What the? OK, a lot going on here. That's yellow-leaved forsythia for one, posted about here. And the big-leaved bamboo is posted here. But what is the white-leaved action in the center?
Those are the young leaves of my Silver Cloud redbud tree. They unfold before their chlorophyl even starts developing, looking somewhat like the translucent seek-pod disks of the "money plant", Lunaria annua. Well, in shape if not in coloring.
Chlorophyl does creep in—otherwise the Silver Cloud couldn't grow—but the leaves remain satisfyingly "whited" the whole season. This is still a young Cloud, but it's a (small) tree eventually. So it will shade both the bamboo and the forsythia someday. Notice that there are two pairs of horizontal wires in the picture. They are the bottom rungs of a series of wires strung up to ten feet high.
I'll gently flatten my Silver Cloud to them so it will be a Silver Disk or a Silver Slab floating with tidy serenity above the wilder duke-it-out of the forsythia and the bamboo. (Yes, I can hear your exhasperation: "Louis, can't you just let something grow?" Well, yes, I could, but I worry that then my garden could be confused with yours. (Ouch.))
And also, the frame those wires are attached to had to be there anyway: It's a stabilizing end section to my Belgian fence of beeches. (I'll post about those soon not to worry. And yup, I couldn't just let the beeches "grow" either.) Further, Silver Clouds welcome some shade, and this was about the only semi-shady spot I had left. And lastly because I never heard of espaliered redbud trees, let alone an espaliered Silver Cloud redbud. So of course I had to try it.
And—right!—someday this redbud tree will live up to its name and bloom. The flowers aren't red at all, even the buds. A hot lavender actually. Check out my video here. The buds emerge all along the trunks and limbs, not just from the tips of the branchlets. So espaliering a redbud should produce a singular floral effect too.
Stay tuned.

An unprepossessing opening picture, true.
It was a glorious bright-sunny day, so the interior seems dark dark dark. These are the pair of South-facing windows in our dining room; they're unusually large for an 18th C. house. With such low sills my guess is that they're a 19th C. addition. Whatever: They are a pleasure welcoming the Winter sun as well as the Summer view. I planted all kinds of plants to make that view worthwhile. Here's the show out the lower-left sash.
Boy do I love these plants. We'll look at most of them, and soon. Right now, the gold-leaved Japanese maple.
Yup, that's the color, and all season long: Glowing gold but not over the line into "Jeez, honey, where are my sunglasses?" yellow.

It's a Japanese maple too, mind you, so has that tribe's multi-trunked classy look to the branches and trunks. So yes, it's good even in Winter, when (alas, sniff, sigh) the leaves have fallen. But if we're lucky (I haven't been so far, but I live in faith), the Fall weather is such that just the tips of the leaves turn a cherry Fall red, leaving a round interior of each leaf still gold—hence the "Full Moon" of the common name. The tree is very slow growing, so buy the biggest you can afford. After a couple of decades, it might be only 18 feet tall. It's happy in amazing amounts of shade too; conversely, it handles full sun without scorching only if the soil is rich and it doesn't have to beg for water. I never water mine even though it's on the South side of the house and gets full West sun. So I guess my soil passes the test on both counts.
More on the companion plants later—and soon.

So far I grow only one "snakebark" maple, Acer pectinatum ssp. 'Forresti', which is one of the easiest in this heat-phobic, shade-happy tribe to establish. It keeps cool because it gets morning sun only, and it repays me handsomely:
Distinctive large leaves all Summer...
And you can see the white vertical striping on the trunk that leads to that "snakebark" name.

And in Winter—oh for heavens' sake: I don't have a picture of the stems in Winter, when they turn red! (I'll shoot it this Winter I promise.) But in Spring, I get the best of both seasons: The last remnants of the Winter red, the first green—eager fresh limey—of the new leaves.
And a bit closer:

What a comprehensive display, the color of the twigs juxtaposed with the color of the new leaves. The narrow thin-ness of the twigs joining the butterfly-wing pairs of the new leaves.
In color and shape both, leaves and twigs, it's a peak-of-the-year moment.