The good and the bad

My garden -- like yours I have to assume -- is full of good and bad this year. Here's an example of good and bad in the same view:

It's the front bed between the driveway and the house. The Alocasia make it worth looking at -- they really set off the understory of bamboo and hakone grass. The bad part though is obvious: the clematis. All of my clematis vines do the same thing each year: grow like gangbusters, bloom, then halfway die during the summer. Blech. Maybe I should put the maypop here too?

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How about more good to offset that ugly vine?

Is this my Agave 'Blue Flame'? I think it is, but it looks so different than when I first got it. So curvy and wonderful now! (If not, which Agave is it?)

It's beside the spiky-trunked Pachypodium, a japanese maple, some volunteer persicaria and the ever-present perilla (purple). So nice!

Also nice, to some extent, is the bamboo in front:

Pleioblastus shibuyanus 'Tsuboi' just looks great every year -- with no sign of the flowering returning I should point out -- but especially so with the Sasaella bitchuensis behind it. Beautiful! (Here's what it looked like after winter)

Take a look at it from the street side though...

...and it's not as nice.

Kinda looks like something -- maybe a rented RV? -- was blowing hot exhaust on this spot for an hour or so, doesn't it? I should probably just prune those culms out. Nah, I'll just park my truck in front of it.

A final look today is at some good:

These houseplants are looking pretty great, especially since they were gifted to me by a neighbor who moved back to California. I've always wanted a Croton, and the other one was just too nice to pass up. (What is it?)

There is plenty more "good and bad" in my garden right now, and I'll show you more of it next week -- along with an update on the bamboo project.

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