Autumn Garden Roundup: Back Garden

With our first cold weather of the season hitting this week I'm posting my annual garden roundup to show the gardens at their Autumn peak.  In my last post I featured the front yard and today we'll tour the back yard.

The centerpiece of the back yard is the circle garden created last year to cover a bare spot left by two years of extreme drought.

The early morning view from the gate

To say this garden has exceeded my expectations is an understatement.

  
This was an area we tried not to look at when passing through the side of the yard.  Now that this garden is here I try to find time each day to sit in those chairs and just stare at it.

 
...and of course I love our new arbor recently completed.

  

Pennisetum with a tropical orange bougainvillea in the background.  Orange is a good fall color.


 

The pink Trumpet vine on the shed bloomed for the first time this year.  You can just see it on the post at the left edge.

The first blooms

The cactus garden along the back has expanded this year

   
A small Mexican Buckeye was added in the middle.

The stone path through the side yard has been reworked since we discovered the original version with wide gaps in the stones wasn't the best idea for this heavily traveled spot.  The dry creek has been moved to the left to allow more space for traversing this area.  More plantings along the new pathway will come next year.

The Brugmansia 'Flamenco' produced a nice flush of blooms against the garage wall.

With the gardening year coming to an end I believe we have finally reached a point where our time spent enjoying the gardens now exceeds the the time spent creating them.  And that's progress.  It's all good.