Year End 2016 Review

 Last year at this time we were anticipating an El Nino winter.  Heavy rains would bring an end to our drought.  A small garden bloggers get-together at the Huntington was a highlight of January.

  The other was one good rain, and we awaited more.

February brought heat waves instead of rain.  Trees in the neighborhood continued to die.  

The front project, converting a rose area into a succulent and Australian plant area, was mostly complete, though growth and refinement continues.  

Here's the growth and refinement:

March brought the unexpectedly good show of Leucospermum Yellow Bird.  

OMG, it was so little!  Just about every one of those stems with a flower on the end of it has now branched into a dozen stems, each with a flower bud on it.  The 2017 show may stop traffic.
 

March ended dry.  We began to realize El Nino would not arrive.  
This is not heavy rain:

April brought Peak Rose, such as it was.   And little rain.  
Yet long-established roses managed somehow. They got what rain water I managed to collect.

 

 April also included completion of a second modest garden project on the northwest of the property.  The projects this year were minimal and modest. Establishing new plants in a drought year is difficult.

Our very welcome autumn rain helped!

 
El Nino became El No Show for Southern California, though the northern half of the state fared better.  

May was flowery, despite the failure of winter rains.  

 We prepared ourselves for a dreadful summer.  Visits to the Huntington were a welcome distraction.

 The Dreadful Summer arrived in June.  

It was too hot to be outdoors.  A terrible heat wave made Blondie ill, while plants scorched and died.  I spent a lot of time indoors cleaning things. 

 Foliage newly emerged on the Japanese Maples fell off, and I feared they were goners, though they managed to refoliate--somewhat.  New Dahlia 'Cafe Au Lait' was June's consolation. 

July:  Chili Thrips arrived to ruin the roses.  

Heat helped ruin everything else.  Well, not the Aloes and Agaves and Dahlias and Grevilleas and Proteas and Geranium 'Rozanne' and the baby Oak tree.  
And Lagerstroemia! 

   Somebody else that liked the heat:

August:  the house got cleaner, the garden got worse.  

 We visited Portland.  The roses were fabulous--no Chili thrips there!  Also it wasn't hot. 

 
The Inter City C&S show at the LA Arboretum is always a highlight of August.  

September, more indoor imprisonment and whining about the heat.  Blondie Koi began to recover.  One former rose area of the garden too dry for roses has become the spot for Protea family plants and Aloes.  
Which isn't so bad:

October brought a fun vacation to Ruth Bancroft Garden and UCSC Arboretum.  

 It finally started to cool off, and we even got a little rain.  Spring planted Grevilleas that sat all summer suddenly grew rapidly.

 Grevilleas:  thumbs up! 

November.  Oh, dear. 

 A national election between two awful candidates brought a sense of dread.   

 A little more very appreciated rain brought the roses back from Chili Thrips ruin.  Cooler weather meant we could garden again--a relief, comfort, respite from dread.  Another rose, please.

 December brought more beautiful roses, weather actually appropriate to December, and then rain! 

 Then more rain!  

 It's even raining now!  

So 2016 began and ends with a mix of caution and hope.