Take a look around

I've been spending so much time focusing on "details" of the garden in recent posts that I feel like I haven't given you a good sense of the garden as a whole. I've shown you specific plants, and small parts of certain beds, and potted up some plants, etc. but it isn't the individual plants that are important.

It's how they fit together and form the garden as a whole. You've got to step back and look at the whole thing once in a while, and that's what I'll do today.

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All of these photos are of the gardens in the backyard -- which are really the most significant. There are also the front and side yard gardens, but I'll save those for another day.

This is a couple of views of the "prairie" area. Ornamental grasses (both native and non-native), native flowering perennials, and buffalo grass lawn.

This next shot is standing on the buffalo grass looking to the right toward the patio.

Here's a view from the patio looking back at the same plants. My older Fargesia 'rufa' bamboo, one of the big potted Elephant Ears (Colocasia esculenta), the arctic blue willow in the pot, and the dark ninebark behind them:

The same plants from another angle, off the patio and out into the yard. The "prairie" area is in the background of this photo:

And this is from a viewpoint a few steps forward from the last photo and looking to the left toward the patio. The rufa bamboo is in the foreground, and the dark wall of leaves is another bamboo: Phyllostachys aureosulcata 'Aureocaulis'. It's one of my favorites and will be really impressive in another year or two when it starts getting taller (it's about 7'-8' tall right now):

Stepping through onto the patio, looking back to the "stream" -- the 'Aureocaulis' bamboo is to the right:

Jumping around, this is taken from up on the driveway, with the "prairie" to the left, and the patio to the right:

Turning to the right while still standing on the driveway looking down a small stairway to the patio. The 'Aureocaulis' bamboo is on the right:

A view of the "stream" (in the background behind the yellow black-eyed Susans) from the driveway. The 'Aureocaulis' bamboo is just out of the frame to the left:

The view of the same area from the other side, looking back toward the driveway where I was standing in the previous photo:

Another jump back to the "prairie", but seen from below. The yellow flowers at the upper left of the photo are the "driveway crack" sunflowers:

Turning to the right is the fenced-in veggie garden. Even if it doesn't produce anything edible, it still looks pretty good right now, I have to admit. The vines are beans, cantaloupe, and one cucumber:

I didn't show everything in the backyard gardens here, so I'll have to get to that in another posting.

You know, I sometimes get kind of "down" about the garden. I look at a planting bed half-filled with weeds, or some plants that are not doing well or might be past their peak and I think that I'm doing a terrible job. But taking a step back and looking at everything in context as taking these photos has made me do, I'm pretty pleased with the way things are going. Is everything perfect? No! Is it a garden I enjoy spending time in, looking at, and showing to others? Yes! and that's all that really matters.