Thank you for the lovely 'picture show'.

Always nice to see how many nice gardens and different styles are represented here. I agree that gardens that reveal themselves differently from various viewing angles or at different times of the year are the most interesting.

Which plecanthrus is that that stays so low? Mine are all sprawling giants.

dicot, it's Plectranthus oertendahlii 'Lime Light'. A truly beautiful plant, but it seems to have disappeared from local nurseries here. I've never seen it again for sale, in fact. It has small flower spikes and that one plant has now spread at least 6' through the bed! Not invasive, though - easy to prune back or rip out if it tries to go where you don't want it to.

I had several competing groundcovers in that bed - bacopa, oxalis, vinca minor, and the plectranthus. The vinca hangs on, but barely. The plectranthus has thrived even through our occasional nippy frosts, including the harsh January 2007 that killed the original Japanese Maple in this bed.

I had to do a little searching but I knew I had a photo of this plant when in bloom. This is from Oct 2009; the flowers are a very, very pale lilac. The violently fuchsia Iresine didn't last through the winter, it's very frost-tender.
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That is a wonderful plant. Thanks for all of the photos.