Just watch that the trees get enough water. I've seen them planted with native grasses and then suffer or die of water stress. Some of the river birches are not drought tolerant as the grasses can be. Pretty combination. I'd add a little dry pebble stream or a few rocks to it.

One of the reasons we moved up here...for the rain....LOL...

At that size, look like ornamental grasses rather than carex.

I like the way the sunlight plays with the carex/grass, but I'm undecided about the overall look. I like a woodland appearance, but the plant is so oversized for the small front space that it makes the house look abandoned. If it is grass vs carex, I'd be worried about wildfires, too. I've been through enough of those to understand that 100 houses between you and open space is fantasy safety.

It has maintained its bronze-ish coloring from the time it was small, making me think carex or sedge, having grown to this size, I was thinking carex buchananii since it will grow to 3' tall. The house / yard are in the middle of the city, little worry of fires and the house is two story, being able to carry the 'weight' of the look for its size. I will get a pic of the house in its entirety this a.m. The house is wonderful. Does it look out of place? Yes, in that it sits in an area where very little is done in the way of planting.

Yes, being two stories does make a large difference in proportion and balance; could not tell that myself from the photos.

However, "...in the middle of the city, little worry of fires..." is what I meant by fantasy safety. I used to fool myself by thinking they would stop the fires before it burned all of those homes between us and it. That buffer zone is fantasy--100-200 homes will burn and the fire is at your doorstep. Unless we are talking skyscraper-type cities...but I don't think I missed that many stories on the house. ;)

Those birch trees look seriously stressed. I would have to question whether a riparian species like river birch is well suited to drought plagued CA!

I wouldn't call this a woodland feel with all those grasses. And the matching pair of golden cypresses isn't naturalistic at all - both because they are golden garden forms and because they are in a matching pair, which doesn't go either with the style of the rest of the planting or of the house.

Really the only thing woodland about it is the trees, and if they survive the climate each one of those is genetically programmed to grow bigger than the house - Seattle plantings for instance contain examples over 70 ft. high, others with average crown spreads in excess of 60 ft.

But otherwise a few slender growing trees arranged along narrow spaces next to buildings can be a good way to approximate a woodland stroll. Perhaps the best example I have seen of this was a side yard maybe 10 or so ft. across with the house wall on one side and a full height fence on the other, with one or two trees added. And I think at least one larger tree on the adjacent lot making its contribution.

Probably Dwarf River Birch.....and true, it is not what some would think of as 'Woodland'...to some that ideal would be a moist wooded glade, very green. This somehow speaks wooded New England in Fall to me, but then I think of a lot of the grasses as 'woodsy', particularly the drier looking grasses and Prairie Grasses. I also would not have included the cypresses, but some people are quirky and I suspect they may have liked the color.

LOL...embothrium, I suspect that this is not your chosen stye....

I do like the look a lot better when seen as a whole. It very much has an autumn feel to the visual right now.

That's what appeals to me about it...I like 'wild' and I love Autumn and this place looks like both year round. One of my close friends can't stand the color of the door...I like the color, we all like different things.

Calling for our first heavy rains this weekend..5-10 inches....

Sigh. Must be nice. We got 6 all of last season.

It is better than nice...LOL...having come up here from Fallbrook, I really appreciate it...did I mention I have a WELL ?! I giggle at strange, unexpected times...dance a lot, too.....

Take care Gyspy woman. I heard they say you might get 23" of rain F-M. I can hardly imagine that huge amount of rain.

5-10 inches is called for...sure do not need 23"....LOL....high winds also, but that is not unusual here. Went out and put all of the small pots on my tables in the nursery pen into storage bins, with lids on and weighed down with heavy two gallon pots of strawberries. Things tend to blow away here. My friend in Pistol River had a new neighbor, new neighbor put up a greenhouse, my friend tried to warn them, but........well, the winds came in and the greenhouse went, but they don't know where to because they never found any parts of it...

What I'm hearing here today is that this will be comparable to storms from the 80's, etc....when driving on the beach was still legal and you could fill your truck up with enough washed up wood and logs to get you through the Winter. I have the makin's of soup, and am baking, but did not get out to get popcorn...dang!..Looks as though there will be rain across the San Joaquin and up into the foothills around Sonora where my sis-in-law is. Everyone will be happy to see the rain, huh?

Um.....Stan? You may be right...last count I saw online was from just before midnight and we'd had 4.70 something inches and still raining...a record breaker for the date....and, apparently the worst is yet to come....LOL...glug glug glug.....