The Garden at the End of the Year

I took a walk around the garden, this afternoon, to see how it looked at the end of the year.  We've had quite a bit of rain, so far, this winter, and everything is nice and green. 

In the backyard:

Lemons and Chrysanthemums

These two lemon trees on either side of the side door to the garage are full of lemons and the chrysanthemum plant continues to flower.  The little plants under the lemon trees are mirabilis (four o'clocks) that have self seeded and are coming up.

Yucca and Squill

The yucca is a cutting I took from the plant that is growing in one of the corners of the back yard.  I had M plant it in this spot, earlier in the year, and it seems to have rooted itself.  The plant under it is one of the squill bulbs that M brought me from his garden and planted.

Squill Plants

There are three squill plants in the back yard and a fourth one in the front.

The narcissus (paperwhites) are continuing to flower:

Paperwhites

The current star of the back garden is the orange tree:

Oranges

I picked four more oranges, today, to share with my daughter.  I might be able to send a few oranges home with her, too.


There are still some roses, too:

Yellow Rose

Iceberg Roses

And the crocosmia plants are starting to come up:

Crocosmia

I turned around and saw a spot of color at the other end of the garden:

Do you see them?

Perhaps a close up might help:

Ginger, Snowball, and Stripey (siblings)

Three of my garden cats.  Ginger and Snowball are siblings from the same litter; Stripey is from a later litter.  Something (I didn't find out what) attacked and killed their mother while Stripey was still quite young and he attached himself to his older siblings who mothered him.  I tried to go closer to take a better picture, but, Stripey is easily spooked and took off running.

My birthday present from M, the Buddleia (Butterfly Bush) is growing nicely, with all the rain we've been having:

The Buddleia 

In the front yard:

The Plants by the Driveway

The mixture of plants in the bed along the driveway - osteospermum, rosemary, chrysanthemum, etc., are continuing to do well.  The osteospermum usually dries up and dies after the spring blooming, but, this year, we've had so much rain that they continued to remain green and I've just left them in place.  I don't mind that they are not flowering - they continue to add some color to the garden.

The newly planted white sage is also growing well:

White Sage

The red rose by the trellis is still flowering, but, it is almost time to prune the rose bushes - M will do that in January:

Red Rose

The succulents border along the side wall is starting to fill in, nicely:

Succulents Border

I took a few more pictures of the garden, but, they are refusing to upload!  Oh, well.  I guess there are enough pictures already to show that the garden is doing well at the end of the year!  I know I am very lucky to be able to garden throughout the year.  

I've plans to do a little more landscaping and planting in the front garden in 2020.  It'll have to be drought-tolerant, heat-resistant plants (even the succulents get scorched for the sun in the summer!), but, with M's help, I'll get the front garden to look a little less bare in the area where the lawn used to be.

What are your garden plans for 2020?