The Garden Won't Slow Down

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]After all the planting, moving palms, digging, chaos, and weather drama, things are starting [music] to settle into summer.

[00:00:09]The lotus are going into the koi pond, cactus are about to bloom, tropical plants [music] are getting repotted, and for the first time this season, I can actually sit by the pool and enjoy the garden for a moment, which honestly never lasts long [music] around here.

[00:00:36]>> [music] >> Hi everyone, it's Tim. Welcome back to my garden. I am so happy to be home. I was in Colorado Springs for just a brief amount of time, but it was just long enough for everything to change, and it's just amazing. I do not like traveling when the garden's in full swing because too much is going on. Uh the Musa basjoo took off, the bamboo is just insane. It is so beautiful out. I'm loving every second of it. And from what I'm hearing, everybody in Europe is finally getting some really nice weather. England has been warm, France is warming up. I love corresponding with all of you, which reminds me, please like and subscribe. It makes all the difference. And uh I love corresponding with all of you so much because you tell me what's going on in your garden.

[00:01:33]It is glorious out.

[00:01:37]Finally, after all this weird weather.

[00:01:41]Uh we've been hot, then cold, then hot, then cold. Really, really hot, really cool. I came home to a lot of rain, which is good for the garden, and now it's just fantastic. I cannot complain.

[00:01:54]Anyway, I am repotting things. I am adding lotus to the koi pond. Finally, I'm doing that.

[00:02:03]I've moved some things around. I'm just doing a lot of spring stuff, trying to get ready cuz I have a deadline coming up and I want the garden to look really good and I'm spending a lot of time in the pool. So, let's just not listen to me talk here. Let's just jump right into the fun and we're going to start off in Colorado Springs.

[00:02:26]After leaving the record warmth in New York, I arrived in Colorado Springs and if you will look, there is snow on the mountains and they're not way, way up in the mountains. It's pretty close and the temperature is not warm right now. It's kind of cold and rainy from my hotel room. This is the view.

[00:02:52]I am there for a board meeting and a summit, but one of the cool things we get to do is go to neat places when we have this and this is an art center in Colorado Springs and the view is insane outside. Uh the camera doesn't do it justice because you can just see all the snow up on the mountains and Pikes Peak.

[00:03:16]This is very early morning from my hotel and this went on for a couple of hours.

[00:03:24]Just swarms of birds flying all over the place. It was incredible. I just kept coming back and and watching what they were doing and I I can't believe they didn't hit the building, but this just went on and on and on in this little courtyard. Really, really interesting, really fun to watch them and I don't know the purpose, but it I don't know how they weren't worn out because it just kept going on and on and on, but I love birds as you know and this is really fun to watch all the patterns and how they swooped around.

[00:04:01]Another party, this one at the US Olympic Museum and the architecture here is crazy. This is just a bridge and it's just too busy in here to video anything inside but I just from the bar here you can see this bridge which is really amazing stuff.

[00:04:22]And don't worry if you're waiting to see garden stuff. I promise we're getting there. This is Pikes Peak from the airport. I am escaping Colorado Springs.

[00:04:31]I'm worn out. I'm tired. I can't wait to be home. Of course it's not going to be as warm when I get home. I think I'm arriving to rain but yeah, it's beautiful here.

[00:04:42]Just when you want to be home being the sun in your garden and it's raining for two days.

[00:04:50]Ugh.

[00:04:52]Remember all my fig cuttings? I was really hoping really hoping this would be easy. So far two have sprouted out of all of those but my cannabis is doing really well.

[00:05:05]Liking that.

[00:05:08]It was such a harsh winter. I wasn't sure if the shiso would come back but it it has come back. It is everywhere and this is why it's considered somewhat of an invasive plant.

[00:05:22]The rhododendrons are so beautiful right now. I really love the white ones. I like the dark ones too but the white ones are just something about that with the tropicals. I just love. I just think they're really beautiful despite the harsh harsh winter they came back with a vengeance.

[00:05:43]I still have peonies blooming.

[00:05:47]I love them but they don't last very long unless it's a nice cool spring and I luckily right now I've got some moderate weather, but then it's going to get really hot again in a couple of days.

[00:05:59]It's been a odd spring of cool then really hot weather and then cool then really hot weather. Nothing really in between, but right now I'm enjoying that.

[00:06:11]And I missed the best part of the river irises.

[00:06:16]They're fading right now, but they're like a carpet of color when they bloom.

[00:06:20]Again, short-lived.

[00:06:23]But that's the nice thing about a tropical garden is that the spring color just gives way to things like this Washingtonia robusta, which has got a little bit of ragged leaves, but it's really big uh and looking good.

[00:06:39]The Musa basjoo that died to the ground in some cases coming back with a bend vengeance. This is on the way down to the pool and it usually dies back to the ground. Sometimes there's a little bit, but it grows so fast here and it will be gigantic soon.

[00:06:54]And my Chamaerops humilis is blooming.

[00:06:59]As you can see, I've never gotten seeds from this one. I've gotten seeds from the other one, but uh I know there's speculation on whether this was an actually humilis or not, but if you look the silver, I hope it's coming through in the video, is showing up now. It did not show up in the spring, but now all of a sudden it is.

[00:07:19]More peonies. I just I can't resist showing them because they'll be gone so soon. I have a lot of different colors and varieties in the garden. I don't have any tree peonies. I used to at my old house.

[00:07:32]Uh one of my friends has so many, but I need to get some because I really like them and I should have brought them with me.

[00:07:41]The vegetable garden is moving along here. I've got bamboo stakes in the wire to keep the groundhogs and rabbits out.

[00:07:49]Luckily, I have an unlimited supply of bamboo, [music] as you may have noticed.

[00:07:54]But, yeah, I'm trying to make this look good.

[00:07:57]Here is some more Musa basjoo coming up under the Pediocides.

[00:08:02]This died to the ground as well right here, even though I had it covered up, but it's coming back quickly, as you can see.

[00:08:09]This one especially.

[00:08:12]So, you have to give it time. You know, some of mine I had stalks that were 2 ft tall. Some died back.

[00:08:19]Speaking of dying back, this is my grapevine. I think it was kind of a champagne grape. My friend Lisa said check the bottom and see if it's alive, and it is alive, but all the top is dead. The winter did it in.

[00:08:34]So, I have chopped it back. Brand new look.

[00:08:38]It just shows some things make it and some things don't when the weather is just really horrible.

[00:08:46]In the middle of thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm never going to get this garden done."

[00:08:50]Sometimes I just have to look up, and then I go, "Wow, it is so beautiful out here right now, and even though the garden is not done, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed trying to get everything completed by June 1st. That's my goal. I had to come down and just kind of relax for a second and go, "All right.

[00:09:11]It's really pretty right [music] now. Uh it's just this is why I have this garden, [music] and uh I need to enjoy it."

[00:09:22]And I hope all of you really enjoy that journey in your garden. Don't just look for the results, like I just said. Don't listen to me. It's really the journey.

[00:09:31]This is the journey right now is taking a moment to breathe it in, look at what you've done, kind of think back to prior years, how different it looks, and remember why the garden's important.

[00:09:44]If you are new to my channel, this whole area between the pool and the house was all just grass and trees.

[00:09:52]And there were no tropicals here at all.

[00:09:55]There were a lot of pine trees. And now I have gigantic Trachycarpus that is still blooming. I It This year it's blooming forever for some reason, and I'm hoping I can finally figure out of the three trees by the pool what is male and what is female. The upper entrance to the back garden, I think is starting to come together.

[00:10:19]The spindle palm is kind of a highlight along with the Phoenix roebelenii here.

[00:10:25]But I think it looks pretty good. I I want it to fill in a little bit more cuz I like that wow factor when you walk through the gate and you see all of this.

[00:10:35]And I don't feel like I'm quite there.

[00:10:38]This year the Digitalis or the foxglove is coming back.

[00:10:43]Uh last year I don't think there was very many at all, and I know it's a biennial, but I There are some years where it just seems to be everywhere, and then some years where it's good. I think this year is good, and then some years that there's almost nothing.

[00:10:58]My honeysuckle, this is the non-invasive kind uh that's up by the house on the spiral staircase, is blooming and it smells amazing right now. Uh when you walk through the gate, it's got that great tropical scent to it.

[00:11:14]I don't really have room for my Plumeria right now, but I am going to keep moving it. I've been moving it down to various places, and we will see.

[00:11:26]Here are a few, um and I'm showing you I bumped it and all this white stuff comes out. You've got to be so careful with your big plumeria cuz they just like all over the place. And my crape myrtle, the large one, I see growth at the bottom.

[00:11:42]So, Chris, it survived. I just need to chop it back, which is a shame cuz it was so nice and big, but this winter was so harsh. Uh, such a harsh winter.

[00:11:51]But, it made it.

[00:11:54]I know I'm boring and all of you with the peonies, but just kind of view it as a pallet cleanser in between all the tropicals. So, here's another little brief look at the pretty peonies.

[00:12:08]Okay, here are my lotus. I'm going to put some in this bowl and I'm going to add dirt and pebbles and put it in the pond and we will see what happens.

[00:12:22]Experiment.

[00:12:24]My friend Paul gave me this African violet, which is actually three [music] different colors, three different plants in one pot. And luckily, when I separated it out, they separated really [music] easy.

[00:12:36]And so, I just made three new plants.

[00:12:38]And look, the first water lily of the season.

[00:12:44]And these are the hardy water lilies.

[00:12:46]And this actually naturalized. I have like four or five in a pot. These attached.

[00:12:51]I don't know if that's a good thing with a liner, but I've got quite I probably have six plants that have attached now.

[00:12:58]When I'm sitting on the side of the road, I look over and I see mugwort, invasive.

[00:13:03]I see poison ivy, invasive. This is what I do when I'm bored in my car and I'm driving someways somewhere. I just look over and kind of analyze the plants.

[00:13:14]I get up very early in the morning, farmer hours. And this is the reason why. I like to have my coffee. I like to hear the birds. I like to watch the light coming across the Hudson River.

[00:13:26]I mean, who wouldn't want to see this?

[00:13:28]And I would hate to miss all of this.

[00:13:30]So, I am up, ready to go, and I correspond with a lot of my European friends because they've been up for hours already. But, it's just a nice way to start the day here in New York.

[00:13:43]Look how much this Musa basjoo has grown. Like, this is taller than me now.

[00:13:48]I just I can't even believe how fast this grows once it starts going. Not as fast as the bamboo, but still insane.

[00:13:57]And the cacti garden is about to bloom.

[00:14:01]It's not quite there yet, but uh and my Madagascar palm is like branching out there, but maybe in a week or two I'm going to have a lot of beautiful yellow flowers out here.

[00:14:15]It's a little different every year when they bloom, but it's pretty amazing when they do.

[00:14:20]And even though I struggle with this garden, I do love it when it's blooming and looking fantastic. [music] The Yucca rostrata that bloomed last year is definitely branching out, and I I might chop off some of these dead leaves or fronds to make it look a little bit better, but uh that's a lengthy process that takes a while cuz I try to keep the pattern consistent. But, the other one is still looking really fine. They're so nice and big. It's one of my favorite plants.

[00:14:54]Monkey puzzle has lots of new growth on it.

[00:14:58]This is my larger one. I have a smaller one in the front, but this is the one I've had for many years out here.

[00:15:04]I know it may not live forever in this zone, but last this past winter it did pretty good. I did put a tarp over it and some Christmas lights when it just was just brutal out.

[00:15:16]Uh so, I'm definitely helping it along.

[00:15:19]And here I have my Chamaerops humilis seedlings from my bigger Chamaerops and I I I have so many and I know some of you want them um and I need to mail them off to you.

[00:15:35]This is the plant they came from and there's more uh seeds forming on it right now. So, I'm going to even make more.

[00:15:42]But um I'm finally getting them into some bigger pots and I want to see how fast they grow.

[00:15:49]And here's all the ones I potted up today. So, I have a whole new crop of baby palms even though I just sold so many baby Trachycarpus, now I can replace them with that.

[00:16:01]And I just noticed that not my yellow cactus are blooming, but here's the first cactus blooms of the season.

[00:16:11]And uh I forget what variety this is, but they're really pretty, but they always are they bloom sooner. I am out here this morning doing some work.

[00:16:21]I was in the sun with my Berlin Starbucks cup and uh was enjoying it and then all of a sudden it started raining.

[00:16:36]And this is the funnest summer. It's nice and warm out, but I'm under my umbrella.

[00:16:42]I get to be in my tropical garden and this is another reason why it is worth all that effort with the tropicals to just be able to sit out here every day and enjoy the tropics in New York.

[00:17:01]I have to give credit to Yvonne who watches this channel. So, last year this time these lilies were just covered in this these black larva from the the beetle that eats them all and she said she was using rubbing alcohol, soap, and water to spray on them.

[00:17:22]And she hasn't seen them in 3 years, and this year, I haven't put anything on them, and there is nothing. And last year, they were just a big gigantic disgusting mess.

[00:17:34]And uh so far so good. So, Yvonne, thank you. And if you're having problems with them, I would definitely suggest using her method of spraying alcohol, dish water, soap, and water on them. Thank you, Yvonne.

[00:17:52]Next week, I think I'm going to do a full garden tour.

[00:17:57]Haven't done those since last year.

[00:17:59]And I hope everyone has a great week.

[00:18:03]And I will see you next time on this channel. Happy gardening.