No way to disguise all that concrete but the plants help soften it.
The driveway entrance from the north side looks the same year round with a passalong yucca, Color Guard Yucca, Golden Barrel Cactus, Agave, and the Bismarck palm in the back which has been shredded by a buck sharpening his antlers. The palm will survive but it may take a while to recover. In the front by the rock Opuntia Santa-rita is forming flower buds.
The driveway island also looks the same much of the year. The plants in front are Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoechas) which will bloom soon. This looks about the same all year except when the gold lantana blooms in the summer.
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You didn't think I would leave out the Agave ovatifolia did you? A "statement piece" as my sister-in-law called it when she visited a few weeks ago. It gets a bit paler in late winter but holds its own in this spot most of the year.
That's it for foliage follow up February 2013. Foliage Follow-Up is the 16th of each month and the day after Garden Bloggers Bloom Day when bloggers highlight foliage in our gardens.To see more foliage from garden bloggers check out the comments section at Digging.
I love your "statement piece," of course, and it all adds plenty of green and even yellow to the winter garden, without the need of any flower. I'm sure when those appear it feels like the icing on the cake. I'm sorry about your palm being antlered -- those darn deer! They like to rub their antlers on a particular softleaf yucca in my front garden, so I spray deer repellant on it every couple of weeks during the winter.
ReplyDeleteIt's all looking really good.
ReplyDeleteDeer are so much 'help' in the garden.....NOT! Hope the palm comes back strong and quickly. So far, they've left our one palm alone.
Spraying here sometimes works...sometimes not. If we don't get some rain, so that the wild things grow, I'm afraid things will get even worse.
Have a great weekend.
It's so tough to anticipate what the deer will do next. We have moved some small boulders around it so they can't get their footing in the future.
DeleteO.K. this is war! No one messes with Shirley's Bismarkia! I was growing it vicariously through your posts and now this. More Rock, same amount of Oak, less Deer! Much the same all year is not a bad thing when "the same" is spectacular!
ReplyDeleteLess deer would be nice. There are two palms out front and the most visible one is fine. So far so good.
DeleteSpectacular is a nice word, probably wouldn't have come up with that myself but I like it.
Looking nice, a preview of Abq gardens in April! Concrete expanse - more later, but a few saw-cut joints and powder coloring, or just different bands, may be worth looking at. Still wish you could move that palm to that center island, but probably not protected enough.
ReplyDeleteWabbit season? No - deer season!
Those driveway treatment ideas are on the radar but far down on the list for now. The only time it bothers me is when I take the photos.
DeleteWe are enjoying the low plants in the island at this stage and it would be a problem with the sidewalk as it grows since the spot is very narrow. The soft leaf yuccas will grow up there eventually.
Your front garden has great flow! Good luck with the deer - that's one blight I've never had to contend with.
ReplyDeleteIt can be fun to have deer and then again not fun either. I tried to repeat plants and bring silvery gray and yellows across to relate each section to the whole.
DeleteLooking really good! And so different compared to and English front garden!! Nice and exotic with all those cacti.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it would look exotic to you, just as I see hellebores and sigh.
DeleteLike the others I am shocked and saddened about your Bismarckia. How horrible. Glad your Agave ovatafolia is unscathed.
ReplyDeleteAwww, that's so sweet. He didn't knock the top off so it will recover. I think next spring we will protect the agaves. The deer have scratched up the nearby A. Americana quite a bit.
DeleteYou've done well with your driveway plantings. I just love lavender. I bet it looks fabulous when the gold lantana blooms next to it! My salvias aren't green through the winter. So interesting what just a bit of zone difference makes!
ReplyDeleteYou are just a bit colder there and it's amazing the difference. Just between here and Austin only an hour or so north is a big difference in what can grow.
DeleteYour front garden is very nice - another source of inspiration for me as a I research my own gravel garden. And I hope the deer leave your palm alone in the future! Can't they see how nice it is? :)
ReplyDeleteKeeping one step ahead of the deer is an ongoing challenge. Their tastes seem to keep changing. Your garden is looking great, so you must be doing something right.
ReplyDelete