A look around the back garden

Everything is going wild right now. Lots of heat and rain have kicked the tropicals into high gear. Weeds too, but maybe you won't notice them? Here's a tour of the back yard, starting with a view of what has come to be my main tropicals bed:

I'm standing on the driveway (crowded with plants and empty containers, therefore not being shown today) looking south.

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Moving to just past the bottom of the stairs to the deck, the tropical bed is to the left and the main stairs down to the patio are in front of us -- hidden by plants:

The stream is there too, but you can't see that either in this shot. Let's go up the stairs to the deck for a minute...

...as there's not too much going on there, but that's on purpose. I've decided that just a few pots is best up here. (The table should have a pot on it, but I'm waiting for the new stain to dry more before I put something on it.)

Looking down on the tropical bed from the stairs:

It's really packed -- so much going on. Back to the stream area, as I really love what the Colocasia brings to this view:

The castor beans are starting to get impressive. Not dominating yet, but give them a couple more weeks.

Turning to take a look at the patio:

I wonder why I left those empty pots hanging there? I never think about them while I'm out there. I'm glad I turned those chairs into features.

Okay, we've gone under the deck now (you can see a corner of it in the upper left) and are looking at the back. So jungly now -- there should be a path there, but the bamboo needs a pruning. The bananas (Musa basjoo) took some damage in the recent storms, but you almost can't notice it -- can you?

For the next shot I've moved directly forward into the center of that previous photo, with the bananas behind me looking into the patio area:

Maybe I'll step back a bit and turn back toward the house so you can see things in perspective...

There are a couple of changes in this area this year. My peonies are here but since they get lost after the blooms are gone I added some more colocasia and some cannas -- this area needed some big leaves:

The spider flower (Cleome) are self-seeded and work perfectly here I think.

Now you can see the patio area better...

...even though the maypop (Passiflora incarnata) have filled the trellis with a wall of greenery. There is only one peep hole into the patio area, where the Miscanthus was chopped back.

I love this view!

Turning further to the right (east), looking diagonally toward the back corner of the garden...

...those cannas worked better in this shot when they were much shorter!

But if I turn around and look back at the bananas...

...you can see that those cannas are contributing quite wonderfully!

We're on the low side of the patio now, looking back up toward the house:

There was once a nice wide path through there, but now it's a bit of a squeeze. If you don't like brushing past plants you might not want to visit me.

I've gone a bit more back into the yard now, looking back...

...and have turned to the right to reveal my favorite view right now:

So much texture and color variation even though the ninebark has greened a bit and isn't as dark as it was earlier. The bamboos along the back of this view (the north side of my yard) need some pruning and support, but they look so great from here!

I'm not showing you the veggie area (completely overgrown) or the pond (a disaster right now with the leak and green water) but I love this vignette:

The pond is to the left in that image. The bench is currently in the spot that I've been thinking about making a little deck. Not sure if that's still in my plans but I think so.

I'll end with a view from the patio looking at the ninebark:

There's much more to see, but I probably should do a bit of cleanup before I show it to you. Plus many plants are still bent over from the heavy rains we get every few days. It's easy to get a bit down about the "problem" parts of the garden, but seeing the good parts -- as I've shared with you here -- helps me to keep things in perspective.


You know I haven't mowed the lawn in probably a month. You can really see it in some of the photos of the bananas, and in the fact that perilla seedlings are growing in the lawn in several places. I really hate mowing!

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