Garden Stalking in Dangerous Territory

Does this look at all familiar to you? 

Does the green door with the paper flower wreath help?  How about the chartreuse hover pot?

Spiky plants?  Anyone, anyone?  Look at the size of that Agave weberi!

If you guessed that this is the home and  garden of the delightfully plant addicted and incredibly stylish Loree Bohl of Danger Garden fame, you'd be correct!  I had something to drop by Loree's house when we visited the Portland Yard, Garden and Patio Show.  She was still busy at a seminar at the show and nurseries were calling me so we stopped by while she wasn't home.   It's always a treat to visit this garden as it was nearly five years ago, as a surprise for my half-century birthday, that Tom arranged for me to meet Loree, whose blog I'd been reading,  in her garden.  

Sexy Arctostaphylos branches artfully pruned to accentuate their beauty.

I so admire gravel mulch but could never pull it off in my garden where there is constant bamboo litter in the summer and falling leaves from most everything else the rest of the year.

Perhaps I'm just too lazy to keep it this good looking. 

Her several Echium wildpretii seem to have sailed through this winter with aplomb. 

Agave ovatifolia, Yucca rostrata, Euphorbia rigida and an opuntia right next to the front entry.  Come in if you dare!

The opuntia isn't as close as it looks but one might not want to stumble home in an inebriated state. 

Here's her new and even-more-beautiful-in-person agave gate, which I didn't feel right about going through without the gardener.  

Fortunately the camera's zoom lens let us see some of the back garden which also looks extremely good, especially considering that it was February!  Unfortunately, without going inside, the shade pavilion/greenhouse is out of sight.

Putting two different schefflera together is a grand idea as this proximity allows one to compare the leaf forms with ease.   The angles and straight lines of the beds and pavers perfectly echo each other, unify the space and allow the curvaceous nature of the plants to shine.  A great design lesson that I've yet to learn.

Somehow Loree is able to grow a LOT of plants together and the whole is visually very appealing instead of looking like a plant hoard.

The fabulous combination of textures and colors is inspirational (I'm running out of superlatives for this garden.)

 Hmm, maybe my brugmansias could start coming out of the greenhouse. 

Have you stalked any interesting gardens lately?