Work in progress...

That circle of rocks at 11 o'clock rings a manzanita (Howard McMinn). Moving clockwise, next to the birdbath, I planted two mimulus cream (sticky monkey flower) and some pink primrose.

That mulch will sit for the winter. I sowed grass and California poppy seeds. I'll landscape that area in the spring if I don't get around to it this winter. At 4 o'clock, the Princess Plant remains in shade, but she'll get lots of sun this spring.



Down at the bottom of the frame: sea pink (two of them), a climbing hydrangea, some dark-green waxy leaf shrub whose name I forgot and some pinkhead smartweed (which is Hawai'ian I believe & hopefully invasive). I planted several bulbs and some ground covers in the middle of the terrace too.

At 9 o'clock next to the pond, there are three grasses--Mexican feather grass, Deschampsia cespitosa (Northern Lights) and Libertia peregrinans (you can't see that one very well because it's dark, but it's next to the birdbath and it's starting to spread). Also a red flowering currant (ribes sanguineum glutinosum) and Zauschneria (epilobium). The bright green spreader growing over the rocks is a licorice that loves my yard. I have another one under the stairs and they're both spreading madly.



I need to re-work some of the rock walls and hire an electrician to run an electrical line out into the yard so I can nix the extension cord that powers the pump in the pond. (Among many, many other things.)

I love the splatter on the flagstone from the birds using the birdbath!

Natives in this shot: manzanita, mimulus, one of the sea pinks, ribes, epilobium. I have more in another part of the yard.

I didn't plan to get hyped about native plants when I started landscaping my backyard. In fact, I resisted the idea at first because native plant enthusiasts tend to be so...dogmatic. Dogma turns me off like a light switch.

But the idea took root (heh, heh) and now when I see an exotic plant at the nursery, I think it looks wrong somehow.

I can't wait to see everything grow in.

Zauschneria on the left, Ribes on the right. Zaucsch will make white flowers, and Ribes red.