Late August Garden Tour: What’s Thriving in the Summer Heat #gardentour

Hi there, thank you for joining me today in my garden. It's the end of August and I just wanted to do a walk around just to see what is still looking good in my garden at the end of the summer. I've definitely noticed a difference in our temperatures. We're cooling down at night and in the morning it's quite cool also and our temperatures have still been in the mid 20s and today's pretty warm about 28 degrees today. I'm in Toronto, zone 6A and thanks for joining me as we take a walk around the garden today. So I've been getting a lot of work done this past season. The gardens were part of the mess. I still have a lot of odds and ends that I need to clean up but I have a lot more work to do this week. So one thing that I did that I'm still happy with is I moved my double arch topiary from its planter and I planted it in the ground. I was just looking at this area and just felt that I needed a little bit more height and weight in the garden in this corner so I added a double wall. I purchased an emerald green arborvitae for about $10 from my local big box store and I decided that this would look good as a double topiary. We'll still have some time to go to get some more shaping and get a little thicker but I'm really liking how it is in this garden now. So this side is green and in front I have some left hand cerebellum. It's still creating some new blooms in addition to the color change of the old blooms. If you take a look here you can see some new blooms compared to an older bloom. Now in this section I made some changes. On the right you see here I have a lollipop dwarf albertus spruce topiary. That's what I replaced the double wall topiary with and I had this dwarf albertus spruce topiary on the right side of my patio. Let's take a look at some more containers that I have. Some containers on this side. As the summer is coming to an end you definitely see things are getting a little wavy. Right here I have a tater tot that I'm trying to incorporate. It had a lot of burn last year when I had it overwintering in the planter. It was there for a few years but then it's because of how wet the winter was it died out of it. So I just have it in a pot and this is fiducia hosta. This is a flowerful hydrangea that has some ferns. The only thing that I can do is add a rebig giddy hydrangea. So I've been looking for another rebig giddy but I haven't found one at the end of the season so I'll probably have to wait until next year to get another one. This is a bobo hydrangea and behind it is my, it's a tree puny. This is a blue arrow, I think it's a blue arrow bumacare. So this is a limelight prime hydrangea. It's quite floppy this year so next year I'm going to do a better job of trimming it up for the season. I have an Eden climbing rose on here. It died all the way back to the ground this spring so it bloomed a little bit early on. I have to come and tie back these new canes. I just use a soft tweed tie. I'm going to do that when I come back up later. So here are some planters that I just have on this side of my patio. This is a bubble ball topiary. I recently moved it into a new planter because this is a planter that I'd like it to be in for next season and since we're at the end of August it's a good time for me to make those kind of changes. This is an eagle pine. When I purchased it I noticed it just had one stem so I thought it would be an ideal candidate to try and train it into a topiary form. So I just trimmed any of these stems that were lower on the stem here and just trimmed it up. So we'll see how that goes. This is on three so I can leave it in the and I'm looking forward to see how this goes next season. Now we're going to take a look at my arbor garden bed. So in this bed I have the two WRs. The one on the right I purchased this season and planted it in the ground and the one on the left I have planted last season. To the exterior of this garden bed these are Danica arborvitae and in the center are little hotties and at the entrance of my pathway I have two lollipop topiaries. So this side of my arbor bed matches the other side. I have two little hotties and it's also underplanted with Danica arbs. Now for whatever reason these two little hotties every year they grow so much bigger than the little hotties on the right. They were all planted at the same time but these ones I guess were just overachievers. Now here's a look at my little lime plant and you can see in the distance the limelight prime. And here's in the shot you can see the difference in the pink of the little hottie, the little lime punch and the limelight prime. This is an Isinkin doll hydrangea. It's so beautiful. I love, I really love how intense the pink of this hydrangea is. And in front of this bed I have some, I have a Helen Lonsdine. This is another Bobo hydrangea. I wasn't too sure but I do think it's a Bobo hydrangea. I also have some carrots. I'm not sure the name of them. I'll put the name on the screen because I can't remember the name of it. I also have a Campanula. This is so pretty. It's a white with blue on the edge. And I also have a bloomed flower. This is so pretty. This Veronica has bloomed multiple times for me this season and I really love the fact that it's always in and out of bloom. So I just usually give it a trim back and then it'll usually bloom for me at least two to three times this season. This Nepeta is the new Lemon Perfection. So far so good. Like it's been, I have three planted here and they seem to be doing well. They're re-blooming and I like the chartreuse color. Pearl Jade is my favorite scenum. I have another on the other side of the garden that I'll show you when we get over there. Now I planted these Cosmos before I planted these new Lollipop Tilbury so they're a little bit close but I'm glad that I have at least a few Cosmo plants that survived their planting this spring. This is a Huckster White, Butterfly Bush. I planted this last fall. So it's still a little bit small but it is blooming and has a few more things. Take another look at some of my hydrangeas. This is a Strawberry Sunday hydrangea. Here's my Tinky Winky. This is why you should never have too many hydrangeas because they're all so different. Like there's different panicle shapes, the blooms, the color, what they turn to fall. That's no excuse for buying all the hydrangeas. They all look different and this is a little one. You can see they're still, this is a fresher bloom. And here are some blooms that are already turning pink. This is a Diamond Rouge. Now this bed is where I usually plant, I'm not the best veggie gardener but in this bed I have oregano, thyme, my little strawberry plants. I planted some beans. These are just a bush green and this is the bed where I plant my garlic in the fall. So I've recently added some pop it up with some compost to get ready for planting garlic this fall. So this side of my hillside garden is where I kind of sit in during my time to do a little bit of a rehab for my shrubs. I just give them a little bit of a rehab. This is a quickfire fad. This is the first time I've had blooms on this hydrangea. It's been in the garden for three years but it bloomed a lot this season and I like how soft pink is turning this late part of the summer. This is one of the earliest panicle hydrangeas to bloom for me this year. The quickfire fad and the little quickfire. The little quickfire started the earliest and then next the panicle towards the quickfire fad. So this is the this sedum is the back and black sedum. I haven't had the best luck with the sedum. It never gives that dark black green and I don't know like I've left it there for a few years. I've had it for a while actually. The last few years I moved it to this location just because it would be better because it's a slope and I don't really water this area too much. Like I typically water every other day and I kind of avoid the sedum to see if that's the issue but it's just not doing well. This is another proven winner sedum. I can't remember in the name. I'll pop it up on the screen but it does really well. The leaf color. I have another one. I think it's this one. Yeah you see these are the same varieties and I have no issues with it. So I think what I'll do. I think the last option. This is the bed where I could usually have all of my angles I grow from seed but I think I'm going to move the sedum, the black and black sedum to this bed at the end of the season and see if it'll do better because it's just I'm not sure. I don't want to get rid of it because I don't love sedums but I'm going to put it in a different location and see if it'll do better. Now let's take a look at my hillside garden. This bed is a work in progress but there's some things that are looking really good this time of year that I wanted to show you. So here are my sedums. I can't remember the name of these ones but they are starting to turn their pink color. I also have some palm flowers. These are white ones for Danica. In the front I have Danica art. They're supposed to stay small two to three feet. Two to three feet on one, I believe. Here's my calamansi. That's where all of the calamansi are. Also in this bed I have some oakleaf hydrangea. I have a limelight that's in the corner as well as a dash of pink. Back off this garden I added some evergreen. This hillside garden is a work in progress so I'm going to continue to work on it for the remaining of the season as well as next year. This is a bean chocolata geranium. I decided I had to start faster. I can't remember the name of this. I'll put it on the screen. This is the primo arbovita I had previously in a planter. I recently moved it out into the garden. This is zone 4. I am zone 6a but I only have one of this shrub and I don't want to lose it in case it doesn't open winter so I have planted it in the garden bed. I had purchased two of the rewhite 2.0 so I planted the second one right there. In the middle is a tiny tufta, a brunnera, and this is the etch glass. These heucheras are dressed up prom dress. This is my shade garden. Let me go this way. Drunkard hydrangea, starlight pivot. This is a proven winner longwort. It's not the pink or blue. I'll put on the screen what this one is. There's a west dance level ball. You can see it has a new, it's got a new bloom. This is the new tufta. I'll put the name on the screen. And here I have some more hydrangeas. Here's another starlight pivot. This one is the pink or blue longwort. This is the stonehenge dark pivot. I think that's the right name. I'll put on the screen if it's not the correct name. So this is my shade garden bed. In the back I have some off-white hues. Also I have some two more faux arborvitae. This is another bed that I've been working on and I'm going to do some work on it for next season. So this is the other quail jay sedum that I was talking about. It's so pretty. This is an original tufta. This is a look at my little lime. Now these are supposed to be, I think, either four, four feet tall and wide, maybe five feet tall and wide. So it's a little bit bigger than that. And when I purchased this oak leaf, I was told it was three feet by three feet. It's definitely not. That's why I put it in the front of the garden bed because I thought it would be three feet by three feet. Behind it is my little quickfire. Beautiful pink leaves. And this is an incredible hydrangea. Thank you for taking a walk with me in my back garden at the end of August. Let me know in the comments how your gardens are doing this late in the summer season. If you have any favorite plants or suggestions. Thanks for joining me. See you next time. Bye.