Tropical look landscape in North Silver Spring (Zone 7)

This was planted two years ago and it's coming along nicely. The Banana 'Basjoo' is thriving on this sheltered site. Two Needle Palms, Rhapidophyllum hystrix, are doing well but coming on slowly (one is visible just below the lowest banana leaf). The Crocosmia adds hot colored flowers and Ferns, Mahonias, Callas, and Hostas add lushness and textural diversity.The low shrub at the far right beside the patio is Gardenia 'Chuck Hayes'. In the background a grapevine clambering over a strong 4x4 timber structure screens while it contributes to the atmosphere. I didn't photograph a large clump of Hedychium 'Elizabeth' because the heat (98F at 11:00am) had it drooping. It's coming in nicely as it's gone from 3? shoots two years ago to more than a dozen now. My sons built the pergola but not the patio. I hope that in the future they will be able to take as much satisfaction as I do from revisiting jobs they've installed, or in my case designed!

On Jeanette's advice, good advice, I've been monitoring the Phlox and Joe Pye Weed outside the Herb Garden driveway

It's a goldmine; butterflies, bees, and hummingbird moths swarm continuously. Photographing the hummingbird moths is a problem for me because it takes a long time to get a good picture and I'm at work. I take a minute or so on my way to lunch or back or whatever but to get a good picture you've got to sit and wait till a subject flies onto the flowers your camera is pointed at. Then you gently squeeze off a picture or two. What I do, is I chase them around so that they're moving and my hand it lunging and.... I ought to come in on the weekend or stay late but I'm almost dead by the time the day is over so I can't really sit in the sun with the heat index over100 and...well anyway I have a good collection of mediocre photographs of hummingbird moths and now here's another one!

It was interesting watching them today; they are just as territorial and just as pugnacious as hummingbirds plus occasionally they get into it with the carpenter bees who are about the same size. I like insects, invertebrates in general actually. At some point when I was younger I accumulated a collection of books, popular and scientific about insects. I have all of Fabre and a few dozen other volumes. I've often thought that by the time I reach a point in my life when my mobility lessens even more than it already has, I'd like to have a planting of insect friendly plants that I could watch from a user friendly location; maybe Sedums, Weigelas, Eupatoriums, Phlox, Angelica. Maybe even Evodia, not the big invasive Tetradium, but the small one at the top of China Valley. It definitely bears thinking about. I'll start that list today.