Spring tour: The garden comes to life 

“Gardens don’t need to be perfect, they do need to be interesting”, BEST gardening advice I’ve heard yet!! Thanks Erin for your relaxed style and the abundant knowledge you share with us.

“Tractor seat size and then some.” Tell me you live in Wisconsin, without telling me you live in Wisconsin. 😂😂 love it.

I love the fact that you have a bin full of weeds and som christmas stuff left in the garden when you tour it. They are proof of real life in a real garden to me. Whitch is gorgeous, as usual.💚

“I don’t care, I needed that tree.” 😂 That’s me with every tree I buy.

Erin, I so appreciate when you make us aware of the plants in your gardens which may become abundant growers - or ‘aggressive’ in another’s gardening situation. It is interesting to learn that some cultivars are able to be grown quite beautifully in your area, under your conditions, without being a nuisance. Whereas in my area, also Zone 5 but in the farmland of Iowa I’d be cursing them! Your narrative to “approach with caution” is well noted. There is such a peacefulness about your garden and also in your gardening attitude. There is a balance to be struck for sure, between allowing nature to continue and growing the plants which add to our adventures in gardening. You’ve struck that balance beautifully. Thank you for sharing.

I know you want privacy between you and your neighbors but oh, that view of the lake, lovely. Great tour 👍

Weeds & mess... What weeds & mess??? BELIEVE ME, I'm an EXPERT at looking beyond & only seeing the good in the garden! (I HAVE to be!) So yeah, I don't see any weeds, I don't know WHAT you're talking about with weeds. You're right, it IS a beautiful Spring morning in your garden today! Thank You for sharing it, I was fully submerged in all the things coming into life!! Walking thru the garden gave me a real pick-me-up this morning! 😊

No matter what evey garden is perfect in the spring. Everything is new and fresh and anything is possible. Your garden is lovely in all seasons.

I’m just going to let this play on my TV on repeat all day. 😆 seriously. It’s gorgeous.

I do love that you add weeds to your garden tour! I am 8 months out from retirement and looking forward to not having to cram all garden chores into a weekend. Needless to say, the weeds are dominating some of my beds in my 1 1/2 acre Maryland yard. .Having a huge issue with wild violets. Last fall I laid paper and cardboard topped by 5 inches of chipped wood. They are bursting through that! Grrrr! But still, despite the weeds, your garden tour was delightful. Having lived in Chicago before moving to MD, I know how that huge lake can affect your weather.

Erin., I've watched your channel for a couple of years and enjoy seeing how your garden has changed over the years. I lived in Kenosha for a couple of years in the early 90"s and because of the very cold winters was happy to leave, but now that I live in SC, I do remember with fondness the beautiful zinnias I was able to grow and am amazed that how plants are able to develop and explode when the temps rise. I learn something from you each time I watch your channel. Thank you for such enjoyable and informative content.

I’ve been following you, Laura GA and a bunch of other gardening RU-vidrs for years. And me now starting with a blank slate use you as inspiration. From your garden, Aralia Silver Umbrella is a must-need-want-to have. I found Europe’s largest nursery in Germany, bulbs, roses and bare root perennials in Holland, lilacs in Latvia and these prices are so affordable so even with shipping it’s soooo worth it. Just imagine 126 different lilacs! Anyway, THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge and passion, even if I’ve been gardening for almost 40yrs (started early 😁😜) I’m still learning and getting new knowledge, and I love it. ❤

Spring is so special especially when we are in colder areas. The gardens look beautiful and I am determined to try another dogwood but am loving that serviceberry too. Thanks for sharing your space in all its glory and imperfections. It always makes me feel better to see real gardens where someone has made peace with weeds and plants that want to conquer the world!

It’s definitely long-awaited Spring in your gardens Erin. There’s something about a woodland garden that can’t be compared to anything else. So many of those beautiful plants are here today and then gone tomorrow, so we have to enjoy them while we can. Your Serviceberry is beautiful. I have two of them and my Brother has planned the first of his bi-annual trips home to coincide with the ripening of my tree’s berries. That’s a maybe, however, because Cedar Waxwings might just beat him to the punch. :) Thank you for sharing all of your lovelies with us. Stay well.

Thank you for all the inspiration!! Sunday mornings are a staple watch for us with coffee!!!

Love garden rooms. They expand the size of your garden actually.

oh so enjoyable. appreciate your commenting on all your plants. i could listen for hours. thank you very much

I watched one of your videos and you said( this was last year) you had just gotten a edger. And I think you were very happy at that time. Now I’m 75 years old and the body doesn’t work that well as it did and I’m trying to live on SS. So I’m hoping you could let me know if you’re still happy with it and if it saves you time. I think 75% of my time in my garden is edging and it’s never ending. Thanks in advance

Thank you for the garden tour. I love when you do the tours they are my favorite thing to watch. I hope you do many of them this summer. Your garden is always so beautiful.

The field of ferns looks like paradise❤

Omg! The field of ferns ❤️

I made the mistake planting lily of the valley years ago...it took over! We aggressively ripped up as many of those pips as possible then covered the areas (I planted them everywhere!) with cardboard then covered with mulch for an entire year. For that year I placed planters filled with annuals to fill in the blank spaces. Today they are no longer taking over and the areas have the perennials we want to have. As for the Soloman's Seal, the rhizomes spread quickly, but much easier to manage, every fall and spring I chop them back if they get invasive and my garden friends are quick to accept the discards. Enjoyed the tour.

The bluebells! What a delight to wake up to a garden tour with Erin! Great start to the day! 💕

Your little chipmunk thought that tulip would make a tasty midnight snack.😂 Or maybe he's redecorating? Darn varmints! Thanks for taking the time to tour us thru your beautiful gardens. Everything is fresh, waking up and just so pretty!

Every garden is a work in progress. Spring is a time full of fresh green hope. Lots to do but it's important to just enjoy it. Thanks for sharing your garden with us:)

Wow, love the Ostrich Ferns

Wow! I had no idea you were that close to the lake! I am in zone 5 central Illinois. I so love how beautiful, fresh and green everything is in the spring. Your garden is lovely! We had two horrible storms roll in. The first one brought 5+ inches of rain and nickel size hail. The second storm brought wind and quarter to golf ball size hail. I have tons of hosta in my garden( a lot of the giant ones) and as you can imagine….the hail just tore my hosta to shreds. I want to cry every time I walk outside. 😪

June is my favourite Hosta too. It always looks perfect. Perfect size and colour for any space.

Thank you for the perfect ending to my hard days work - spent 8 hours in the garden, but I looked forward to this & couch time 😄

This garden tour might be my favorite of all garden tours I have seen on you tube! Thank you Erin.

Erin, as always, remember that we appreciate seeing the good, the bad…and the ugly. If you experience bad and ugly, then it makes me - and I assume, others - feel like we’re not doing so bad. I have to admit, I was really curious to see what made you say: “let’s just avoid that over there”. In all honesty, your successes keep me inspired and motivated - as do your struggles. The chipmunk and squirrel struggle are very real in this Zone 6B also. We’re on our third generation of rabbits in 2023. Question: At 22:29, you discuss a plant that “has a hole in the middle” and may need dividing. I couldn’t catch the name, but love the foliage. It looks like a False Aralia. What’s the name of that plant? As always, thanks for keeping it real. We too have varmints, weeds and mess! 🐇🐿️🦌🤬🌷🌺🌼💚

Sorry I'm late to see your video! The bluebells are so pretty and you're lucky to have them. Re: the view of the cottage and the lake...If you like taking photos, take a photo with a camera that can have photos blown up big and still come out clearly and frame it up so you can see it each morning. You can have coffee and look at it for a wonderful awakening each day. For a view like that, for me, it would be worth hiring a photographer to come and do it professionally just to make sure it would be very clear on the blow up. I did that with a painting a friend of mine had and I wake up to it each day and it makes me smile first thing in the morning. It's especially helpful when I know I have a hard day ahead and in the middle of Winter!

“9 months” but actually “20 minutes” ….that IS a lesson.🌸

I bought 80acres on the Oregon coast, the skunk cabbage is immense here! So beautiful..

We don’t see what needs to be done in someone else’s garden. We only see beauty 🌸🌼🌺🌷looks great Erin…keep up the good work 😊

Hi Erin, thanks for the tour! Such a great time of year to see the start of a new growing season. I thought of something when you walked past your apple tree, you mentioned in the past that you didn’t much fruit. The same was happening with my apricot tree. I decided to plant early, middle, and late blooming daffodils to cover my bases trying to align with the apricot’s bloom time. It worked! The daffodils drew in pollinators and I have 10x more fruit this year. Good luck!

You have a lot of work ahead of you girl!! I have a huge chipmunk problem. They are burrowing tunnels everywhere and digging up ALL my planters no matter where I put them. They even climb up my outdoor furniture. My front steps are actually shifting slowly away from the house because they keep kicking out all of the lime screening behind them. I had put out my Delphiniums seedlings that I grew and kidnapped them all. They are very destructive.

Love love love the may apple ❤❤❤ patch ! Turtle food !

Thanks so much beautiful trees mess is just real life always great you showed your garden ...❤

Garden is lovely in the spring!

One must be patient?! But you are the impatient gardener!!! It better grow asap! 🤪 I am totally in the impatient pool too. Its so hard to wait for things to grow. The borrowed lake view looks so serene. ❤

Tell those dogs to get on those chipmunks! They are freeloaders like mine, lol!!

Perfect is totally overrated. Your gardens look beautiful and to share I planted 40 tulips last fall and saw zero, due to a little four legged creature. Peonies my favourite garden plants. I have five Japanese peonies and at least 7 different types and honestly just bought two more single red/whites. Thanks for sharing your gardens. 👍❤️😊

I enjoy your videos more and more. You and yours have a most beautiful home.

Yay to more garden tours!

What a lovely tour. I recommend the orange epimedium to go with the pink and yellow ones, all strong growers. I also had a white one and a purple one but they disappeared over the years. Your "clubby" daffodil may be 'Sir Winston Churchill'. I got daffodil bulbs for a wedding present over 25 years ago and Sir Winston is still coming up and blooming every late spring. It has outlived even 'Ice Follies' which lasted 20 years before petering out.

Erin. The same thing is happening with my Viburnum. I watched your video and realized I had the same problem. So I cut back all the dead parts just as you did and what was left is now coming back beautifully. I'll be interested to see how well your plant blooms and whether it continues a recovery. Keep us posted and if you learn anything about this situation, please share. I'm in 5B in New Hampshire and have many of the same plants so I have learned a lot from you. Thank you. I never miss a post.

The garden looks so pretty. I know you get a late start but I just love seeing all your spring things this late when mine are all dying off or gone here in Maryland. Love all the daffs.

You live in south eastern Wisconsin and I live in north eastern Illinois. Howdy 5b neighbor! I hear you about the weather, anxious to finally plant in the ground this beautiful weekend. Thanks for your wisdom.😊

I love your garden, especially the weeds.

My Lamium did the same thing. It reseeded itself but did not come back as the original Ghost version. Oh well it's good ground cover.

I love your imperfect garden!!❤Beautiful!!

Really enjoyed this, my favorite dogwood is a dwarf, I think called Siberian dogwood. The blooms are so tiny you have to really look for them. The leaves are beautiful..

I love the natural beauty of your gardens, no fussy neatness necessary. Looks like Mother Nature just had her way with your gardens🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🍸🍸🍸🍸❤️❤️❤️❤️love love love👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I love seeing your entire garden Erin! I look forward to seeing your progress in the shade as I garden at the wood's edge. Many, many thanks for sharing your imperfection. It truly inspires me and doesn't leave me feeling ashamed of mine. As a retiree, my day starts with coffee and computer garden videos and ends with wine and weed pulling while my dogs nap ... no help there. I feel blessed to be able to move about tending and dreaming and enjoying the results. Also, I agree about this being the most special time of the year. I had bluebells in my former house and really miss them!! Maybe I can find a generous neighbor willing to share some, as they are pricey and hard to find.

Breathtaking spring garden, Erin. We just planted a serviceberry, too, because of you! I think I will pop in a few more here and there. Our garden climate is about the same as yours - we are on the wide open Atlantic in southern Nova Scotia. Everything is so slow, but then, whoosh, away she goes! Especially the weeds. 😂

Love the tour. My new mantra is to have interesting not perfect ❤️.

Everything is beautiful Erin. ❤

My favorite hosta is “June” too. I have several, but need more!

I live on Cape Cod and we get the same tempering effect from our surrounding waters as you get from the lake. Spring is a long time coming here but we do have the benefit of extended warmth in Autumn.

Thank you for the garden tour!

So good. Love the woodland area.

Interesting and very timely.

Zone 5b here too, but eastern Canada. Our tulips haven't even opened up yet!

You have the coolest plants!

Wow I had no idea that view that you have, are you going to keep some of it. It looks really special. What a lovely spot you have. Your gardens look just delightful, I love serviceberry trees but alas cannot grow them due to apple cedar rust (eastern red cedars are abdundent where I live).

who needs perfect? it's gorgeous, your woodland and part shade plantings are already so full and lush-and fresh green everywhere-it makes me wish I did more plant documenting in March which is when mine looked like yours. We started to hit full on spring but the weather decided to chill for 2 weeks so it feels like it got extended which I'm not complaining about at all! Glad you shared this time in your garden

Hosta June!!! June, Halcyon & MAY (same family) are my fave. Always picture perfect & lovely. My Viburnum looks EXACTLY like yours. Top issue And same regrowth. . Doublefile - plicatum tomentosum (IIRC)

OMG... ERIN, I am watching you on Scripps news right now in CT!

I'm so glad you said 'Blue Kazoo' spirea was high on your list. I'm renovating my front garden and expanded it by 3' once I realized my wintertime planning (long winter made me forget) for that area wouldn't work. I looked at several shrubs, but decided that spirea would work as a mini hedge at the back of this east-facing garden. I've only found photos of the foliage in its blue stage so it's good to see it green as I always suspected it would change to. I have "infrastructure" to work on and then I can plant the already accumulated plants in one quadrant, my plan to keep this project affordable. This garden is right up against my neighbors' driveway (there were tire tracks on the soil surface which they were very apologetic over. Meh. It was 3rd snowiest winter in record), determined some of the plants near the south side (prairie dropseed) and I'm digging out a meandering Y path and placing pavers along the garden's perimeter with a proper sand/pea gravel base. I've got a whimsical forked stump that upsidedown looks like someone's lower trunk is knee-deep in the soil. 😂 I think kids headed to a nearby park will stop and enjoy this space. My neighbors' inquisitive grandson inspired me. He's 4, he didn't understand that word, inspiration. Well, I best get outside to work on my project. My old body is taking longer and longer to recover. I garden in Minneapolis, zone 4b. Oh, I'm growing garlic for first time. I got the hardneck bulbs from a Wisconsin company, Keene's. I'm very excited for harvest in about a month or more. I'll have to see if they have your variety.

I am jealous that you have said "magical" place. There's nothing like a mix of gardens and enhanced wild areas.

Thanks! Loved it.

I am amazed every time you mention how large your ostrich ferns get! Mine never get over 3 feet- maybe we get less rain or I have a slightly different variety. I’m using ferns in place of hostas since I have such a deer issue (shade garden foliage interest). I love them but they will brown out if they get too hot/dry.

Beautiful!

Lovely. Thanks for sharing from your zone in Wisconsin

Lovely walk through your garden. You do have treasures all around. I also love this time of year, when everything is so fresh and green. So fun to walk around and see what's coming up. Appreciate you taking time to show us, when I know you have so much on your plate! :)

Funny to hear you say "One must be patient"! In 7A, we are quite a bit past you - roses in bloom, daffodils are done, but there is nothing like the first signs of spring with all the potential peeking out. Thanks for bringing spring back.

Great video, Erin!

I Love how real,your garden is ❤ thank you for showing us natural and native species of plants 😊 I live in NY ,5b So same zone as you close to Lakes Erie and Ontario , so very similar to you and what I can grow , I find that sweet woodruff is a wonderful shade ground cover , not too invasive for me , I was wondering if you have it ? Trying some ostrich ferns this year I got bare root .

A very special moment and I thank you so much for taking me with you. Love it all…..

We are zone 5b in Colorado and we are equally late on everything blooming this year. Our trees & shrubs are just starting to leaf out and tulips/daffodils started blooming just a few weeks ago. Crazy weather this year! Enjoy seeing another similar zone garden.

So nice❤

The lamium toward the front with the almost white leaves, looks like Pink Chablis. For some reason Proven Winners sold it last as an annual accent. It is not an annual, has spread over the winter and looked great.

I’m so glad to see your garden in spring. Thank you for showing the whole garden. Amazing the difference in your little micro zone from my Tennessee garden. Great that you have a temporary view of lake Michigan. I’m so looking forward to seeing each of your projects as you do them and have time to videotape them. We don’t care about your weeds. We love seeing you grow all of the different plants in all of your different spaces that you have. So shoot away, weeds or no weeds! I’m looking so forward to seeing videos with Roy at your house. I have watched all of the videos on his RU-vid channel since you introduced him to us. Tell him that we look forward to more content from him. Thank you, Erin!

Beautiful tour, thank you. I’m impressed with your knowledge of the Latin names; not my strength at all 🤣🤣. Way to go!

So many screenshots!! Love all of your unique plants!! I’m gonna try to find a couple seems as though I’m also in 5b!!!

I just planted 25 bare root asarum canadense and anxiously waiting to see if it will grow. I absolutely love that plant and really want it to succeed in my garden

Thanks for sharing! So many things to look at.

It’s so funny for me to hear your comments on Lily of the valley. I’m desperately trying to grow it here in my shade garden in country NSW Australia that I have paid a fortune for tiny pieces of it. One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure I guess!! Loved the tour. Would love you to do a tour of your trees and shrubs. I’m currently looking at developing a shrubbery which will include small trees - west facing- and whilst we struggle to get the range of plants available to you in the US (due to our very strict bio security measures- I’d love some ideas on foliage, bloom, multiple season interest selections for this area.

You’re correct 😟 I’m so enjoying the CRISP MORNINGS/afternoon,spring is the time of year where we can plan out our gardens what must be relocated or planting new plants.Spring teaches us patience 😌 Let’s enjoy spring ❤️🙏🏽❤️

Hahaha "Let's not....Let's just avoid that over there" If i can't see it, it doesn't exist x°D

Love your tour!

Can’t wait for the tour

It kinda throws one off from a zone 8a to see your garden in your zone & where its at the end of May. We are definitely way ahead but you still have a lot to look forward to…as we do.😊 It’s so nice that you are so close to the lake & have a view.

Love this . Thank you.

I loved this garden tour. Your gardens are beautiful, I love gardens that aren't perfect. Real gardens have weeds, nothing is perfect but it's still filled with beautiful plants. Love your garden.

Thanks Erin. 🌷💚🙃

WOW, just BEAUTIFUL! Thank you for sharing.

Such a fun garden space! I love it!

The garden is looking lovely, Erin. Enjoy it!