I’ve been obsessed with gardening this past spring. I’ve rejuvenated my beds with new flowering plants after we had a really hard freeze that killed off a lot in my garden this winter.
One of the reasons I’ve become so busy outdoors is that I have my new knee that feels stronger and doesn’t give me that stabbing pain it had for years. I’m still tentative and would not even consider kneeling (shudder) but I am capable of doing some work in the garden now and I’ve been loving it.
Garden design is a lot like interior design, combining color, texture, scale and then functionality to create a pleasing, livable space. It is such a nice opportunity to apply the knowledge I have but in a different medium.
Last fall, when I was healing up from my surgeries, I watched a lot of Youtube gardening channels and they really have been inspiring and helpful. I’ve been following gardeners on Instagram and TikTok now too and it is really interesting to see different philosophies and styles of design. (I’m sharing some of my faves at the bottom of this post.)
I tend to like drifts of flowers and plants and I love blooms. I prefer purples, whites, and fuschia pinks, sometimes a hot orange. I don’t really like red in my garden or soft pastels like soft pink, lilac, or butter yellow.
Orange sunpatiens brighten up this curved bed.
So much has to do with climate and sun vs. shade, etc. We have heavy shade here, living in The Woodlands, TX, which isn’t really that conducive to flowers.
I have a weird garden where some parts get mostly shade except at certain times in the hottest part of the afternoon, when everything just cooks! It is a challenge to see what works.
Years ago when I first started planting in this garden, our trees weren’t quite so big and there was more sun. The big trees we have also have big root systems, so planting in these beds means planting in between roots that thwart your underplanting.
It is a challenge, for sure. I wanted an overcrowded flower patch in my front bed (it does get more sun than most of my garden), but it is struggling, competing with tree roots and getting enough sun.
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Early spring front azalea garden - My azaleas that we planted about 20 years ago looked amazing this year. The ginger in the foreground here….is struggling. :-(
Years ago, I planted a few purple hearts in my front bed and it grew to be a huge, tall spreading mass. So pretty!
They froze back and died completely with the hard freezes we’ve had in the last few years. I replanted this spring and it is just disappointing to see such slow growth with not much spreading. I’ve been fertilizing too, but it seems they don’t like this spot anymore or something. (I wish plants could talk and tell you what is wrong with them!)
May 2024 - The purple heart is just not spreading and growing like it did in past years in this location. I love its color with chartreuse green plants.
I have grown your average zinnias before and had a lot of success, but this year I ordered a special variety that grows shorter and bushier, as I didn’t want the 4’ tall plants at the front of my garden. These are a really pretty flower too, a light creamy white with bright pink center. I thought they’d be showy in the very front area of my bed.
I germinated these from seed starting in March and these are still baby plants! Most of them didn’t even germinate. I know special varieties are harder to grow and I don’t really have a good place for seed starting, but it is frustrating.
My tiny zinnias in the spring that germinated. I only had seven out of about 25 that came up.
We’re down to 6 zinnias now, and these are the scrawniest I’ve ever grown. :-(
I wanted more cut flowers in this front bed, but I’m giving up for this year and I’m about to plant more vinca and sunpatiens because they are more of a sure thing. I’m tired of seeing the slugs and crawlers chew my leaves too, like on my Celosia. :-(
I have spread some Bug and Slug to get after the crawlers that are eating my celosia. I hope these come back as they are such interesting cut flowers!
I have planted a few plants I’ve never planted before, this year. I saw hellebores at Home Depot this spring and came home with a bunch. Only the three I put in the front bed thrived, the ones I put in the back were in a location that got too much water and they rotted.
I also planted lisianthus this year, a flower I don’t really like that much as a cut flower, but it is holding its own and I love the deep purple color. It really needs more sun than it is getting, but it does get the horrible late afternoon hot direct sun, so I’m hoping that will be enough but not too much.
One bit of pride I have are my caladiums in the back by the fence. I ordered these bulbs from Classic Caladiums and they all came up beautifully. Caladiums love heat and humidity, so they are perfect for our area. I wanted something white by the back of the yard to add some brightness and draw your eye. They will continue to grow and fill out here. I think they look nice with the Mexican heather in front there.
We planted these red tip photinia shrubs here about 2 years ago, the 3 on the right are growing much better than the two on the left. I thought it was the amount of sun they were getting, but not sure. We have three of these on the side of our house that we planted about 15 years ago and they are literally 20’ tall. They’re in a somewhat shady area between houses, so I am hoping they will do the same back here eventually.
We orignally had trees that lined the back and side of our yard/pool area that gave us some privacy, planted when we put the pool in, but those trees really froze back a few years ago. A few limped along after that, but last year we decided to bite the bullet and put in new columnar style trees around our pool, eagleston hollies. One hasn’t done too well, but the rest are growing nicely.
We protected them this past winter with their own covers for the few days of the hard freeze and luckily they came through just fine.
January 2024 - during our hard freeze here in Texas.
May 2024 - Eagleston hollies surround the pool with knock out roses, hydrangea, plumbago and purple heart.
And here’s how the purple heart in the front of my house should be looking right now, like this bunch that is located behind the pool. I love it here. So lush and colorful!
We transplanted 3 hydrangeas that were in deep shade in my front yard that I had planted many years ago that sat there and did nothing. They are growing some now and getting more sun. It might be too much Texas sun though, as they get about 6 hours a day back there. Fingers crossed they won’t scorch and I will get some blooms!
Transplanted these hydrangea in April to this sunnier spot.
I love looking out my back windows and seeing flowers, so I planted this bed with bright orange sunpatiens. This gets a lot of shade but again, that weird middle of afternoon sun that comes through a spot in the trees nails this area. So far, they are doing great, but they do need a lot of water.
This is where I first planted the hellebores. I was watering for the sunpatiens and ended up drowning my hellebores, so now I’m going with coleus, which is a pretty good bet for this area.
See the hellebores there behind the orange sunpatiens?
Early spring back yard, side planting bed.
This area is doing well now and I need one more coleus in that corner to fill in. These will get taller than the sunpatiens very soon.
May 2024 - Sunpatiens are thriving and coleus will soon be towering over them in the back.
I have ginger here that mostly came back, but it is still really short. I used to have ginger that, even if it died back, would come back vigorously and get tall with some blooms, both in my front garden and the back. I literally had waist high ginger, thick with that tropical foliage, it just glowed in the garden.
Well, I just can’t get it to perform much anymore. I’m going to try one more year. I think it might have to do with all the tree roots and the freezes have been hard on it. We didn’t use to have those really hard freezes that lasted so long before.
This drift of ginger should be taller and fuller by now, but it is coming back from a hard freeze. The cast iron plant behind it and in the far corner always does well in the deep shade.
In this corner, below, I did some sweet potato vine. I thought that would be a good ground cover because….tree roots…..and that cast iron plant always does well in the very shady sections of my garden.
Containers Add So Much to my Garden
I love my containers, I have so many I’ve collected over the years. At one point, after helping our moms downsize, I thought I really needed to start giving away my containers. I find so much joy in them though and when I couldn’t get in the garden to plant, because of my knee, I could always plant up my containers.
I love looking out at my pool and seeing this grouping. I lost my one tall blue container that I kept out here to the freeze, it was too big and hard to move to the garage and it cracked and broke. :-(
I have always preferred terracotta containers and some blue glazed pottery for contrast and color. It goes well with the exterior of this house.
Late spring containers by the pool.
Containers by the pool always brighten up my back yard.
I also love this grouping by my steps to the back door. I bought an angel wing begonia this year, I’ve always wanted one. It’s getting a little munched on by something, but it is so impressive. Huge, interesting leaves in a blue container you can hardly see because of the foliage.
A huge leafed angel wing begonia by the back door along with a kalonchoe, dianthus and lemon coral sedum. I put succulents in my small pots, as it is just too hard to keep those watered. Succulents love them though!
And this grouping by the grill. These are all plants from last year or the year before that survived. We did put almost all the containers in the garage during the hard freeze.
This cluster, is right outside the door and I love how it looks against the pool.
We did a new curved paver walk to our front door a few years ago and I love how it has become a little mini patio for some of my containers. It always looks great here in the fall with some pumpkins and fall color and this is where I started planting at the end of Februaary this year.
Here were the early spring plantings on the walk and at the front door. (Oxalis is one of my favorite container plants.)
Early spring containers - front walk
Early spring front door containers looked great with cyclamen, pansies and oxalis.
This is how it looks now. The torenia, in the blue container, has purple and white little blooms. I recently deadheaded, so it isn’t bursting with color at the moment.
End of May front walk containers - Coleus, impatiens, oxalis, torenia, a cyclamen that will soon be dead in the hot weather and then chrysanthemums that bloomed again from last fall.
The big container has a plumeria that survived the big freeze in the garage. I wasn’t sure it would come back, as it the branches were just mush, but it came back from the roots. I overplanted it with some flowers this spring and it is now potted up with caladiums and Swedish ivy. I love the green and white look.
The plumeria in this container will be a 3-4’ high tree by end of summer with the Swedish ivy trailing and the white caladiums underneath.
Need some gardening inspo on Youtube and social media?
You will love these Youtubers.
Laura at Garden Answer is my must-see tv every day. I love to see what she is up to in the garden and see how their huge property is shaping up. If you want to know anything about gardening, you should check out this channel. Her parents own a seed store and have a nursery she worked in growing up. She has so much practical experience and she is fun to watch.
Danielle at Northlawn Flower Farm has probably the prettiest garden I’ve ever seen. She sells some of her flowers in a flower stand and grows cut flowers in her beds that wind around her property. She just has such a natural feel for garden design. I was aiming for this look for my garden. :-/
Nicole at Flower Hill Farm is in New York and her passion for growing flowers and sharing them is so contagious. She is always so excited and I love to watch her do arrangements for her customers. She has a big nursery too but really loves to arrange her flowers on the front porch of her home for her subscribers pick them up on Saturday mornings.
I also like Jenny at Gardening with Creekside. They have a stunning property in North Carolina and nursery right next door. she really knows her plants and is great to learn from, especially if you have a southern garden.
On Instagram, I’ve found a few gardeners there as well as the ones above that are also on Instagram.
Carmen Johnston is very inspiring in quick bites of info, sometimes sharing just that bit of info you didn’t know you needed.
Can’t forget TikTok, where I’ve found more garden inspiration.
I love this guy’s garden, Mike’s Garden. I see something new every day when he shares his walk-throughs.
Artful Rodger also does great short videos and I love his garden tours. I recognize his videos in my feed and they always stop my scroll.
Anyone want to share favorite gardeners on social media or do you have some favorite plants and flowers? Maybe a picture of your garden to upload in the comments? I’d love to see.
I’ve got a few gardening items below, to shop. I find so much out there is a little cheesy, I thought I would share some cool finds. I would love to put any of these items in my garden. (Those are my two favorite clippers too. Felco is the brand for clippers.)
This blogpost was thoughtfully written by me, Carla Aston, and not by AI, ghostwriters, or guest posters.