Wednesday Garden Pic: Night Blooming Jasmine!

I've spent the past two days clearing out a spot for my new Night Blooming Jasmine topiary.
I wanted the use the area behind the rain garden, which has been a jungle of leaf build-up, native daylilies, flag iris, spider plants (houseplant type), glad greenery and Chocolate elephants ears.

The elephant years weren't thriving, so I dug all those up to move.

I mowed and clipped everything else to the ground, giving me space to plant the new topiary. 

It's the only sunny location I had left to plant it. 

I replanted 4 of the Chocolate Elephant ears around it's base, then transplanted a bunch of Ajuga ground cover in the area as well.

Everything else will grow back by fall, probably.

(The Chocolate Elephant ears turn a rich burgundy color.)

We'll see how it does. This is Florida. Soggy is pretty much our middle name.

Here's my supply of Ajuga:

It's on the north corner of my house among ferns with a Hybrangea, a ponytail asparagus fern and a Hosta.
It's Common Ajuga, sometimes called "Bugleweed." It's a fabulous green/burgundy-ish ground cover with short pretty purple flower stalks. It's funny, I actually found this growing in a shallow drainage ditch around the corner and moved it all to my garden, but it didn't thrive until I planted it here, in this shady rain garden. It's stronger burgundy color in shade and more green with more sun. It also doesn't mind wet, cleary, since I found it in growing wild in a drainage ditch. Here, it's perennial and remains through winter.

When I was pulling up some, I discovered a teeny-tiny Box Turtle about an 1 1/2 inch in size. It's not the first time. Female Boxie's like laying their eggs beneath the Hydrangea.

When you plant any kind of Ajuga, be sure you plant it where you don't mind it spreading. It spreads by long runners, like strawberries.