For ten years running I've shared a comprehensive photo tour of my garden each fall. These posts are a snapshot, a moment in time, one that allows me to look back and see how the garden has evolved. This year I was busy putting together a pair of garden talks and just didn't have time to edit down all the photos I'd taken. That was a blessing in disguise, because it turns out to be a lot more fun to work through the photos in the winter. Today we'll "walk" the front garden, Wednesday we tour the back garden, and Friday I'll share a quick planting project I did in October and post video tours of both the front and back gardens.
We start today's tour looking across our driveway, at the garden. It was a cloudy day in early September, but the photos in this post were taken on a few different days throughout the month, so the light conditions will vary...
Walking up the driveway we're now looking raised planting area up against the house. The many Aristaloe aristata are the stars here, but there are plenty of supporting characters (Androsace sempervivoides 'Susan Joan', Dryas drummondii, sempervivum, agaves...) that keep me from completely hating the fact I haven't yet replaced those stupid cement blocks with something more creative.
The Grevillea x gaudichaudii (the sort of oak-shaped leaves) made an excellent come back from the winter ugly of January '24.
As did the Grevillea rivularis.
Looking up from where I stood taking those last two photos, and out across the garden towards the street. I love this photo, even with Austin's bald spots showing (Arctostaphylos x ‘Austin Griffiths').
Walking down the driveway to look up the sidewalk towards the front door—we'll take a look at the plants up there in a bit.
Here's a different angle on the corner of the garden that started this post. That hazy shrub on the far left is a Pittosporum anomalum, the larger agave is A. ovatifolia 'Frosty Blue', that's a Yucca rostrata with the short trunk and a different angle on Austin.
Austin has a lot of small dead branches I keep meaning to clean up, someday. He's still got super sexy legs though...
Arctostaphylos 'Monica' (in the middle) isn't nearly as showy as Austin and I keep threatening to remove her and open up the sightlines to the house. Maybe. The groundcover is Juniperus conferta 'Blue Pacific' and most of the agaves in this shot are A. parryi 'JC Raulston'.
The nice legs of Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Harmony’ are on the far right and that oppressive branch across the top of the photo belongs to one of the (inherited/hated) Styrax japonicus (Japanese snowbell) in the hellstrip.
In the far northeast corner of the front garden a small grove of Tetrapanax papyrifer fronts the Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Harmony’. The groundcover here is Podocarpus alpinus ‘Orangeade’.
Now we've walked up to see the north side of the house that borders the neighbor's driveway. That Fatsia japonica was hit hard last winter, but the little mahonia under it, M. fortunei 'Curlyque' (I grew it from cuttings!), didn't miss a beat. The airy shrub at the corner of the house is Rhamnus frangula 'Ron Williams'.
Now we've turned towards the front door again, but from the opposite side. The tetrapanax up against the window is a runner from the plants in the corner, that I showed earlier. Those two Agave ovatifolia 'Frosty Blue' were planted from 1-gallon pots in 2013, I shared a look at this area freshly planted up in
this post. I can't begin to express just how much I love those agaves, they make me so happy. I am also aware they are getting very close to blooming size/age. It will be a sad, but spectacular, sight.
Here's a shot I took when I was working on the garden talks I mentioned earlier. One was on containers and the other on ferns, if you're curious I'll be giving the fern talk at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival on February 21st—info
here, page down to the Plant Academy section.
I love love LOVE that fuzzy fern, Pleopeltis lepidopteris 'Morro dos Conventos'.
A close-up.
On the other side of the steps is this grouping...
The color is odd in this shot, but I wanted to share the Fuchsia procumbens in the pot with the agave, I love that thing.
Here I'm standing on the front porch and looking to our driveway.
Slightly different angle. The two blue-ish explosions are Dasylirion wheeleri.
Those two plants date back to the first front garden planting I did in 2006/07, crazy to think they've been here since the beginning, and just how much the garden has changed around them. You might be able to spot them in
this blog post from 2009 (one of my first). In the second to last photo they are visible in front of the door/porch, but they're planted in terracotta pots with painted rims that I sunk into the ground. I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea! (I released them a few years later)
The tall V-shaped plant in the terracotta pot is an Edgeworthia chrysantha a friend gave me, I put it there for the summer to help fill the hole where a large Callistemon 'Woodlander's Hardy Red' was killed back by the January cold.
Here's the callistemon stump and the new growth. Obviously I need to do some thinning, but I thought I'd let them all go through the winter and see who looked the strongest come spring.
Those dasylirion are quite the photo-bombers! I liked the light in this shot, which was taken to show off the hypertufa containers and small agaves.
One last look at this area...
And then we trek up the driveway to the area just outside our backdoor. This is where I grow my (very limited) veggies and typically a tank of stems for cutting.
Basil is a must, and it loves the hot and sunny spot.
There are usually a couple kinds of tomatoes. I can't remember the name of these, they were oh so beautiful, but only so/so in the taste department.
Green Zebra, these were quite good.
A mandevilla hybrid I received in a
shipment of trial plants from Dümmen Orange.
This smaller tank was filled with Gomphocarpus physocarpus (hairy balls plant, the stems I grew for cutting this year), as well as a Russelia x 'St. Elmo's Fire', aka firecracker plant and some newly purchased plants I stash in there for safe keeping. The firecracker plant is not reliably hardy here, but I haven't bothered to dig it up and protect it yet... and it still looks good. Maybe, just maybe, it will be okay? Who knows what February will bring.
That's a wrap on this first installment of the 2024 garden tour, more on Wednesday...
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