Weatherguesser's Jim and Alice's jungly garden

The first owner of our house was a writer who worked for Sunset Magazine. He did extensive landscaping, with several raised beds around a patio out back and a couple of Mediterranean mounds out front, and planted lots of interesting plants. For a smallish lot, we have a lot of trees, including a 40 foot London Plane tree (Sycamore), apple and persimmon trees, and a bottlebrush in the back, and 4 birches, three Sweet Gums, and a California Mountain Lilac (Ceanothus) in front. We also inherited a bunch of Fuchsias, several tree ferns, and lots of miscellaneous ferns, a Lilly-Pilly (it’s an Australian bush), a Tree Dahlia (Dahlia imperialis; last fall it grew about 17 feet tall), and a “tree Asparagus” (Asparagus macowanii). My wife and I have added a flagstone path out front, replanted the front “lawn” with Blue Star Creeper, and added a bunch of plants — we basically have nearly every nook and cranny filled, and are still always on the lookout for new and cool stuff. We have a Protea and two Pincushion Flowers (Leucospermum) growing nicely in containers on the patio. I spend most of my weekends out in the garden — for a “low maintenance” yard, it sure takes a lot of work to keep up, but I love it. One thing I really like is that you see green out every window of our house. The hummingbirds and bees love it, too.