A Lot Going On (in the Front Yard Garden)

There's a lot going on in the front yard these days. Lots of color (even though there are few blooms) and lots of texture through the many, varied plants that reside there.  It's finally starting to look like the drought-tolerant tapestry that I had envisioned!

I know that I have mentioned this before, but one of my favorite things about the front yard is the way that the evening sun provides pretty backlighting that just makes all of the foliage colors glow. These purple heart leaves are normally so dark that they appear to be almost flat in color, but when they are backlit, they show an amazing amount of shade variation and detail.

Even the silver sage, salvia argentea, is transformed by the setting sun. Its thick, downy leaves show off glowing light green patches and some pretty veining detail.

The salvia plants themselves offer up a nice textural counterpoint to the fine-foliaged sedums and brown grasses (mostly carex buchannii) in the front yard.

Right next door, sunshine turns the leaves of my pineapple lily ('Sparkling Burgundy' eucomis) to shades of yellow-green. You can really see the color contrast when you compare the green leaves to the burgundy ones in the background that are shaded by the oakleaf hydrangea.

And yes, once again I am looking forward to the pineapple lily's bloom! I love how the color of the stalk and buds are picked up by the rosy tint of the oakleaf hydrangea in the background. I try to tie in a few things like this throughout the entire front yard garden--it helps to keep the garden looking like a cohesive design, rather than a mishmash of randomly chosen plants.


More of a tour of the new front yard garden to come... but probably later in the week. It seems that we have more thunderstorms in the near future here.  I never mind thunderstorms, but I really wish that they would cool things off a little bit. The tomatoes might be loving this weather, but my sled dog Garden Assistant definitely does NOT approve!