September 2024 Backyard Garden Tour🌼 |

[@marleneegan-hm7lr]

Thank you for the long tour! You have a soothing voice so I always enjoy 😊

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Thanks for watching and your comment. I hope you are enjoying our slightly cooler weather. I have been able to walk my dog longer distances, so I know temperatures are improving. lol.

[@marleneegan-hm7lr]

@@ButterfliesNBirds it’s only 31% humidity right now!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

And you can really feel the fantastic difference!

[@jennifergreene8891]

Good morning neighbor! Lake Jackson here 😊 I am really enjoying this weather! Everything in your gardens looks so lush and beautiful still! Thank you for sharing your beautiful gardens.😍

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Hello neighbor! I am also really enjoying the slightly cooler weather. And the plants seem to be really loving the reprieve from the very high heat. 😊👍🌺

[@stanleystone49]

Beautiful garden greetings from my butterfly garden in ft Lauderdale 😊

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Greetings from the Texas Gulf Coast! What butterflies do you see the most of currently? Right now I have Gulf Fritillaries, Pipevine Swallowtails, Sulfurs, Queens, and a traveling monarch here and there.

[@HoustonKeith72]

I have to tell you I get so many pollinators including butterflies on my one blue porterweed. I enjoy it so much!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

That is just awesome!!! Thank you for sharing that!!! 😀

[@FunnySurpriseToys]

Thank you my friend and have a beautiful day!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Thank you - I hope you have a fantastic day too!

[@jennhoff03]

Oh, Crystal, I'm so sorry about that one bed! That's the one thing I don't love about drip- you never know something's wrong till something's dead. :( Well, I have faith in you and know that bed will be whipped back into shape soon. I am learning so much from your videos! I just bought dutchman's pipevine, which I never would have known about. You're the best!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Thank you! And that is great you bought a Dutchman's pipevine! I hope you see lots of pipevine swallowtails in your gardens because of it. 😊

[@wesleyhackney]

You definitely have a very full and healthy butterfly / hummingbird garden. Very well thought out. Here in panhandle of Florida we thankfully just missed getting any rain from Helene with only a few winds gusts to 30 mph but was enough to destroy a few of my more exotic banana plants for the season. One actually snapped on half at the base but we are thankful we were spared serious flooding and destruction and praying for those that were not fortunate. My cardinal climbers did not do well probably due to extreme heat and I just could not keep up with watering. Not sure if I’ll plant them again next year.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I am so very happy to hear that you missed the awfulness from Hurricane Helene!!! (Sorry to hear about your banana plants though.) My cardinal climbers did not do well either last summer during our excessive heat and drought. This year was a much better year for us in the garden. And this year our cardinal climber has really shined and bloomed so well. The hummingbirds are on it every day. I hope we will have blooms all throughout October because we will have the juvenile hummingbirds come through until the beginning of November.

[@sandratraugott6522]

Your garden is wonderful! A treat to see and hear your hummers, too. Only seeing 1 or 2 a day here near Dallas, but a least seeing more butterflies now. I see the yellow Sulphurs on my Cassia’s but have never seen any “cats” on them. Maybe the birds or wasps get them if they have ever laid eggs on them?

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Thank you! 😊 I am excited that you are seeing more butterflies now up in the Dallas area. I am surprised with seeing the increased number of yellow sulfur butterflies in my gardens this year, as I have had the most I have ever had. I just haven't found the caterpillars on the plants yet.

[@blackburnian]

I enjoy Salvia subrotunda which I grow from seed.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Nice! Does yours get really tall?

[@blackburnian]

@ButterfliesNBirds One year some of them were over six feet tall in the ground. Other years two or three feet tall. In smaller pots about two feet tall or even less.

[@GlendasTexasGarden]

I have a fire bush too, but I've never had a volunteer come up and I've had it there for about 5 years. Maybe the birds eat all the seeds, so none are left to come up. 😊

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I don't readily have fire bush come up from seed either, except from the roots when/if they spread. Maybe that is what happened from the center "small-leafed" firebush. I can also say that the birds do eat the fruit from my fire bush pretty quickly when they "ripen".

[@wulidog23]

When I was using Molemax to get rid of Florida pocket gophers in my yard, I read that it also may repel armadillos. I chose it because it is castor oil. It comes with an easy hose end sprayer. It did take several applications to chase them out, but it did work. You can also plant Castor bean plants. I didn't do that because the beans are poisonous to pets and children.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Good information - thanks for sharing! 👍😊

[@tammiedunbar6166]

Cannas can become aggressive and shade out other plants in your garden. I only see an occasional butterfly visiting the blooms. The hummingbirds also vist the smaller blooming narrow flowers. The rains from Helene lowered the temperatures and the plants are rebounding. I have a Turks Cap that returned and is blooming. They bloom here in zone 8a or 8b in September. Crystal you are correct about how the cooler temperatures revie gardners as well as the plants. Thank you for the tour.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Thanks for your comment! 😊 I'm really glad that you have received some rain and have lower temperatures now.

[@AndreaHartman-l5g]

I have the same issue with my cape honeysuckle (tropical honeysuckle) this year with no bloom, I thought it was because I need to get it in the ground. Also known as Tecoma Capensis, Your cypress vine and firebush are my favorites this month, just splendid!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Yes, that is the name ... a Cape Honeysuckle (not tropical like I said in the video). I couldn't remember the name. Ugh. Mine usually starts to bloom now-ish, but it has not grown well this summer.

[@AndreaHartman-l5g]

@@ButterfliesNBirds I do the same thing with this plant, I had to look it up because I always forget it...don't know it compares to a honeysuckle! On a side note, I just got an email from a local nursery that they have 5 different color porter weed, I didn't even know there were other colors than blue until I started watching you!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Question for you ... did you end up getting a different color porterweed? 😂

[@HoustonKeith72]

I love cannas and grew up with them. But I don’t have any now mostly because they have a tendency to take over and take up too much space.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I really like the look of cannas, and I really like the ones with the large "showy" blooms. Mine do not have the large showy blooms, rather the smaller and "pencil-like" blooms. And then in June the foliage gets eaten by the Brazillian Skipper caterpillar, which is a "leaf roller" and does quite a bit of damage to the leaves. I hadn't found a caterpillar that I was not fond of until that one came into my yard. LOL! 😂

[@TruthSeekerHuman-je5pd]

Over last 3 seasons, I've used many pots due to voles (not moles). And I like pots throughout garden and yard not.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I am very glad that your containers have helped solve the vole problem in the garden! 👍😊

[@GlendasTexasGarden]

I like some Cannas because hummingbirds do like them, but I don't like the leaf damage.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I agree with you! Do you have Cannas that have large blooms, or more like mine ... the ones that have smaller blooms?

[@GlendasTexasGarden]

@@ButterfliesNBirds I have both and the hummingbirds go to both, but the bigger flowers are prettier in my opinion.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I agree - I really like the ones with the large "showy" flowers! 😊

[@HoustonKeith72]

I’m probably not keeping my cupphea. Has barely bloomed for me at all. I’m losing patience. Precious real estate!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Oh, I agree with your assessment of "precious real estate"! If something doesn't perform, it is definitely a candidate to get replaced. My David Verity cuphea does fantastic in full sun with water every day. I also had a slow release fertilizer in the planting hole that "feeds" for 6 months.

[@HoustonKeith72]

I’m not really a fan of the hot lips. The good news is there are so many varieties of salvia and the pollinators especially bees seem to adore them all.

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

I am finding I am not a fan of Hot Lips Salvia either. If I have something in my yard, I want it to perform more than just in the springtime.

[@tg_ny]

From google: Hot Lips' salvia has a tendency to develop long, leggy stems. To maintain a more compact and bushy shape, prune back the outermost stems. Cut them back by about one-third of their length to encourage branching and denser growth. I have the same issue with the Salvia Windwalker Royal Red I planted this year. The blooms are fabulous, but I need to train the plant to fill out. I may also fertilize with a low nitrogen, higher phosphorus fertilizer to promote only the the flowering. At some point I will find the formula that works!

[@ButterfliesNBirds]

Very good suggestions! I need to be a better pruner of my salvia.