South of the front steps; a bit of land reworked

Winter was not kind to the area just south of our front door. The main issue was the near death of the Feijoa sellowiana (pineapple guava), the leafy shrub in the large container. Photo from last September...

It may have recovered, but this was the fourth or fifth time it's completely defoliated with a winter storm. I planted it as an evergreen, I wanted an evergreen. It was time to cut my losses. This photo is from February 10th. I'd cut back the plant, but not removed it from the pot. that was going to be a job! The brown leaves at the front of the container belong to Loropetalum Jazz Hands (a mini fringe flower), I'd left it hoping it would show signs of life, but no.

I finally tackled the stump removal a few weeks ago. Andrew was willing to get involved, but I needed to remove as much soil as possible first. Hours of digging, cutting roots, more digging...

The final removal called for tipping the container on its side (as much as we could in the tight space) and rocking out the stump...

Empty! I also removed several Calluna vulgaris in the area, they'd become overgrown and ugly, only the one on the far left was allowed to remain.

Sadly there was agave damage. I tried so hard to make sure the big Agave 'Baccarat' remained flawless, but two tips were damaged when the pot was being rocked on its side and the stump pulled out. Dammit! Thankfully the damage remains pretty invisible unless you look close. 

Unfortunately it does make those leaves susceptible to rot, I'll be watching them.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to put in the container: various shrubs were considered, removing the container and planting something in the ground was a possibility. Of course I thought about an agave, and came very close to planting it up with an Agave ovatifolia to mirror the pair on the other side of the porch. In the end I decided on a Yucca rostrata. There are three other Y. rostrata in the front garden (and a Y. linearifolia) and I love the look. I was hoping for one with a small trunk, but I fell in love with this one at Cistus. 

It's on the verge of trunking, and since the others around the front garden already have trunks of various sizes I thought it would be fun to watch this grow and catch up. I took advantage of the extra space in the container—and used some thin-rocks I'd scored on our neighborhood Buy Nothing Facebook page—to underplant with some rock-garden-ish plants.

Various sempervivum, opuntia cuttings, and a Saxifraga 'Whitehills' fill the spaces around the rocks—rocks which are much larger than they appear here, they are buried in the soil and pea gravel. They help to raise up the small plants and provide their roots with a nice drainage run down between the rocks.

I couldn't resist the dark tint to the sea-thrift, Armeria maritima 'Rubra'.

This is the first time I've grown this plant and hope it will like these conditions (in case you're wondering, yes, pink flowers! But I've made peace with those in the front garden).

I'm stopping short of calling this rock-filled planting a crevice garden, even though I did create crevices and plant them. I don't think nine rocks make a crevice garden.

Draba hispanica

Looks like one of the sempervivum as decided to bloom.

Maihuenia poeppigii on the right.

One Armeria maritima went in the ground in front of the container, joined by the Digitalis ferruginea (rusty foxglove) I brought home from my visit to Old Goat Farm, you can see a couple in the background, upper left.

There are lots of sempervivum in the ground around the area and I am thrilled it looks like Acaena inermis ‘Purpurea’ (the small purple leaves) might finally be taking hold in my garden. I've tried this plant in so many places!

In a large metal pot to the side of the profiled container is a Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Chirimen' and more sempervivum. I thought the conifer was dying when I saw the brown bits, but no—those are pollen producing cones. Oh so much pollen!

The tall oddly shaped plant in a container on the far left is a Microcachrys tetragona, the Creeping Strawberry Pine from Tasmania. The container on the far right holds a Helleborus 'Red Sapphire'. The small agaves in containers were in the shade pavilion greenhouse over the winter, the other containers will all stay in place throughout the year.

I quite like how the reworked area has turned out, and I know our mail carrier much prefers the easy access to the mailbox (the glowing metal box next to the front door), and not having to fight through the branches of the Feijoa sellowiana. It will be interesting to see how fast (or not) the Yucca rostrata grows. I have a friend (the one who engineered this caper) who has a few big boys growing in large pots so I know it will be happy for years.

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