Late Summer Garden Tour

I thought I'd take y'all with me on a little backyard garden tour today.

I think I went through three other spots in the garden before I found one this plumbago liked. Actually, this is two plants close together. I love the blue flowers. 

My shamrock plant is doing surprisingly well. I wasn't sure if this little 4 inch plant from the grocery store back in March would be able to withstand our summer heat, but it persevered. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and graces us with these sweet little white blooms. 

Oh, how I love my gomphrena! This is going to be my go-to plant for my patio pots next year. I can just picture my whole patio covered with these. :) They can take the Texas heat like no other. They actually like to dry out a little too, so it's a wonderful match for our climate.

Here's another one that loves the heat. Esperanza. I have several yellow ones and an orange one. These blooms are so pretty to cut and bring indoors. 

Here's a close up of a cluster of Esperanza blooms...

And here's what the orange ones look like...

Those always remind me of green beans. :) 

The bottle brush is gearing up for another round of blooms. 

Here's a close up of the bottle brush blooms. They attract A LOT of bees though. :)

Now, although my gomphrena is doing great, the other patio plants are starting to show some wear and tear from the heat. I have to admit though, the zinnias lasted a lot longer than I anticipated. I was impressed with how much heat they could take. I probably need to do some dead heading here.

The vitex and bottle brush trees seem to be on the same bloom schedule this year. In a week or so, these will be bursting with purple blooms.

I can't wait until it gets a little cooler so we can enjoy some time out on the patio. And by "cooler" I mean below 90 degrees. Lol!

If you missed how we transformed our patio, you can see it HERE. You won't believe the "before" pics. Yikes!

We've been in a drought for years, but luckily this year, we received a good amount of rain. I think we've only had to run the sprinklers once. It's amazing how quickly the grass greens up after a good rain.

The bald cypress provides a nice canopy of shade in the hot summer.

I still can't believe this is what the above area used to look like when the boys were little...

My how times have changed. :) You can see the whole post about our backyard transformation HERE.

Here are a few more pics from my phone...

If you're new here, you may not know that the bench and adirondack chairs below were crafted by my hubby. When the boys outgrew the playset, we tore it down, but kept the wood. My hubby used the wood to make the chairs for this little sitting area under the tree. So, in a sense, we do still have part of the playset out here. :)

My youngest son put together that arbor for me when he was just 10 years old.

The knock out roses are strutting their stuff. :)

This pic below is one of my favorite spots. It's taken from underneath the bald cypress tree. The perfect spot to sit and read a book with a big glass of sweet iced tea. :) 

It's funny to see how much the bald cypress has grown. Here's a pic right after we planted it, about 13 years ago...

Can you spot it in the upper right hand corner behind the park bench? And here it is today...

It would be even taller if hurricane Ike hadn't chopped about 10 feet off the top. Oh, and that fence is about 6 ft. tall just to give you some perspective on its size. 

Below is my butterfly bush. It's still pretty, but always starts looking a little leggy this time of year. 

Well, that's it for the garden tour. Thanks for coming along with me. :) Hope you all have a wonderful day!

~Lisa

I'm joining these parties:Savvy Southern Style, Imparting Grace, Maria Elena's Decor, From My Front Porch To Yours, The Dedicated House, Joy In Our Home, Fishtail Cottage, Tuesday Garden Party