Eight months of Mondays in the back garden (Part One)

The back garden entrance on October 16th 2023, a few of Clifford's fallen leaves serve as a reminder of the season.November 6th, more leaves. Clean up happened at least twice a week for a few weeks.
November 14th, the maple leaves are from the south-side neighbor's tree. The polycarbonate panels are now in place to keep the agaves dry.
December 6th, the cement piece in the far corner is new, a taboret à la David Culp.
January 1st, the New Year! Things are looking much the same. A little more trimmed up and tidy. Winter was proving to be the mild dream we'd been promised with an El Niño winter.
Until it wasn't, January 17th. I missed Monday and took this photo on Wednesday, which was Day 6 of the storm. I couldn't open the gate to get it out of the photo because it was frozen in place. The foliage is frozen at an odd angle because the wind was hammering us at the same time the temperatures dropped and frozen precipitation started to fall.
January 22nd, 11 days after it started and we still had ice/snow on the ground in places. Such is life in NE Portland near the Columbia River Gorge.
February 12th, blue sky! Palm fronds are missing (broke off in the wind) and the Metapanax delavayi foliage (top left of photo) has started to die off.
February 19th, that same foliage (the Metapanax delavayi) is now falling, it would continue for the next 2-3 months. This is an evergreen shrub that was burnt by sub-freezing winds.
March 25th. When I started this photo-essay I was hoping to capture a "this is winter!" moment, and not with an historic storm. However this photo says "this is spring!" to me. Things have flipped and there is life in the garden again, I've taken the winter covers off the in-ground agaves (we won't talk about the fact so many agaves died anyway, 12F and below freezing day and night for 5 days was just too much).
April 15th, blue sky and bright green lawn!
April 29th, So many plants are up and looking good. The Metapanax delavayi is leafing out again.
May 13th, harsh sun and shadows and lawn that needs to be mowed, but you can see the staghorn ferns are starting to emerge from the basement and get a nice hose-down (on the ground in the shadows).
May 27th, my garden is once again a place I want to spend time in, and not just working!
June 4th, the final shot of this view. Things are wet as we just experienced a heavy rainfall in the days prior. 
Here's the second view of the series; the orange wall, the north boundary of the upper garden. Our house on my right, the patio on the left and our garage behind me. October 9th 2023...so very jungly!
November 6th, golden.
December 6th. The Edgeworthia chrysantha 'Akebono' (far right) has almost lost all it's leaves, the Passiflora lutea climbing on the palm trunk has died back, and the hakonechloa (Japanese forest grass) has gone golden.
January 1st, the New Year. There had not yet been a killing frost in the garden. 
January 8th. At this point we knew a change was coming, we just didn't know how bad it was going to be.
January 17th. There's a Pseudopanax ferox under the tall insulated cover next to the palm, and an astelia under the black pot. The edgeworthia is bent under the weight of the ice.
January 22nd. The waiting game begins, damage doesn't show up right away on a lot of things. 
February 5th, the large leaves of the Rhododendron sinogrande (in front and to the right of the palm) are starting to take on an unhealthy hue.
March 5th, by now I'd cut back the volunteer sword ferns and (along with the kill-back of evergreen ground cover) the ground is looking so bare, on a positive note the flower buds on the edgeworthia are starting to open.
March 11th, plants are starting to emerge and I'm starting to play around with ideas for containers and plantings for the spring.
March 25th, another shot that says SPRING! 
April 29th, the Lysimachia nummularia (creeping Jenny, ground cover) is quickly covering the bare soil again (in many winters it stays almost evergreen) and I've been buying plants which are staged in place making the area look much fuller than it is. On the far right the big leaves of Rodgersia podophylla have emerged.
May 6th. The tall palm was trimmed up a few weeks back, and the fronds on the palm out of frame on the left are gone, also trimmed up due to winter damage. The Pseudopanax ferox just to the left of the palm has been dropping leaves for months, I feared it was a goner but I am happy to report that as of June 6th it started to push out new growth towards the top. 
May 13th, I'm feeling behind now as I haven't yet planted the things I bought to go in this area and we just had a couple of 90 degree days!
May 27th, some of the new plants are in the ground here, but not quite all. You might notice the staghorn fern on the far right, hanging from the Albizia julibrissin 'Summer Chocolate' and there's a plant missing on the right of the palm trunk. I moved the Sinopanax formosanus that had been there (scroll up and you'll see light green leaves that are now missing). 
I decided I hated it there and so I moved it to the west side of the patio behind the bamboo tanks. I feared it was probably going to die in the move, but it's actually looking pretty good.