Dormant Garden, Dormant Gardener?

 

Hippeastrum 'La Paz'

The garden is waking up, and so is this gardener, finally.  There was plenty to do during early winter's dormancy (such as it is in Southern California) but it wasn't getting done.  The gardener was like the garden. 

Hydrangeas waking up.  They barely go to sleep here:

 The Itoh Peonies, too, are showing buds.  These plants are like Hellebores, in that they must not be planted too deeply.  Fortunately I planted the Itohs at the right height.  From a couple of the Hellebores planted too deeply I was to clear enough of the soil from around them in time, so as not to lose them.  

Peony: 

 Hellebore:

Flower buds on the Dutch Iris:  

 Tazetta Narcissus up on the west slope, late in the day:

After a rainy spell in late December and the start of January we had a long stretch of very warm, very dry weather, at times too warm to garden in.  Gorgeous, actually.  As a gardener I feared the end of our rainy season so soon.  However, early Wednesday brought  unexpectedly good rain.  A tenth of an inch forecast; we got nine tenths--riches!  More forecast for this coming week.  It's a good rain year after all--a very good one--more than our historical average of 13".  The garden and the gardener both feel refreshed.  

Impulse buy:  another Avocado.  This one is 'Carmen Hass'.  It's big feature is a crop spread over the entire year, a (theoretically) few delicious fruit at a time, instead of a (theoretically) staggering amount all at once.

It has to grow first: 

 And then I have to keep the rodents from getting the fruit before I can.  If you don't have the great good luck to be able to grow your own avocados, please understand that store bought avocados in comparison to home-grown are like store bought tomatoes in comparison to home-grown.  Yeah, that much better.

Hence... 

 Another impulse buy:  a new rose.  What can I say?  It called, I answered.

The 'Ray Hartman' Ceanothus planted April 2023:

 Now looks like this:

Bravo, Ray!

Reminder to self:  Ceanothus 'Dark Star' still waits in a pot:

I'm almost done rose pruning.  I've dug out a couple of things so I can plant--ahem, reminder to self--several  roses dug up last winter and waiting, potted, since.  

Harvested some wonderful homemade compost that is mostly worm castings (the worms showed up in the compost on their own and went to work):

Roses and the Key Lime tree got the good stuff:

I'm waking up, like the garden. Whew.  Finally.  I missed gardening.    

As to some of the plants that were never dormant...

Agave titanota 'White Ice' looking good.  Leucadendron 'More Silver', horning into the photo at upper right: 

 'More Silver' is less silver in winter.  It's green-y, and ready to flower:

 The plain species Agave titanota, seed grown, purchased on a vacation in Arizona more than a decade ago is preparing to flower:

Leucadendron 'Cloudbank Ginny' is preparing to flower:

Leucospermum 'Tango' and Aloe cryptopoda are flowering, and trying not to get covered up by their many neighbors: 

Aloe taurii finishing up:

Kumara plicatilis formerly known as Aloe plicatilis has pushed up some stems:

Aloe marlothii opening:

Out of season, one of the 'Bright Star' Yuccas that did no flower last summer is flowering now, probably thanks to our earlier rainfall and very warm January:

Wow, I was even able to get out a blog post...whew!