Most of my plants will not work for you since I live in the Oakland hills, just at the edge of the SF fog belt. But when I look at your photos, there seems to be little foliage variety. It's not just all the round shapes being the same height - there's little variation in color, texture, and leaf shape. Everything seems very small-leafed except for the spiky plants. I'm afraid that rosemary will only add to that overall effect. If one were looking from across the street, I think the plants you have mostly blur together. Much as I love bougainvillea and it grows well in your area, I'd be a little leery about planting it near any pathway. They have pretty ferocious thorns and your walkway isn't very wide. I've had shrub roses rip pant legs apart because I had them beside a walkway. Plants always like to grow where it's open - I have a lot of narrow beds, and it's a fight to keep the plants from "leaning" out into the paths. I do a lot of staking and tying (plant bondage, what fun...NOT)! I adore foliage; evergreens are the mainstay in my garden. Flower colors come and go in a month, but 'good bones'; e.g., handsome shrubs look as good in January as they do in July. Being an amateur, I'll post some of my photos (taken at different times from 2008-2011) to hopefully show what I mean. You will see we are dealing with a more severe slope than you have, so we have done a lot of terracing that isn't shown in these shots. Anyway, maybe the photos will help spark some ideas for you! Front: Early spring, so nasturtium leaves add a brighter green note and nice round shape. Notice, BTW, the 'Tuscan Blue' upright rosemary that is against the house, underneath that white awning over the front window. See what I mean about the small leaves? From far away, they just blur visually. Early spring: notice the LH corner, where the small white flowers (Iberis) are at the corner of our front walkway In the photo above, iberis was in flower with the bearded iris dormant. At its peak in April/May, here's the explosion of color when the iris bloom: On the shady side, this bed is terraced into two halves. I read somewhere that the eye can discern more shades of green than any other color. Every one of these green plants is a slightly different shade, in addition to the difference in leaf shape and size: Backyard, looking downwards (from my neighbor's sidewalk) towards our shed. The plants you see are in a terraced bed approx. 3' higher than the ground level of the shed. See how the fine leaves of the Coleonema are set off by the darker, round-leafed pelargonium and the bigger leaves of the Meyer lemon (left side) and variegated euonymus (right side)? A closer look at the bed above. It is in partial sun and is NEVER watered in summer. It lives on the runoff all the way from the front of the house, some 75' uphill:

Sounds like a neat show! I looked all over the internet to see if I could find an online version but I couldn't find episode three that features country gardens. I did find these interesting pieces though: Ryan Gainey discusses is romantic country garden http://www.gardensoftheworld.org/page23/page23.html Penelope Hobhouse's garden http://www.gardensoftheworld.org/page22/page27/page27.html Whole episodes from the series: Public Gardens & Trees http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6009631878710490917# Formal Gardens http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8032930149173398671# Behind the scenes in filming the series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODrWKkMfrfg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DvWk642ZBM

I just came off our back hill after pulling out thistles before they bloom and DH was using a sprayer in some very dense patches on the sunny side of the hill (Ortho weed killer- we NEVER use ANYTHING made by EVIL Monsanto!) He tried hard to miss spraying any of the wildflowers. Down below in the garden I am working on permanently reinforcing the sides of the stream that goes into my pond- the raccoons keep breaking them down. I don't mind if they ENJOY the stream, I am just really tired of building it back again. My lilacs are about done blooming and daphne is all over for this year, but the veronicas and montbretias are beautiful, also the tecomaria is beginning and will bloom for months.(Hummers love it!) The same goes for the passionflowers. The heucheras are about to bloom and both the fragrant white lady banks vine and the yellow one are putting on a real show. But I am about to leave all this to enjoy a second early spring garden in Virginia where my sister lives! Then in a few weeks I will go up to Oregon to admire my daughter's early spring gardens. These "Chasing Spring" trips are fun but I know that when I return, there will be a whole lot of work waiting for me here. Min

hmm, i find the fragrance of mine extra strong at night and just noticable in the day, and mine face outward not upward, unless a bud below forces the one above up. Sounds like it to me! Do you notice a difference in nite time scent? I love mine and plan on planting more, i accidentally planted mine in too much shade and they still did great though theyre a little short. My best friend has a yellow oriental lily that was out of this world with fragrance. Ive read some neat things about how easy it is to propogate lilies from leaf pullings , i want to try with hers.