these are herbs, we're going to be eating them. I want it certified organic. So, that's why all the soil in here is certified organic, and man, they are doing great. I think one of the keys to success for those seeds germinating is that I used the seed covers from Greenstalk. So, I left, I took off some of them last night and then left some of them on, but this is on one of those little, the little spinners. And so, these little covers, they just snap on. And so, you can see that my parsley is right there, but what this does is it helps protect the wind from drying it out, retains a little bit of the heat. I mean, my gosh, they germinated really, really well. You can see the chives poking up in there. So, that was really fun. And again, these will fit any of the Greenstalk planters. So, they were a great addition. I do have a couple of holes where I don't have anything. So, I was kind of saving some spots. I don't have sage. So, if I can find some sage plants, I might go ahead and put some sage in there as well. So, really happy with that. Again, has literally just sat here for the last two weeks. Give it a little spritz of water. Germinated like crazy. All right, let's move to the backyard really quick. The sun is coming up. Oh my gosh, I almost forgot to tell you. Okay, so, we have, Jerry and I have a standing date night on Thursday nights, right? So, very low-key. Maybe we'll go to our local restaurant that we love, but it's a very low-key, right? This is nothing fancy. This is just a time for he and I to get together. Kids do their own thing. It's just our standing thing. We've done date night for, oh my gosh, the last, I don't know, 10 years on Thursday night. So, we had dinner out here last night. We grilled some steaks. It was beautiful. We sat out here. I was walking in and guess what? It's the first one of the season. I'm so excited. Look. Look what that is. Now, she's not beautiful, but my gosh, you know what this is? It's a gardenia bloom. It is the first gardenia bloom of the season. If you know me, you know that gardenias are my absolute favorite flower. They smell divine. This is Diamond Spire from Southern Living. Covered in buds. I was walking by. I saw this sweet thing blooming, and it stopped me in my tracks. So excited. They smell amazing. I love gardenias. So, to see that, I was a very, very happy gardener. All right. Not only has it been a glorious rose season, it has been a glorious peony season. I mean, y'all, the peonies this year have absolutely blown me away. I don't think it's anything that I'm doing because I've talked to other gardeners, and they're like, yes, my peonies are gorgeous. Maybe it was because we had a colder winter than we typically do. I don't know, but I don't care. I'm just going to take it and enjoy it. So, here in this backyard bed, I have, and we're going to battle the sun now, I have, there's multiple different types of peonies, but they're planted several times, if that makes any kind of sense. So, again, y'all, there's tons of peonies. Find ones that you love, whatever it is. For me, personally, it's like if I can find a peony, I'm sticking it in the garden. But look at these. Look how much they are covered, and I love that they are blooming at different times. The two, I have two of the pure whites that are back here, and for whatever reason, neither one of them were on cages, and so they were very floppy. So, yesterday morning, I came in and basically clear cut the plants. I left those two so that you could see them and just put them in vases in the house, and they're beautiful. So, you have the rich raspberry. You have the beautiful soft pink. Then we've got over here, we come tiptoe through the garden this way. Then you've got one that's kind of that blush cream with pink, all in the same, right? Look at that. Oh, love them. So, y'all, cut them. Enjoy them. This one, absolutely full. The buds, I think this is that pale pink. I mean, fat, fat blooms on them. So, enjoy those peonies. If you can find a peony at your local garden center. These, I actually started from bare roots. I like five years ago, maybe. I ordered the bare roots online, put them up in one gallon, and then overwintered them there, put them in the garden. Here you go. Gardening will teach you patience, that is for sure, but my gosh, y'all, it is absolutely worth it. Now, this is another bed, or the bed that is the biggest mess. Yeah, don't look at that. Weeds, it's all right. Again, you can have absolute gorgeous beauty in the middle of a mess, right? Those beautiful moments in the middle of a mess, not only in your garden, but in life. So, we're going to focus on the beauty, right? So, we have the Julia Child rose. This is a rose standard. Beautiful. Our Emily, this is her rose. She saved it from the garden center. It was quite neglected and pathetic, and it is loving its new life here, surrounded by the peonies that are just spectacular. That's just all I can say. They're spectacular. Fairy Trail Bride. God bless her. She's finally doing something, and doing well, and covered in buds. Again, maybe it was because we had a really cold winter, and then we had a mild spring, but she is doing well, covered in buds. She was being threatened to get moved to the woodland garden, but right now, she's doing great. So, we're going to leave her. Maybe this fall, I will move her, but yeah, she right now is doing great. Again, peony season. Love it. And then, you were with me the other week, when we planted this little nook. We added in those hydrangeas here, because this is about the most sun that this space will get. So, they get enough sun. They are absolutely covered in buds. So, they are just absolutely loaded, and then put Diamond Snow Euphorbia around them to bring that nice pop of white. They will pretty much be in the shade. They'll be in the sun for a couple of hours, and then they get filtered sun. Doing really, really well right here, and I think this is Skyview. Let's Dance Skyview. I'm pretty sure that's Let's Dance Skyview. All the plant names start to run together. Now, moving to the front. We're almost done. This is an area we haven't talked about so far this year. So, yesterday afternoon, Jackson came and helped me, and I got my Double Up Pink Begonias in here. It is not mulched. I'm going to do that today, after I get off the video. We have a new driver in our family. So, Jackson turned 15 this week, and so he got his driver's permit. So, yesterday, he and I had a driving date. So, he helped me get these in the ground, and then we went on a driving date. Went and picked up a milkshake, and then drove around so he could get some time in on the road, and I didn't have time to put the mulch down. So, I'm going to do that today. I'll use that Daddy Pete, that soil enhancer, the aged pine bark that's used everywhere else. So, we'll do that. I trimmed my tea olives. These are the ones that are just so happy and do so well here. Y'all, I just shape them up, right? Clean them up, and I did use my hand pruners with them instead of the hedge trimmers because I didn't want them to have a bunch of cut leaves that would turn brown. And so, yeah. So, everybody here is doing well. The bunnies do not like wax begonias. So, if you have a rabbit problem, wax begonias, like your Surefires, your Double Ups, these will be great for you. I leave a little path right here because I have a hose reel back here, so that way I can walk here. I did go ahead and get my hanging baskets planted. I did that last week, and so what we have in here is, it's obviously going to be hard for me to show you because I'm short and they're tall, but we have the new Surefire Cascade begonia from Proven Winners. We're going to try that out. There are three of those in there with two Diamond Frost in the middle. If you know these baskets, they are massive. They're 24 inches across, again, from Kinsman Garden Company, and they will fill in and be massive and be gorgeous. So, I have high hopes for these new Surefire Cascades that will be released next year in 2026. And then, I went ahead and did our urns. Also, my faithful viewers, do you recognize, can we just stop for a moment and appreciate the welcome mat? Yes, the pumpkin mat is gone. We now have just a great, beautiful welcome mat. So, I had my pumpkin mat from the fall all the way up until, like, two weeks ago. So, you know, there's grace in gardening, my friends, and there's also grace in home decoration. So, in the urns, I have, keeping it simple, basically this is a full shade area, but it does get some hot, intense afternoon sun. So, Dichondrosilver Falls to spill over, Diamond Snow, nice big pops of white, and then the Caladiums. Caladiums do really well, of course, here in the South. This is the White Star. So, White Star has beautiful white, but it will also have some pink and red in there, which, of course, goes quite lovely with my red door. So, these are planted. These are not on irrigation, so I have to hand water them, but because these are the Spanish Urns, these have tons of soil. So, that does help as far as that goes. All right, the last flower bed that we're going to focus on. An update on the driveway bed. You know, I did that expansive where we did the double up pinks, the Diamond Frost, and then the Sun Patients. They are doing well. They're hanging in there. They actually went through a light frost right after I planted them. It was great. One column for a frost, but the frost came. So, they have just a little bit of burn on them. So, if you can see right here, this was that frost damage. I'm not worried about it. They will grow out of it. The Diamond Frost were looking a little brown, I guess yellow, but they're coming out of it, too. So, the Begonias will come out of it, as well. So, that I didn't lose any of them. I was very happy with that. And then, yeah. So, this again, this is a shade bed, but it gets morning sun. Everybody is doing really, really well here. Filling in quite nicely. We've been here a million times. I'll link the video where I did the planters here. My Sun Kings, they're coming alive, my friends. They're getting ready to overtake the garden. They grow super fast. That is why I did the Selenia Apricots to have that mounded habit. No trailing, because these Sun Kings will get up tall, and you'll only see the top of that planter. So, they're doing well. All the Hostas loving life. The hay rack that we did with the, this is the Double Delight Blush Rose Begonia. Look at that. Gorgeous. Keeping it simple. We did the Begonias and Diamond Frost, and that is it. Zebra Hydrangea is got buds all over her, so she'll be beautiful. And then, the wall hanging that we did is doing quite nicely as well. Still, same Begonia. We did the new Sweet Potato Vine from Proven Winners. This will be out in 2026. An Angel Wing Begonia and Diamond Frost. Here we have, this is Paisley Pup, which is a great shade loving shrub. It is very happy in this container. You can see all of this beautiful new growth on it. Was watering it yesterday. A sweet little bird, probably a wren, flew out. We have got a bird nest in here with eggs, so I will water this very carefully from the side so that it does not disturb mama. And then, I have a hanging basket here that I have not hung up yet, because I need to put the hanger up before I can hang this. But y'all, again, Selenias. This is that Selenia Red Scarlet. I don't know what it's called. Anyway, there's four of them with a Diamond Frost. Oh, this is going to go to the chicken coop, because I'm going with the red at the chicken coop. So, everything is doing quite lovely here. The Cottage Garden has not been planted yet. Princess Anne is doing gorgeous. The Baptises are kind of done, but Princess Anne, she is still going strong. The Pentstemons are going strong. So, everybody is doing great. The Bubblegums up there. So, I'm going to come in here and put probably a couple more perennials in here. Of course, loads of beautiful annuals. So, this will be a mass of color. And the other Pentstemons started blooming. One of them is pink and one of them is rose. I think this might be the rose. This is going to be absolutely gorgeous. And then, Tina's Foxgloves. Tina, look at them. Aren't they beautiful? They are happy, happy, happy and doing just lovely in here with a peony as well. So, let me grab the dog right quick. So, there you go. There is a real-life garden tour of what a garden in North Carolina Zone 8A looks like in early May. Now, I've said this multiple times. I'm going to say it again, y'all. We do these tours. We do these videos because we want to inspire you. We want you to see what some of the possibilities are out there. We want to inform you, educate you, right? So, maybe you don't know about Selenia begonias and you're like, oh my gosh, I love that. And you think, I'm going to put it in the landscape, but I have thick clay. I'm here to tell you, I've done it. I killed it. Don't do it. I hope you learn from my mistakes and put it in a container and then enjoy it. And then, of course, to be fun. We are real-life gardeners here, y'all. The vast majority of these gardens, especially here at the house, I'm maintaining myself, right? Yes, we have amazing staff, but they're busy running the garden center and the online store and shipping and growing and everything. So, here at the house, predominantly, I'm it. I'm a one-woman show. Somebody made a comment the other day and they were like, you know, your gardens are just, they're not very realistic to everybody. This is a, this would be a full-time job. Yeah, it is. It is a full-time job and this is my job, right? So, I'm doing five videos a week. I'm in the garden or at the garden center six days a week. It is a full-time job, but that I'm blessed that this is my job, right? So, I never, ever, ever want to do these videos to make myself elevated or puffed up or to think, oh, look at my gardens. Not at all. This is just from one friend to another friend showing you what's happening in our lives. And yes, this is my job. We do these five videos a week. I got to have content to be able to do five videos, right? And so, we're always dreaming and thinking of new projects, adding more plants, and so that's why we do it, to inform and educate you, to inspire you, and of course, to have fun. I'm going to see the weeds and all. You're going to see the messes and you're going to see the successes because that's one thing that I can't stand about social media is that it portrays that everybody's life is absolutely perfect. Their gardens are perfect. Everything is wonderful. And then, for me personally, I will look at that and be like, well, what's wrong with me? Why can't I do X, Y, and Z? Well, that's not real life, y'all. That's just a snapshot in time. So, I'm here to just keep it real with you, my friends. We love you. We adore you. We so appreciate all of your support that you have given us over all of these years from the people who supported us when we were at the first at the farmer's market, when my babies were little, all the way through up now. We so appreciate you. So, again, we hope you found this fun, informative, inspirational. If you would like and subscribe, that would be great. So, that way you don't miss these five videos that we do each and every week. And, yeah. So, y'all have an amazing day. Get out there in your gardens. I had somebody in Maine. They're like, spring is... the temperatures are finally turning. So, welcome to all the other people in Maine, Michigan, wherever you may be that has been cold and you've just been like, oh, come on spring. It's coming. It's almost here for good. So, y'all enjoy it. Have fun in your gardens. We'll see you in the next video. Bye, friends.