Dreaming of Green

I don't know if y'all  have heard, but there is a major drought going on here in Texas. Like bad. It might be a good year since we have had some rain. Ok, maybe less but it feels like a year! So add in 103 degree weather plus water rationing and yeah...your lawn dies. So I have been sitting around dreaming of lush landscaping.

Back in June Anthony was a dear and surprised me with a new sidewalk. I totally love it! Here is a photo of the front of out house. Don't you just adore our huge magnolia tree?

We had a pretty harsh winter (for Texas) a couple of years ago and what pitiful landscaping we had froze up and never returned. Well I take that back. The only things to survive were a bunch of bulbs whose flower I have no clue of. And a flowering bush of some sort. Ha! Anyhow, here is a view of walking from the front door to the garage about halfway down.

We have another tree beside the house that the sidewalk winds around. It is surrounded by a lovely ring of dead grass and dirt. Oh, and that mystery bush lurking along the edge of the garage. Nice.

And below is a view of the front part of the sidewalk starting at the front door porch area. We need to paint the house still. The white is just a primer. Also that grey pipe thing needs to be removed. It leads to an outlet that doesn't work anymore. But yeah besides that, check out that barren strip of nothing under the window.

(I am all over the place with these pictures here.) Below is walking towards the front door from the garage.

I have a vision of a lush, overflowing garden of green, white and purple. I like the way it looks all wild!

I think most of these plants are shade plants but they are for my zone, which I found out is Zone 9. The above sidewalk photos were taken at 5:00 pm. I would say that area gets partial afternoon sun. The strip of sun under the windows goes away around 6:30ish. I know I will have to research my plants more but for now this is what I had in mind.

Pretty right? I am usually a sucker for symmetry like with the landscaping below. But it seems like the wild look would be a good contrast to all the squareness.

I really like those fluffy really green plants on the bottom. Does anyone know what they are?

I think those would be nice thrown in the mix :) Does anyone have a good website for plant shopping I can check out? Any advice for a Zone 9 kind of climate? With the drought I don't think that it's a good time to plant but a girl can plan and dream!