The front garden has come a long way in just two years! I’ve had a blast trying out new plants and seeing what works in my sunny, summer-dry, winter-wet conditions (Portland, Oregon). Here are ten of my favorite, fun, slightly out-of-the-ordinary plants so far.

Iris tuberosa. Formerly known as Hermodactylus tuberosus, this petite, quirky iris is commonly known as snake’s head iris or widow iris because of its goth coloring. It’s an unusual shade of chartreuse (which celebrated sixteenth-/seventeenth-century herbalist John Gerard called “goose-turd green”) with near-black accents. The flowers are supposed to have a nice fragrance, but I forgot to sniff mine. Here it is blooming on April 4, though once it gets settled in (I just got it this year), I suspect it will bloom earlier. In the summer, the whole thing disappears.

Iris tuberosa is a Mediterranean plant. It loves full sun and gritty soil and dry summers. It’s hardy to zone 6. I’ve planted mine in a patch of dark-leaved Sedum album ‘Black Pearl’, which I think was genius.