I Found a Cool New Plant 🌿 Now Something Has to Go
It's not uncommon to make a trip to the garden center and come home with something I didn't plan for—and then figure out where it goes. Today it's a dwarf New Zealand Flax, Petite Indigo® Ruby (Phormium tenax): strappy, fine-textured, pinky variegation, and compact enough to actually stay that way. The front slope is one of my sunniest spots and where I'm actively building evergreen structure—a good place for it. The problem: it's already full.
Two dwarf barberries had to go. Good plants—tidy, burgundy foliage, no complaints—but deciduous, and that means invisible in winter when I need them most. The Phormium and an additional Euphorbia 'Miner's Merlot' replace them with color and structure that holds all year. The barberries didn't go to waste; they moved to the neighbor garden where they're partnered with gray-foliaged plants—a winning combination.
In this video I walk you through my thought process—deciding what comes out, what goes in, and why the swap made the bed better.
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FEATURED PLANTS IN THIS VIDEO