Winter = Busy

'Laguna'


While a lot of the rest of the country sips hot cocoa by the fire, here we're frantically busy, getting the garden in shape before it gets too unbearably hot to be out there all day, which begins about mid-February.  I'm almost done with rose pruning.  There are still a few roses in bloom, even now.  

'Fabulous' is looking very much like a Camellia: 


So few blooms means each one is quite precious.  

'Easy Does It' has intense winter coloring:


'Comtesse de Provence' is not toasted, as it so often was this past summer:


I've been raking up leaves and pulling old foliage off the Hemerocallis and Salvias.  I repotted the dormant Bursera into its new fancy-pants handmade (in the USA!) container.



The bees are ecstatic about the Agave flowers.  This afternoon the front slope was a cloud of bees harvesting nectar and pollen from blooming Agaves, Aloes, Chamelauciums, Limoniums, and Senecios.   


In our version of winter, both gardeners and bees are busy.  But not all dogs...