Summer Garden Tour Southern Alabama (Zone 8b)

I’m here today with a fun look at my garden! Here in Southern Alabama May is already summer… the tulips are done, the pansies have wilted and our petunias are in full bloom. Even the hydrangeas are in full color!

Every month I share a fun walk through of the entire garden over on my YouTube channel but today we’re going to take a slower stroll through all the blooms. Since our monthly garden tour doesn’t always catch every plant in the garden on it’s best day this will give us a chance to see each plant in the best light.

Plus we’re not alone! I’m joining the Summer Home and Garden Blog Hop to share a beautiful glimpse of summer with a few friends. So whether you’re looking for beautiful flowers or pretty homes we’ve got a tour for you!

So take a look through my garden and then visit a few more through the links at the bottom of this post. I can’t wait to see what everyone else is up to!

Ready to see how my garden looks this May?

I’ll be sharing each area of my garden one at a time and showcasing a few of the prettiest flowers (like the roses that were really showing out earlier this spring!). Let’s get started!

Front Garden Bed (Zinnias, Lavender, Pincushion, Ranunculus, Foxglove)

My garden isn’t overly large but I do have a few distinct garden beds around the outside of my home. When you first pull up I have a small garden bed around a large tree. It’s one of the places I save for annuals since it’s a high traffic area… and with the hot sun here zinnias are the perfect annual for the very front of the bed!

I like to layer them with Ranunculus corms that come up in the spring and bloom… and then replace them with gomphrena that get large and showy later in the summer. This year the zinnias I found are the same color as the Ranunculus that grow in this spot so it was a pretty show of pink on pink!

Which I’m never mad about!

Especially with the pink water pump in the background.

The rest of the space has multi-colored foxgloves, lilies, purple lavender and whispy pincushion flowers. Just to name a few!

Progress Around the Shed!

Y’all the shed has gotten quite a bit of work done this month… we finally laid down landscaping fabric and filled the entire space between the raised beds with mulch. The bench area with the rose standards also received a fresh layer of mulch and even more impressive… my bistro set was moved to make way for a brand new paver patio.

It’s so good.

The entire space feels so nice now… way more complete!

It’s not 100% complete as I still need to finish the pallet walkway and place the pea gravel back on the path way. BUT one step at a time.

I mean… just look at the raised beds.

I am absolutely loving all of the new planting space in the raised beds… and it’s so nice to be able to walk over and take a break on the new paver patio.

The entire patio took a day to put together (with help from my Mom and brother) and the video tutorial will be up on my YouTube channel soon… but here’s a sneak peek at the summer garden tablescape I did right after it was finished.

Because you can’t have a new patio set and not have friends over to enjoy it!

Roses! Roses! Roses!

In early spring the roses are one of the very first things to bloom in my garden. They’re so beautiful and give the entire space such a fun cottage garden feeling.

This year I splurged and added two new David Austin Roses in pots… Emily Bronte and the Queen of Sweden. The Queen of Sweden in a soft pink cabbage style rose that I am in LOVE with. I’ve placed her as a centerpiece in the very middle of my raised bed garden and she is glorious.

I love that David Austin roses will bloom continuosly all summer so I can enjoy the blooms over and over.

On the other hand my climbing roses tend to bloom once in the spring… in a big show of beautiful blooms. I just had to share a picture of Peggy Martin last year… and this year.

JUST LOOK AT HER GO!

She’s only a year old and already covering most of the chain link fence that she’s planted on. I love it!

She has tiny little pink blooms that look stunning with the double pink knock out roses in front of her. PLUS the climbing cabbage roses on the house. That’s 5 roses in one space if you were counting… I tried to spread them throughout the garden but the sun in front of the shed is just the best of my entire space. So roses love it here!

I’ll leave you with this last shot of the yellow knockout rose standards further up the hill… and the Emily Bronte rose I bought to pair with them.

A little proof that a few flowers in my garden are NOT pink.

Although Emily Bronte technically has pink petals with a yellow center… they look very yellow compared to my other pink roses.

Oak Leaf Hydrangea!

Another show stopper my Oak Leaf Hydrangea is really showing out this year. Just take a look at where she started (as a small division of my mom’s larger plant) and what she looks like now.

I planted this baby 3 years ago so this is the first year she’s given me more than 2 blooms.

After all first they creep, then they sleep, then they leap! And y’all she is definitely leaping! I just love the large white blooms and how they age to a dusty mauve. It’s so stunning… and the red leaves in the fall?

Multi-season interest y’all!

Soooo pretty!

Gladiolus!

I don’t have anything exciting to say here… I just love gladiolus. I planted small groups of them along the back of my border since I love the tall green leafy foliage.

It makes a great backdrop for the back of my garden and I love that they naturalize and come up reliably every year. I planted 3-5 bulbs in each spot and they’re slowly multiplying each and every year…

I mean plants that make more plants are the best!

I wish they bloomed longer but I have so many of them that they tend to stagger their blooms a bit. And you can always plant more of them later in the season to extend their life a bit longer! Succession planting for the win!

Coneflowers and Bee Balm

Speaking of perennial plants that multiply over time… I have one little corner of my garden that I just let go wild.

I planted 2 bee balm plants and 3 cone flowers in this area. Years later I have dozens of bee balm and 8 or 9 coneflowers! Eventually I’ll have to thin the flowers in this space so they have enough room to bloom (and not crowd themselves out!) but I just love the wild look of this little corner.

Plus the tighter the plants grow the fewer weeds I have to pull and the less plants I have to stake. They’re too crowded to need plant stakes… they just lean on each other! Of course, you may notice one other plant in this space… gaura.

The gaura is another perennial that comes up and blooms beautifully in the spring. Then as the gaura goes out of bloom the cone flowers start to leaf out for the season… they get big and bloom all summer before dying back and letting the gaura take over for the fall and then once more in the spring. It’s a great combination that works together to give me a wild riot of blooms all year long.

Behind the Fairy Bird Bath

Oh the fairy bird bath… it’s tiny but mighty. Honestly I thought it was going to be bigger when I ordered it but I love it so I make it work. I back plant it with towering foxgloves every year and they’re beautiful in the spring. Only a few have bloomed so far but the other plants are starting to get big.

The pansies were beautiful all fall and winter and now I’ve taken them out to make room for the petunias and Hydrangeas to get big this summer.

They look like a cloud of cotton candy around the little fairy bird bath and I’m kind of obsessed with it. Especially because they’re only starting to get big… the petunias and salvia will only get bigger as the season goes on!

The Hydrangeas are only starting to get color and hopefully will bloom all summer… these Endless Summer Hydrangeas do so well in my hot southern garden and typically bloom for months on end.

Off the Front Porch

Ready for a little timelapse? Take a look at the front porch garden last month versus this month. The Hydrangea was just starting to leaf out… the petunias were still small, the verbena was growing in.

Now the Hydrangea is in full bloom, the sweet alyssum is growing to cove the front space, the verbena has taken over and the salvia is growing through it’s little cloche.

Just take a look at the the before (below) and the after (above!) the lantana in the foreground is twice as big and blooming… and the supertunias in the pots are growing through the trellis!

It’s amazing how much a garden can grow with only a months time and a bunch of rain. April showers really do bring May flowers y’all!

The Bird Bath and Shade Garden

As we move down the garden bed we come to my larger bird bath and my shade garden. This space is getting a bit of an over-haul this season so a lot of the plants are smaller.

The gaura is so tiny compared to my mom’s big whispy gaura plants that were planted last season!

The lantana around the bird bath is so much smaller than the plants down in the sunnier part of the garden! Don’t worry though… this area still gets sun and will grow in with a little time. We don’t get to full shade until we’re down around the larger tree at the end!

Spring Iris Blooms!

Last but not least I had a few Iris bloom this year… not as many as last year but still enough beauties to take pictures of! They’re gone now and the summer flowers (vinca, butterfly bushes and salvia) are starting to take over their spaces but still…

Look how pretty they were!

I hope you enjoyed all of the beautiful blooms that are currently in my garden. If you’d like to follow along make sure you’re subscribed to my 2024 Garden Tour Playlist on YouTube… I share an updated Garden Tour every month so you’ll see how the space evolves.

The good, the bad and the ugly!

In the meantime you may want to check out the rest of the amazing tours in the Summer Home and Garden Blog Hop. I can’t wait to see all the pretty blooms and projects!

• Summer Home and Garden Tour – Celebrate and Decorate
• 1891 Cottage Summer Home Ideas – Tatertots and Jello
• Summer Garden Tour – Southern Alabama – Zone 8B – Happily Ever After Etc.
• California Backyard Living Outdoor Home and Garden Tour – WM Design House
• 10 Inspiring Summer Home Tour Decor Ideas – Craft Klatch
• Welcome Home Summer Traditions Kids Love to Come Home to – White Arrows Home
• Ultimate Summer Decor Ideas Home Tour and DIY Inspirations – Chas’ Crazy Creations
• Gathered and Found Summer Screen Porch Tour – Red Cottage Chronicles
• Summer Home Tour – Design Morsels