Early Winter Gardening Activity

 Above:  Aeonium 'Zwartzkop's new growth is briefly green before maturing to its characteristic burgundy-black. 

Much of the of garden has responded to the rain and the season.  The Aeoniums and dwarf Alstroemerias, awakened from summer dormancy, are pillows of fresh grass green. 

Grass-green fix, without a lawn:

Hellebores also display beautiful new leaves:

 And a--whatever it is--cluster of bulbs, which has been covered over by the adjacent Maireana sedifolia for years, now has sunshine again.  Someone insisted I take the bulbs.   They didn't know the name, couldn't remember anything about the flower.  "Pink?" "White?" I asked.  No idea.  I took the bulbs to be polite.  Then the giver said,  "Oh, you'll love them.  They are so easy.  They spread everywhere."  

Yikes!  A recommendation to make any experienced gardener blanch.  

Which is why they ended up where there is no irrigation and a Maireana to cover them up.  But curiosity calls--hopefully this spring they'll finally flower, and I'll learn what they are.  Without irrigation, they have not spread "everywhere".  Yet.  

At least the fresh green is nice.  Hymenocallis? 

One area I've started working on is the north bed in the cutting/veggie garden.  It's been neither a great success nor a complete failure.   

As seen from inside the adjacent tomato fortress:

  The large, very happy Iochroma, chopped back for the winter, lives on the west end of the bed, and a not-so-happy Lagerstroemia (because ???) lives on the east end.  In the middle was a climbing 'Ascot' rose that grew vigorously but never flowered much. It got 10 years to improve, but didn't.  Time to say goodbye.  Ascot is a fine rose with some winter chill and a shorter growing season, from what I can tell.  This is not that place. 

"X" marks the spot where 'Ascot' was:

There is also a trio of once-tiny (all three in a 2" pot, with room to spare) Aloe ferox(?) on the edge of the bed that must be moved before they get too big:

Most of the rest is miscellaneous filler--not bad at all, okay for now.  

What I intend to take the rose's place is a new plant purchase:  a 'Flanders' fig tree:

The intent is to train it into a horizontal cordon, or "step-over" style, like this:

 This shape will be productive, easier to harvest, and the fruit will be easier to protect from birds and rodents--that's the idea, anyway.   We've had a fig tree producing good fruit in the garden for several years, but it's been difficult to harvest (standing on/climbing over walls) and impossible to protect from rodents.  Learning to train a fruit tree like this is also an attempt to increase gardening skill and knowledge.  Figs are forgiving and vigorous, and I'm familiar with them, having grown one. 

This year's attempt at growing annual flowers from seed is overall pretty good, though it's created new challenges--now that I have a lot of seedling Matthiola (Stock), where to plant them?  They keep growing on me.   Some went out front by the driveway.  Rabbit protection--not sure if they need it or not. 

Another task was caring for a Neoregelia 'Super Fire Ball'.  Having grown and offset, it fell out of the stump supporting it. 

Trimmed off dried foliage and excess stems.  Tossed the oldest rosette that was rotted:

Decided to ornament an orchid pot.  The orchid is growing on the side of the pot (fairly happily).

The pot itself was empty except for the inevitable acorn planted by a scrub jay.  I'm finding them everywhere:

Without disturbing the orchid at all, I could pop some of the Neos into the pot. Looks better. 

The largest rosette went back it its old location, hopefully re-invigorated.  

That's the state of the gardener at the moment.  State of the plants: 

Flower stems emerging from Aloe castanea:

And on Aloe ferox candelabra form:

And on the white-flowered form of Aloe ferox:

The garden's oldest 'Austin Griffiths' Arctostaphylos is in full bloom.  This is the first time it really has flowered all over itself.  Hummingbirds were at the flowers.  Native Toyon is the red-berried shrub behind it:

It was planted in May 2016:

I changed my treatment of the several Cuphea 'Vermillionaire's this fall.  Rather than a 90% cut back in October, I did a ~60% chop followed by fertilizer and a deep irrigation in mid September.  September and October's warmth surely helped, but this approach worked.  They look great going into winter. 

Some rare fall color in time for winter. 

Some areas of the garden look more like May than December.  The rain we got this autumn made a huge difference: 

'Munstead Wood':

'South Africa':

'Mystic Spires Blue' Salvia color at this moment is superb:

 The daylight hours now begin to lengthen again.  Happy Solstice!