Some last minute planting before the winter arrives...

OK, finally I got it, it´s the tibouchina, or glory plant, the one whose name I could not remember... they grow up to 8 feet, or 2.5 meters tall, so great for a hedge. We planted 15 of them along the fence behind the palm trees, so if and when they grow and become full bushes, they will be very visible from the pool and from the bedroom windows.

The tibouchina leaf.

Another new addition in this latest mini-planting binge was the photinia, which has a lustrous leaf that comes out burgundy and then turns green. We planted 5 on a trial basis, to see how it does here, but have room for another 10 or 15 of them if they work out. Also a tallish shrub. The are placed alongside the tamarix, which is fluffier and more fuzzy in general look, so a good contrast in foliage, while a ton sur ton look in terms of colors, with the pink blooms that appear all summer in the tamarix.

Photinia

It appears that burgundy, pink and purple are emerging as the color palette in my garden, both for foliage as well as flowers. I started out with just white flowers (all my dozens of oleanders are white) and pink (tamarix) and then some agapanthus that were supposed to be all white turned out to have some purple ones among them.

We later added some purple sugar cane which has a beautiful deep and dark color, as well as other shrubs whose names I never learn in the same tones, and the beautiful achira, a burgundy-leafed, deep orange flowered canna lily that came as a gift in tiny size and has thrived at the entrance next to the strelitzia. Yesterday we decided to repeat the purple cane along the corner of the bedroom walls that face the sea and the road, to soften that façade.

The purple sugarcane. As long as it has water, it grows like crazy, fast, tall and bushy in just weeks. You chop them off almost to the ground in winter and they come back again with a vengeance.

The canna lily, I want to get more of these...

In yesterday´s plantation we also put in a few little pine trees (5 of them) of the Japanese black pine (thunbergii) variety, which has proven to do just fine in our yard. We had two already, and they did great throughout the drought and wind-storms.

Thunbergii pines

Last but not least, on the "plaza" side, a public area next to the road I am aggressively landscaping, we added three araucaria excelsa, replacing one of the other variety that was dead. The excelsa has been a good performer already in our yard, better than the augustiforme which is not looking so hot (one dead, two ugly).

We also planted two different grasses to soften the view a bit. We chose the penisettum alopecuroides and the paspalum, which have contrasting color and general shape (as grasses go). One is bushier, rounder and grayer (paspalum) and the alopecuroides is yellower, and more upright. We planted 7 of each...

Penisettum alopecuroides

Paspalum

Now the thing I can´t wait for is pruning season. I want to chop off a third of all the poplars, and do serious pruning on all the shrubbery, so we can have thicker, stronger plants and trees next spring.