Specialty Gardening: You Show Me Your Gardens - Part III, 1 by jkom51

jkom51 wrote:
Finishing off with a walk back up towards the front of the house again: remember the fourth photo that started off the backyard tour? Stand in that spot, but turn around to face upwards instead of downwards, and this is what you see as you start back uphill (yeah, gardening in this yard is actual EXERCISE, lol).

Here's what I mean about evergreen all year long - both our neighbors and us use this path for access. It starts with two variegated 'Gold Dust' aucubas separated by a huge Hellebore foetidus. An extremely vigorous unknown bearded iris fills in every spot it can with sword-like leaves, and blooms at least twice a year.

By the chimney, there is a dwarf rhodie (extremely fragrant flowers in spring, just gorgeous), an evergreen fern. What you can't see are the hydrangeas, azaleas (soon to be replaced by two Encore azaleas) and an unusual plectranthus groundcover I've never seen anywhere else. There used to be a gorgeous splash of dark red color from an 8' Japanese maple in this bed. But remember when I said we had a 2-week frost spell this year? It killed the poor thing as it was just starting to leaf out. It's going to cost me big $$$ to replace it.