A quick look around

I spent another hour digging up rhizomes on my bamboo removal project today, but I didn't finish so I'm not ready to post about it. Since it took a lot out of me, I'll just post some quick photos of my yard that I've taken recently.

I love the garden at this time of year, mainly because of the ornamental grasses. In front is the annual/wildflower bed that I recently redid, and I think it's looking pretty good!

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Taking a closer look, there sure are a lot of flowering vines in my garden:

I love the fact that they're so easy to grow, and add plenty of visual interest up high. It's hard to believe that the cypress vine on the right (with the small white flowers) is growing up a single pole of electrical conduit. It looks so substantial, and it only took 2 minutes to install.

I'm going to have to plant more purple fountain grasses next year. I still have a couple in pots -- I never found a good spot for them -- but next year I'll plant three or more together in a bed for some real impact. I saw a grouping of a dozen or so of these in a California garden a few years ago and it looked so impressive!

I'm still disappointed that I let my Fargesia 'Rufa' (clumping bamboo, right in the center of the photo above) dry out during our hot spell this summer, hence the brown leaves on top of the plant. I can't remember if the fargesias shed their old leaves in fall or spring. I'm hoping it's fall. (They don't shed all of their leaves, just some percentage of them.)

The large miscanthus will start flowering soon. I actually prefer it when it's not in flower, as I like the rounded fine-textured look.

The veggie garden doesn't look so bad from this distance. Look, there's more purple fountain grass! I really like this as an accent plant. The dark leaves and seed heads really contrast with all of the green.

Finally, a look at the "prairie" area:

There are a lot of ornamental grasses here, and many late-season blooming flowers. The combination of the two looks great this time of year, but the real secret to this view is... the hill. Nothing like a natural slope to really set your plants off and make it look like you really know what you're doing.