Lovely! I am amazed that Daffodils and muscari will bloom for you....or is this a one time thing?
Anyhow enjoy it's beautiful!

Those are both on their second season. Muscari - that's what they were. Couldn't remember the name.

Wow, the azaleas are lovely and all that citrus!

Here we just got about 8 inches of snow yesterday, so it's pretty much white, LOL.

Annie

Wow, what an explosion of flowers! Gorgeous. You have so many lovely things. Is that Quince that I see -- the red blossoms? With our crazy warm weather, my neighbor's quince started to bloom. Today we had a snow squall and it was strange to see the quince blooming and covered with snow.

What a wonderful garden you have -- cute Odo, too.

Wow, cistus! Be still my heart. I actually kept a few of those through several zone 6 winters. And the erysimum is lovely. Those are two of my favorite plants, but they do not like our winters.
What a lovely Mediterranean garden you have.

Beautiful, Gina!

Mine doesn't even look that good in July! LOL

Linda

For some reason I thought you lived in the northeast. Obviously not! Your gardens are lovely. Thanks for sharing.

Sally

Thanks. We moved in here almost two years ago now and the back hillside was weeds and heavy iceplant, which is not good for a hill. We terraced and put in countless salvias of all colors, lavenders and other drought-tolerant plants, one area for fruit trees with drip irrigation. The citrus picture is to the east of us - two neighbors citrus trees. The neighbor to the left has some too. We are welcome to pick all of them. The neighbors are too old to go down the hill anymore. We built steps as well as stepping stones to help get down there. But the neighbors cannot use the steps anymore either. They send gardeners down to do maintenance.

There are some bald spots we'll deal with here soon. The front yard is flat with a swirl of the same drought-tolerant plants, a patch of grass and a display section of floribunda roses in yellows, oranges and orange-pinks.

It's been very nice to garden since we lived in a townhouse previoously. Not that I was missing it then, but it's nice now. Who knows, We might tire of it later and want to go back to townhouse living, LOL. Never know. Anyway, we're adaptable!

It's all gorgeous!

Nice...(looking out my window at 10" of new snow....sighhhhhh).

Perfectly wonderful! Love it all.

I was expecting banana trees with bananas on them and hoping to get a root cutting from you!

Hummingbirds must love your yards. That looks like native lavender, and it does very well here. I have to keep Kevin from removing it from our front yard - he thinks it is a weed. Our back yard is level, but our front yard is on a slope, and so Kevin takes care of the front. Have you put out any HB feeders? They're lots of fun to watch and seem to be more plentiful in the winter.

Have you planted any aloes? They bloom this time of year also (Jan-Feb), like a lot of other succulents. We bought an avocado tree last week-end - what kinds of fruit trees have you planted? Do you have an area for an herb garden?

Lars

Hi Lars. No banana trees so far. I love the lavender - so fragrant right now. Hummingbirds, butterlifes and bees love the garden. I think I am feeding every hummingbird in my town! I put a feeder up and found that the cute little guys are fiercely territorial. Lots of skirmishes and a couple of deaths! But when a really dominant one doesn't hog the feeder I have to refill it twice a week. If one is hogging it I can tell because he only allows himself and his mate to feed and I don't need to refill it very often.

The fruit trees we planted - Meyer lemon, Behrss lime, Rio red grapefruit, Blood orange, Valencia orange, satsuma mandarin, Buddhas hand citron, variegated lemon, 3 kinds of fig, 2 kinds of guava, feijoa, pakistani mulberry, pomegranate, apricot, saturn peach, santa rosa plum, nectarine, babcock peach, persimmon, Calamondin, etc. And in pots on the patio and deck we have Meyer lemon, mandarinquat, kumquat, kaffir lime.

I have to keep DH out of the nurseries. Honestly! There is no more room! He wants every new fruit tree that we don't already have! He even planted grapes along one fence, and some tiny raspberry, blackberry and blueberry plants. And the blueberries are fruiting now.

It's glorious! I'm envious of your climate. We kill fruit trees and DH would have a field day with all of them! Has your DH fallen off the low carb wagon with so much fruit? LOL

The trees are all babies, so not much fruit yet! I did make a tiny amount of strawberry guava jam and calamondin marmalade so far. The mulberries and figs get picked and eaten off the trees. No grapes the first season, which I read was normal. But Ellen you have more heat, which contributes to sweeter fruit. But water rates went up tremendously last year, so we watch our usage.

Gina, I have four HB feeders, and that helps prevent some of the fierce territorialism. I refill mine every two weeks, but I only put one cup of syrup in each one, even though they will hold more because they need to be cleaned that often.

I have several of the same fruit trees that you do - Meyer lemon, Bearss lime, blood orange, and Kaffir lime. In Venice I had Valencia orange, Manila mango, and Texas red figs when I left, but I had experimented with hermaphroditic papaya (not as good as regular papaya), coconut (wrong soil), strawberry guava, passion fruit (which took over an entire side of the back yard and attracted possums), and tangerine, which died for no apparent reason. Here in Westchester we got rid of the plum trees, which made good fruit, but only about a dozen per season - not worth the space they took up, but we kept the Fuji apple because the tree is large and healthy, makes good fruit, and supports the HB feeders plus several planters containing orchids and bromeliads, which are blooming right now. We also have a grape vine, but it has yet to produce grapes, although it provides support for cherry tomato plants that produce all year. I have a white sapote tree in the back yard, and it should produce fruit in a couple of years.

You will need to watch out for the raspberry and blackberry plants, as they can become very invasive. I have seen entire yards in San Francisco taken over by those berries, and they are very hard to get rid of, once they have taken over.

I'm wondering how your husband plans to eat all of that fruit! The only time I had excess fruit was with the fig trees because they were very seasonal and produce huge quantities in July and August. A lot of the fruit trees that you have now will produce a lot of fruit for just a very short period, and the northern fruits tend to produce only in the summer, which is why I do not plant them.

I've been planting papaya seeds in the back yard just to see what might happen, but I am not going to buy more papaya trees - just yet! I would not mind having another mango tree, but I really do not have room for it, and they are rather large trees.

If you want to find more exotic fruit trees, go to Mimosa Nursery - they have trees I have seen nowhere else, such as sapotes, mamey, and guanabana.

Lars

I really enjoyed your pics!

Thanks!

Lars, the only tree that produced lots of fruit last season was the nectarine because we bought a larger size tree. We just took the fruit to neighbors and to work. The ones I won't share are the mulberries - I like them so much, LOL. We'll see what happens this season. We did have to net the nectarine against critters and birds. And Odo got caught in the netting! Silly goose.

A friend has papaya. I like the pink papaya we ate in Hawaii - that would be nice to get. I don't think the berries will thrive in our area, they are still sticks. The grapevine did tremendously well - covered the whole side of the fence in beautiful leaves. Too bad it's not an evergreen!

Beautiful, Gina!! I am envious of your ability to grow so many edibles that we cannot here. Love the lavender!
Thanks for sharing,
Deanna

Beautiful flowers! I love your landscape. You must be Southern CA. I am Central Coast CA. We can grow a lot of the same things. Other plants you might be interested in that are drought tolerant once established are Salvias, Butterfly Bush (Buddleia), Escallonia fradesii (Pink Princess). They will attract butterflies and hummingbirds. As will Brugmansia and plumeria, which I grow in pots but you can plant outside.

Maybe we can do a trade of cuttings some time? I also loved your 4 legged little helper. I have one of those, Elvira. She is always running off with my bulbs and burying them some place else. You can see some of my plants in the link below.
Clare

Other pictures.
Brugs
Roses
Veggie/Greenhouse>

Here is a link that might be useful: My Flowers

I remember that pic of Elvira with the mouse - classic! I have loads of salvias. I didn't add those pictures because they are a bit overgrown right now. Need pruning.

My inspiration for the garden was Spring time in Mammoth Lakes. The hillsides were covered in wildflowers like lupines and columbine. The effect was stunning. I wanted to look down the hill and see lots of colorful flowers.

Wow, have things taken off! Let me know when to head over there again....

gina w - Elvira is quite the huntress. That is a picture of her and a gopher she got. She didn't want to let go, thought if she caught it then it was hers! LOL! She also has caught moles. She is slowing down a bit now at 11. Do you have lots of problems with gophers and moles?
Clare

Thanks for sharing the photos -- lovely!

No problems with critters so far, but I did have a dead mouse to pick up once. We have hawks, foxes and owls here so hopefully we will not get a gopher problem.