Winter Flowers

Just some photos of the plants in my yard as of January 10th. I'm loving the winter weather and gardening!

Cyclamen, begonias in front, a struggling elephant ear in the cool weather in the back, and a mona lavender in the top right. The mona lavender is awesome! Beautiful purple color on the underside of the leaves with purple flowers the humming birds adore. And it takes full shade :)

When I planted the geraniums, petunias, carnations, lobelia and allysum they were in full sun. The winter sun as gotten low enough that they are now in full shade of the orange tree. They have still put out a lot of greenery but have just barely started putting out a few blooms. About mid february they should be in full sun again and I'm expecting them to really put out more blooms! There are some freesia coming up among them which I'm also excited to see bloom. Out of focus in the upper right are my pigmy date palm and hibiscus.

These are my "window" baskets with pansies and begonias. The pansies have done amazing. Still my cool weather warrior I love so much. The orange tree is in the background and the oranges are getting almost ripe enough to eat :)

My one tomato plant next to a rosemary plant. It is also in full shade right now but has still managed to quadruple it's hight without and staying more compact than I would have thought being in full shade. As soon as the sun gets high enough it will be big and ready to send out lots of blooms with lots of tomatoes! Or so I'm hoping.

This is my passion fruit vine that I've loved. It was only 2 feet tall when I planted it in July. It's now huge as you can see and I'm going to train it to cover the railing of the porch. Can't wait to see the green result! It should also flower in spring, which their flowers are from out of this world, and their fruit is supposed to be delicious!

And the bird of paradise in my front yard. This one I did not plant and was already here, but I do love it's flowers and persistence in blooming.