- This spring, I really have my flower game down.
The entire garden is covered
in all sorts of different blooms.
And so in this video, I wanted to walk through the garden,
show you all the flowers I have blooming right now,
their variety names, their uses, why I planted
that specific variety, and if I don't remember some
of the names, I'll be sure to come back after, and put them
up on the screen so you guys can also grow them at home.
(soft acoustic guitar)
Right in front of me is a nice little collection
to start off with, up front here is one
of my favorite poppies, these are the Mission Bells poppy.
So if you think of like a California poppy, like I have
right here next to me, the Mission Bells are very similar,
except they have a nice kind of creamy yellowish white color
and the complimentary really deep red color.
These together have been really wonderful.
And actually, I didn't even start these this year.
They were growing in this exact spot last year,
and they self-seeded, and came back with a glory.
This one in particular is absolutely massive,
I've never had a California poppy that big.
And of course, I always have the standard California poppy.
This is our state flower.
It'd be sacrilege if I didn't grow it in my garden.
And honestly, why would you not want to?
It's such a beautiful flower, with the nice delicate petals,
and this really deep, vibrant orange color.
And the other theme that you'll see a lot here,
is, I grow a lot of Calendulas, so right in front
of me here, is a Zeolights blend Calendula.
It has this really nice pinkish, reddish,
orange, whiteish, yellow, the whole spectrum
of colors all throughout there, these nice complex petals.
And next to that is another Calendula, which is one
of these really, really big ones.
This is one I that actually need to go and follow up
on the variety name, but it's more of a standard kind
of Calendula, that has that deep orange color.
Both of these could be used medicinally to make tea,
but they're also just really wonderful, beautiful plants,
and the pollinators seem to really like them.
As we move down, this right here is actually sage.
So this is a edible herb, and at this time of year,
to like to make these big flower structures.
The cool thing is that, the purple blues
are really bees favorites.
So you can see this bee right here is taking a nice drink
of the sage flower right now, and it's absolutely buzzing
with bees at all time.
Whenever you have the bluish, purpleish, and yellow flowers,
the bees go crazy for it.
The cool thing about sage flowers, too, is that,
they're actually very useful in a sort of drink setting.
So instead of using it to cook with, you could take
this whole spear right here, and throw it in a cocktail,
or a mocktail, or some juice, whatever you want,
and it'll give it a nice kind of deeper sage flavor.
Now this one next to me is actually a new flower
for my garden, and I'm very happy that I grew it.
It is called Lacy phacelia, the kind of standard common name
that I've seen it referred to is actually, bees' friend.
It has this almost like fern-like way
of unfurling these flowers.
They look really cool.
And again, it has that bluish, purplish flower.
And this is absolutely covered in bees.
Like just right here, there are two bees right next
to my fingers, and they really love it, because
it actually unfurls, and new flowers will open.
So it's kind of like an evergreen,
continuous flower structure,
and it looks really incredible.
But now, let's go ahead and pop in the garden,
'cause there's a couple flowers back here, like,
in my pollinator patch, and that big section back there,
that you're definitely gonna wanna see.
We're over here in one of my pollinator patches,
and this is one that I've been kind
of developing now for two years.
It's kind of escaped the borders a little bit,
and the boundaries, but, the insects love it so much,
I have a hard time tearing it down.
What you see in front of me here are all blanket flowers.
These are a wonderful, continuous blooming flower
that the birds actually like eating the seeds
from, the bees love the pollen, and inside,
is just a habitat for beneficial insects.
And you could see some of these bachelor buns,
or cornflowers, they're also known as, have opened up.
And they're also another wonderful flower for pollinators.
Hover flies in particular seem to really like them,
and I tend to see them all the time buzzing around here.
In a previous video, I showed you guys
how I reset my straw flower patch,
and it's now actually starting to bloom again.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
Now there is Nasturtium over here.
It's not the craziest Nasturtium, 'cause I have a lot
of the Nasturtiums in the other garden
that you'll see very shortly.
But it has that nice Alaska Variegated foliage here,
which I just really find pleasant.
Now you can see that there's certain sections that go crazy
with flowers, and other sections kind of look more leafy,
which I really like.
It gives it a nice balance.
It's very mounding, trails off into your garden,
and adds a lot of texture if that's something
that you're missing.
Now of course, if you look behind me, there's definitely
a flower that you're probably gonna want to hear more
about, cause I get comments about it all the time.
And if you're wondering, first of all,
I get this comment a lot.
It's not hemp or any hemp related product.
It is Pride of Madeira, so let's go
take a closer look at that right now.
All right, so here are the big, blueish, kind
of purple-pink spires of the Pride of Madeira.
This is one of the most popular flowers that I have growing.
People always ask me the name of it,
and it is an absolute magnet for bees.
I don't know if you can hear it, or see it,
but there are literally over a hundred bees just
in this one patch right here.
I even saw a big bumblebee, like that big, yesterday.
This is just one section of the garden, so let's go over
to the other side, where I have actually a lot more flowers
than just this side over here.
Before we go over to the other garden, I really wanted
to show you guys this, which is a Euphorbia Lambii.
These are actually flowers here, they do produce pollen,
and I see bees in them all the time.
The really cool thing is that, once these flowers
actually set seed in the summertime, you'll literally
hear explosions, 'cause these flowers will explode,
and the seed will shoot off into different areas.
So it sounds really weird when it's happening,
and maybe I'll try to get some footage of it later
on in the year, but it's a very cool plant.
It does have that kind of latex sap of Euphorbia,
so be cautious with it, but I just wanted
to show you guys it, 'cause it looks really nice right now.
Now we're over here in the south garden,
where I have a lot more Calendula and Nasturtium.
So this one over here is a similar one
to the one that we saw earlier.
It has this big, showy flower.
So this right here is going to be a Hollyhock,
and I can't remember the color, but I think
it's the white one, kind of white-cream color.
And all of these right here, are going
to turn into flower buds.
This one is a little different than most that you see.
It's called Radio, and it has these
different pedal structures, so they're much thinner.
They kind of are more, like, fingered out
rather than flat and stacked onto each other.
And to me, it's just really fun to have
these different kind of color contrasts.
Now as I stand up behind me, I wanted
to draw your attention to this Borage.
This is the biggest Borage I've ever grown.
This was self-seeded, which is
a classic characteristic of Borage.
They have these really big seeds, like, almost the size
of a pea, so they're very easy to self propagate,
and, the bees do like them, 'cause again,
they have that blue color to them.
Below that is actually an example of the Sulfur Cosmo
that I was showing you in the pollinator patch.
But this one has actually opened, and it looks really nice.
It produces a lot of flowers off many stems,
and it's really quite prolific.
Now behind me over here are a couple more I wanted
to show you, so let's get a little closer,
and take a look at this.
Down here, hunkered in the corner of my south garden,
'cause I wanted to show you this African Blue Basil.
It is absolutely prolific at flowering.
Bees go crazy for it.
It produces flowers all year round,
and it's extremely drought tolerant.
Now it might look like it's going to take
over your garden, but this is, oddly enough, one
of these plants that's actually sterile,
so it doesn't self-seed.
If these seeds fall, they're not gonna grow into more basil
which is great, but it still produces a lot of flowers.
To my left, is actually, a really unique kind of mallow.
This is the Indian Mallow, which is actually a native plant
in Southern California, San Diego, and Mexico.
The beauty of native plants is that
they don't need almost anything.
The soil was not amended, this started off
as maybe two or three plants, and I never water it.
I don't have any irrigation here.
I've never actually poured water on it,
and it thrives like this every year,
coming back with crazy amounts of blooms.
But now, let's go over to the patio, where I actually have
quite a different collection of flowers as well.
Let's take a stroll through the patio section now,
which has more kind of different ornamental flowers,
as well as more of these more traditional ones
that you're probably aware of.
First off, is the tall eight-in-one Birdies bed here,
which I actually built as an herb bed, and right now,
it's kind of turned into a Nastirtium bed.
These are a mix of trailing Nasturtiums,
and the Alaska Variegated, which has this nice kind
of pattern that we saw earlier.
Now this guy over here is the pineapple sage, which,
when flowering, probably soon, will produce these big spires
of these red hanging flowers that hummingbirds
absolutely go crazy for.
So I'm really looking forward to that flower.
Now over here at my feet, and all around me, I'm surrounded
by Chamomile, and,
(inhales)
fresh Chamomile smells so good.
It has this kind of like, apple-y undertone to it
that I can't describe, and it's probably why,
in Spanish, the word is very similar to apple.
Now as I swing around over here,
you'll see more Nasturtiums, but I'm also going
to do a little flex here, because my blueberry bush
is absolutely loaded.
It looks crazy, it's gonna be a wonderful blueberry harvest,
but, more on that a little bit later.
All of these Nasturtiums here are a mix
of Tom Thumb and trailing types.
So you could see that the trailing ones have
the long, kind of elongated stem, covered
in flowers and the Tom Thumb tends to kind
of stay smaller, and more bushy.
That's the one that's kind of in the pot right over there.
As I work my way down, this is my Plumeria,
which is now recovered, it's now overwintered,
and it's going to be producing those big spikes,
with crazy fragrant flowers
that you've probably smelt before.
It's really an incredible aroma, and it's
what they make leis out of in Hawaii.
So, obviously a winner.
This over here is actually a more unique one.
It's a Abutilon, there's actually
quite a few different Abutilons.
They make these kind of hanging, almost lantern-like flowers
but they look very similar, and there's quite a few
different ones, and I think we have three.
Over here is actually one of my climbing roses,
which is now on this trellis.
This is going to be the first year that it's flowering,
so I'm really excited to see those blooms take off,
and it's really filling in quite nicely.
Over here, I actually have more roses,
so I have a mix of sort of Abutilons.
This is a variegated type, so it has this kind
of nice polka dot yellow-green white leaf.
And it makes this really nice kind
of pinkish Abutilon, almost like a peachy blush to it.
So, again, they come in a lot of different types.
And then this guy is the Iconic, which again,
has a different structure to it.
It's more open, it has different colors.
So there's quite the wide range of Abutilons.
But, that's enough of these guys.
Let's go over to the native garden, 'cause it's
really looking quite wonderful right now.
Down here in the native patch, and it's looking
absolutely wonderful, all the seasonal rains that we had
this year have done quite a wonder for them.
A lot of these plants have probably 6X'ed in size,
and they look absolutely spectacular.
First one over here is the Island Alum Roots.
It produces these little bells of flowers that have pops
of pink and yellow, and they form on these nice spires,
and the bees really actually like it quite a bit.
In front of that over here is the Monkey Flower,
a classic native flower in California.
I was just over at Torrey Pines State Beach Park,
and it's covered in all these beautiful Monkey Flowers
that just look really incredible.
It's crazy how profuse they are in the blooms,
and they stay for quite a long time.
It's also a nice looking plant.
Besides that, the purple needle grass is flowering.
Not that it looks spectacular, but the Manzanita
has also gone through its flower cycle, and everything
just looks really incredible healthy.
So, native flowers, I'm going to be adding a lot more
this year, 'cause they're just so low maintenance,
and they look so incredible.
And that's kind of the wrap for all the flowers
growing in this spring.
Hope you guys enjoyed it, and hopefully,
you picked up a couple new varieties.