Fun changes to the back garden

A couple of weeks ago I got this beautiful sabal minor palm from the Pacific Northwest Palm and Exotic Plant Society. I had the classic debate ... where to plant it!? But today in a moment of clarity it hit. Remove the ugly purple heuchera. When I say ugly, you don't even understand the half of it. I should have taken pictures of it for evidence. It was about 95% burnt and really spindly. Almost as if heuchera met an ornamental kale and went through an incinerator. Okay, so maybe not that bad, but close. 

You can see how the trachycarpus are starting to get nice and large. I love this. But it has left things looking much different this year. For the first time everything underneath and in behind is becoming much more prominent. This has called for some change. I need to bring interest down near the base of the palms. So planting a bushy non-trunk forming palm like sabal minor seemed like the perfect solution for a palm lover like myself.

Here's a clearer look at the area. I like the way the palm echos the size of the two yucca gloriosa variegata. And having the raised bed, southern exposure, rocks in behind collecting heat, this palm is in the best situated spot for a southern native. Needless to say its much nicer than the heuchera which hated the hot sunny spot it was in. While I will miss the purple coloring, I am certainly pleased. I'm thinking a few nice dyckia 'burgundy ice' will do the purple job quite nicely. Either way the back garden is undergoing a constant metamorphosis.