Totally Sidetracked. UPDATED WITH HOT PICTURE ACTION.

Yet another project. The front of the house has siding on the bottom half of it and a bed that runs along it, and until recently it had a big hedge of crazy plumbago that crawls into the siding and under the house and the contractor hates it and the exterminator hates it and the landlord hates it. So it got ripped out and now I get to paint the siding and dig out the roots and replant the bed.

 from here.

This is our awesome focal plant. It is a smoke bush, which normally comes in dark purple. That was my original idea, but the landlord convinced me it wouldn't show up enough, and this one plant happened to be on display at the nursery. The siding is the bottom half of the wall and it is dark green. So now I have a lime green smoke bush and some phormiums to accent it that should also show up well.

 

from here. 

And a nice variety of wacky succulents to underplant with. A good low-water, full-sun combo. But it meant today I repainted the bottom half of the wall (the bit with siding) and then put up new house numbers. Before I could do any planting. And sadly, the old house numbers were almost invisibly small, because they were actual metal and not metal-colored plastic like my new ones (twice as big though and actually visible from the street). But of course I broke one installing it so now I have to return it and get a new one (right now it is held together with black electrical tape). I wish I could get metal ones again but I doubt they'd be in the budget.

Plants down here are much more exciting. Succulents are annuals in Nevada because they freeze solid with the first snow. Here, not so much. There will be real After pictures on this one, I promise.

Update: here they are!

 Freshly painted green bits and no hedge.

 Ta MotherF'ing Dah.

 After all that buildup, this looks pretty tame. But it was a beast to dig out the stupid roots from that hedge. And that agave on the right really fought back. The succulents (other than the awesome greeny-purple one in the middle) were hand-me-downs from my sister, and the smoke tree and phormiums were purchased by the landlord (on the principle that, even if we don't stay, he gets to keep them so he might as well fork over), and those agaves were stealthily growing in my backyard. So now they get their moment in the sun. I don't even know why they were in the backyard, they were behind a shrub so you couldn't even see them. 

So, anyways. Ta Dah!