Birdbath and Peacock

It's still early -- not even May quite yet. But I have been frantically trying to get all my plants in the ground or potted up. It has been 35° or above at night, and pleasantly warm in the day time. It's predicted to stay that way through May 8, so I think I'm good to plant.

I moved the birdbath to a spot in front of the fence and it is perfect there, providing something to look at against the fence, and resolving that end of the strip of plants.

It doesn't look like much with the vine barely leafing out all sketchy, but from inside the house and from the patio it definitely provides a focal point and I like it.

Instead of a tree in the spot where the parrotia was (my third try . . I took it out, it isn't coming back) I moved the metal peacock off the deck and plopped it there.

It complements the birdbath and provides another focal point in front of the vine.

Now the scene from the patio looking at that wide expanse of fence seems composed, making the flagstone area below the patio all part of one space.

Rather than screening the fence, I've connected it to the whole patio, drawing the eye out toward it with some focal points and low plantings.

With the birdath sited just beyond the corner of the deck now, I don't need an item standing on the deck itself. I can leave that corner open, and you see the birdbath just beyond it.

This works. 

I do wish I could grow a vertical tree in the spot where the peacock is, but really, the open view over the fence (where the neighbor's aspens were taken out) provides a distant line of sight and makes the patio a bit more expansive, not so closed in and surrounded. 

Still, I'd like more shade on the middle part of our narrow back yard!