Sometimes The Plants Decide?

 

'Molineux'

Three--no, four--of the best performing roses in the garden, 'Molineux', 'Golden Celebration', 'The Poet's Wife', and 'Julia Child', are yellow.  

'Golden Celebration':

 'The Poet's Wife':

'Julia Child':

Then there's a stellar performing southwestern native that handles zero soil moisture and reflected heat with no trouble, Calylophus, also yellow: 

Must not forget the Itoh Peony:

Nor the Mexican Tulip Poppy, Hunnemmania:

And Leucospermum 'Yellow Bird' was a big splash of yellow on the front slope for over a decade.  Now a seedling of  'Yellow Bird' has taken over out front:

A softer yellow in Leucadendron 'Pom Pom' and Leucadendron 'Cloudbank Ginny', also out front, but...still yellow.

 Lots and of yellow in this garden.  And it so happens my very very least favorite flower color is, yes, yellow.  

However, the health and beauty of those yellows and their value to nectar-feeders is such that I yield to their choice of gardens.  Sometimes the plants get to decide.

And...yellow sure looks good with purple.

Unlike yellow, I love red flowers, but red seems most effective in the garden as either an accent, to draw and focus the eye, or as part of a "hot" border.  Giant blobs of it--have a certain melancholy.

We'll call 'Beloved' rose an accent.  It certainly draws my eye:

But back to giant blobs of red.  Because of a second abundant rainfall year in a row, the Callistemons in the garden are weighed down by masses of flowers.  It's a whole lot of red that is neither accent nor part of an ensemble of warm colors. 

The one that shades Acer 'Emperor I':

The one by the back gate:

 The ones screening out the house in the back:

The one down in the gully.  Holy Moly!

The Callistemon flowers feed so many birds and bees.  Most any plant that does that is a keeper.   Melancholic or not. 

Acer 'Oshio Bene' feeds few garden residents, but oh, what it does for the eyes!  Luckily its red and the adjacent Callistemon's red are almost identical.  A blue-red with an orange-red is a painful sight.  

Not painful:

The Acer took a hit to its health during the long drought.  It looked pretty bad last year, even with the massive amount of rain we got last winter.   I was worried it would not leaf out at all.  But it did.

When light shines through the leaves, not melancholic at all:

Whew.  I'm glad it decided to stay.  

Do you have the feeling about certain plants, that they chose your garden, and that you didn't have as much to do with it as you think?