🌸 Proven Winners Perennial Garden Tour | August 2025 🌸

It's August and what does that mean? It's time to get out your garden journal. Hi, I'm Heidi from Garden Crossings and tonight we're going to walk through the Proven Winter Gardens and show you what's blooming in August. For those of you who have just started to watch, I've gone through these gardens since April showing what's blooming. So if you're looking to create a garden that always has something in bloom, you can reference those videos and we'll put links to them below as well so that you can create just that perfect garden with always having something in color. So let's go ahead and walk through these gorgeous gardens full of proven winter perennials tonight. We've got two giant garden beds that we're going to be walking through tonight so make sure to have those journals ready along with a pen. I'm going to mention the plant name and if you want more information you can head to our website gardencrossings.com where you can get all the details. Obviously I'm doing a lot of these plants from memory. There's over 200 varieties in this bed and I don't have all the details saved up in my head, believe me. There's resources for that and that would be our website. But we're going to try to find the names of the plant that are in bloom in this garden. There's a lot of plant tags so I'm going to use these as visual cues as well if I'm not sure what the plant's name is. That way you'll know what those varieties are. So let's go ahead start taking a walk through this garden here. It's nighttime after supper right now and I think it's a beautiful time to be heading out to the garden. We're going to start off right there front and center that gorgeous pink tall fox. It's called prismic pink. It's got large clusters of pink blooms and is really just putting on a great late summer show of color. There's going to be a lot of hardy hibiscus in bloom right now as well so we're going to try to look for tags so we get the right names with the right plants. I can tell you the one there off in the distance is lilac crush. Gorgeous, I'm going to say lilac pink blooms with the green foliage. What we're going to see in today's garden is going to also have the dark foliage on the hardy hibiscus so you're in for a real treat and with lots of different hibiscus to be looking at. Here we have candy crush with its gorgeous pink blooms. It's got that green foliage as well. A little bit more compact in its habit. Heliopsis, this one here. I do not see the tag on. I believe it's a touch of blush of gorgeous yellow blooms. The thing I like with heliopsis is that it's a long blooming perennial. It is not deer and rabbit resistant but it is really gorgeous for those areas of the garden or for those of you who are gardening maybe in a very drought prone space. These are very drought tolerant plants. Phlox cloudburst is still putting on a little bit of a re-bloom right now. This was probably blooming in our June tour and it's still giving a little bit of color. We've been doing these every month so you can reference some of those older videos to see what was blooming earlier in the season. In the back there that dark foliage plant is the holy grail hibiscus with its deep rich red blooms. Nifofia is also going to be a predominant plant in several areas of this garden and this is flashpoint with its gorgeous tall yellow kind of a creamy yellow spike. You can see there's a lot more spikes down there as well. Now this is a great plant for drought prone areas as well and I do want to say with a disclaimer these plants do have to get established before you just let them go and say hey you're going to make it. You got to get them established before they are drought tolerant. The gorgeous grass you're seeing there in front of us is the totem pole grass panicum totem pole. I love its columnar upright habit. This is of two of them you're seeing there so it doesn't take up a lot of space but really does get some great height into the garden. Another hibiscus here oh boy this one the tag's probably on the other side so we'll have to see when we're coming around. I believe this one is cherry chocolate with its more olive green foliage and then the nice pink light pink white blooms with that heavily veined eye going almost out to the edges of each of those petals. The nepeta is putting out a little bit more bloom this is cat's meow you can see kind of all the old spent blooms but it's put on a bunch of new growth and it's getting ready to flower again. Another hibiscus here we'll try to figure out which one this is and pop the name up on the screen because I don't want to lead you astray but this one's got pretty bright green foliage with a nice bright red bloom. Some proscia russian sage we've got the denim and lace another great drought tolerant plant that puts up these gorgeous purple spikes in mid to late summer. More heliopsis there this is the tuscan sun again it's beautiful yellow blooms a long blooming perennial. We've got the berry awesome party hibiscus which features more of a dusty pink color flower with nice olive green foliage. Spinderella again green foliage with its pink and white blooms they have kind of a spinning look to them as the name implies spinderella. For those of you who've been watching the Stand Me Clematis in every video every month they have been blooming and this video in August is no exception. There's a lot of flower or seed heads on the plant right now but you can also see there still is a lot of blooms. I think even these seed heads now that a lot of the flowers have faded do add some pretty fun interest to this garden or to this plant as well. We've got a few cone flowers blooming in the center of the screen there yellow my darling I think is the yellow that we're seeing. Here's the hibiscus french vanilla not blooming but look at this they are just loaded with buds waiting to bloom. One thing I do want to point out and this is a good plant to show you it on is the summerific hibiscus our indeterminate bloomers and basically what that means is they've got buds at the tip but they've got buds going all the way down the stem and basically what that means for you as a gardener is more flowers. The old varieties of these hardy hibiscus all of their blooms were just simply right at the top you didn't get all of these blooms going down the stem so they would bloom and quickly they would be out of flower but this new breeding on the hibiscus has really created a plant that just continues to put out a ton of blooms all let's say late July into August long. Here we have the opening act phlox this is the pinkadot and this one was blooming earlier in the season but you can see how it's doing a pretty nice re-bloom as well. Had they gone through and trimmed this back it would have looked a little bit cleaner but even so I mean look at all those gorgeous flowers right now that are happening. In the center there cute little guy was just recently planted but this is a garnet globe which is going to be a more compact form look at that beautiful red flower so this plant just kind of ignore the habit of it right now because it was recently planted but look at it more for that flower color. We've got the sunset coral phlox doing a re-bloom this is a gorgeous corally pink and this is part of the luminary series and I just I love that color especially with some of those dark foliage plants that they're paired with. Another hibiscus blooming here we have the valentine with its gorgeous big bright red blooms and how I can tell this one is valentine is it's got the really big blooms but there's kind of a kind of a halo-ish look there in the center of it I don't know it's just it's one I can definitely pick out in a garden as being the summer of a valentine crush. We've got a little bit of the baby's breath or gypsophilia festival star still blooming this is a great cut flower if you're looking for addition baby's breath is always a nice filler with container or cut garden type designs. Silver lining artemisia putting on a little bit of flower there this plant typically is mostly grown for its foliage interest with that beautiful silver serrated edge now these flowers are definitely spent at this point in the season but I would trim them off I don't like the looks of those flowers. We've got some echinacea the fuchsia is bright nice habit a lot of branching a lot of flowers going on there and I'm going to apologize right now because maybe I shouldn't apologize but this is going to be a long video there is a lot to see folks a lot of great things that you do not want to miss so hopefully you have your coffee in hand because there's a lot you're going to see including new introductions. Back there is a french vanilla which is a creamy white hardy hibiscus new introduction is lobelia neon light nice dark foliage with a bright magenta bloom something to look forward to in the next year or two. Heuchera dulce wildberry gorgeous foliage just one of those plants that just always is putting on a beautiful show of color. Tucked in the back we've got a bunch more heliopsis there's tuscan gold there's touch of blush and oh some other new introductions that I'm not seeing the tag on but what's nice with this is you can kind of see three different varieties different flower forms and also different foliage interest. All right some more of the phlox this is the luminary phlox backlight excuse me it's doing its second bloom just starting to do some second blooms on there that's what's nice about so many of these proven winter plants is they bloom and then if you give them a nice trim they'll bloom again. Sedum coral jade just starting to come into its flower color with those little shades of blush hibiscus ballet slippers white blooms are just a kiss of pink. If you're loving all these hibiscus we are going to be putting up another video that is featuring just the hibiscus to do a comparison video of all the colors so that's something to look for as well. Another tall phlox doing its second bloom that's one nice thing is a lot of the phlox in the program do bloom not only once but twice. Amsonia string theory which was a spring bloomer but look at that great foliage color even here later on in the season. Pennisetum puppy love with its chartreuse green foliage and now it's put up its little plumes it just looks so beautiful so soft and airy in this garden right now more heliopsis back there some more sage tucked in the corner that's kind of a great pairing actually the pennisetum puppy love the russian sage the heliopsis and then some daylilies there in the background as well opening act ultra um ultra pink re-blooming got some coneflowers here orange you awesome yellow my darling lakota fire more hibiscus daylily shilampini display which is a nice double daylily got the north polegrass from the back side sedum pure joy that'll be blooming in the next video a little better just starting to show its little pink blooms and that's a nice great ground cover as well here we have nephophia backdraft which i think is one of my favorites in the series it's got that orange and the yellow really beautiful hibiscus edge of night not blooming yet but look at that dark foliage on edge of night lilac crush from the back side we've got some astilbe they're done flowering but look at that great dark foliage all right we are going to head over to the next garden so those of you who are this far we're about halfway through and we're going to try to zip through this side a little bit quicker because there's a lot of mass planting going on over here so a lot of these plants are going to be similar to each other a lot of them have seven plants planted and they do that for trials just so you can get kind of a mass look more of that artemesia silver lining panicum grass cheyenne sky panicum cheyenne sky eucalyptus princess bride i don't show this one very often because i don't often see it in bloom look at that that's a pineapple lily is that not just gorgeous here's a few more i love the looks of that plant there's gonna be a lot of mangaves in this garden as well i'm not gonna stop and talk about them because they're not all labeled and i do not know the my main gavis so i apologize i'll tell you they are mangaves but i don't know which ones they are in the background you'll see some nephophia there's two different varieties here it's also known as red hot pokers and i just i love the the way their spikes add interest into the garden primal scream day lily with its gorgeous orange and extra large big blooms new variety coming out for next year a new nepeta with chartreuse foliage so this is something to look forward to it's not blooming right now but that foliage is still quite pretty treasure trove rebecca excellent habit not seeing any black spot on them a whole bunch more here is that not just a gorgeous habit a little bit taller they're about three foot tall and just loaded with these gorgeous blooms another new variety coming out in the next year or two i'm going to probably say it wrong so i'm just going to show you the tag it's called burgundy buzz it's a new plant variety to me so i don't know how to say it i know people don't get mad when i say things wrong but just a cute little habit those burgundy little flowers on the tip actually looks really pretty with that gold in the background cookies and cream are you getting hungry now here we've got gorgeous hibiscus cookies and cream with that deep dark black foliage and what's special about this plant is it has pure white blooms so this is something unique and you don't see this very often and i believe if it's still true this is the first dark leafed hibiscus with that pure white flower on it and the nice thing is these are compact as well they're only about three foot tall so they didn't and don't get very large in the garden all right what else do we have here oh some new bleeding heart white diamonds a lot like the pink diamonds these bloom all summer long so if you're looking for a long blooming hardworking perennial white diamonds dicentra and yes these do grow in full sun we've got some more pineapple lily here a little bit darker foliage and a darker flower this is the purple rain i'll try to see if we can get the lighting on it so you can see how beautiful that flower is there's another one here those gorgeous purple flower spikes this is actually the first time i've seen this in the gardens at this mature state to see what this plant actually looks like as a really nice mature specimen we've got some sedum in here as well that's really dark gorgeous and i love how that's paired with the silver of the silver lining all right lots to see lots to see folks there's some white gara in the background i'm not sure what the story is on that white gara if that's a new introduction or if they just put that in here this area of the garden has a lot of white and black so they might have just put it in for some airy contrast or who knows maybe it's something we'll see in the future as well we've got some allium bloom in here and this is actually a new allium coming out this is allium all the buzz a little bit smaller flowers in millennium but it's really it's a very nice rich deep purple color more nephophia in the back there this is solar flare nephophia with its gorgeous bright yellow spikes doesn't that look so pretty with the black of the back and black sedum ah that is such a gorgeous look and you've got the black and the yellow and then the background there you've got the rebecca that's yellow that is such a cool look more of the clematis stand by me now these ones here they did not put into a support or a trellis and you can see how they're just kind of meandering on the ground this is a non-clean clematis so it doesn't wrap around its structure so this is one that you would want to plant in a like a trellis type structure or something that can cage it or else it's going to do exactly what we're seeing here and that's just meander on the ground which i think has its own nice look as well in the background there you're seeing lemon jade sedum it's more of a tone on tone it's like a green on green but look at that look how that chartreuse green really pops in this garden i've got some veronica there reblooming or some salvia i'm not even sure what that is doesn't have the tag i think that salvia purple perfusion there actually that's a pretty nice rebloom going on a new yucca coming out dragon slayer that's pretty nice looking so yucca usually send up their flower every other year so if you get a year where you don't get a flower it's probably in the other of the every other year for flowers we've got more of the gorgeous i'll still be here this one is dark side of the moon nice black it's done flowering right now it has nice beautiful purple spikes and you'll see that in the earlier season video but even with those black now the flowers have turned black that too just adds some really cool interest into this garden bed all right i was trying to find the name earlier rocket's red glare that is the red nephophia that we're seeing here with that little bit of yellow i love that we've got sedum yellow brick road blooming right now it's in its prime with its gorgeous yellow blooms i feel like i keep saying gorgeous but it is everything out here is truly that it's gorgeous sedum coral jade we've also got some more of the heuchera here the wild berry uh the wild rose excuse me wild rose heuchera and then in the background here here's another new plant and i don't know the name of this one so something to look forward to probably in the next two years but this will be a new introduction from proven winners it's a lot like that smaller one we saw just a little bit ago but this one's almost three to four foot tall and it's got these burgundy blooms so kind of just one of those plants that you can add into the garden that you know is going to become large uh it's kind of a filler kind of a wispy feel in this garden bed a little bit messy looking um but i'm sure you have that place in your garden where you're just looking for something airy and filling and that would do just that oh man some more beautiful grasses this one is called blue heaven schizokerium blue heaven so another new introduction and at the end here we've got the black and back sedum black and back back in black wow that feels like a tongue twister um with this nice dark foliage color going on as well and then the last plant i want to show you hopefully fingers crossed we'll have some for 2026 is one of my favorite plant varieties which is an alstroemeria and this is the alstroemeria summer break that is absolutely stunning i love alstroemeria because they're a very long blooming flower and are great for cut flowers lasting up to two weeks in a vase thanks for walking through the garden with me this evening um hopefully there are some varieties that you saw in today's video that are something new to you something you haven't seen before we did touch on a lot of new introductions so hopefully things that you can write in your book coming soon um as i mentioned some of those new introductions may be another year or two or even maybe three years out so i can't promise we'll have them next year but something definitely to keep in mind in the coming years if you have any questions or comments on any of the varieties we've seen today please leave them in the comments below and you can head to our website gardencrossings.com if there's anything you're looking for today and want more information on and or want shipped directly to your door if there is a question on any of the plants just leave me the time stamp of where you saw it so i know where to look and i'd be happy to answer those questions as well thanks for watching i'm heidi from garden crossings