The old, the new, and the unfortunate

Starting right off with the unfortunate...

This was a formerly pristine Agave ovatifolia. Then the window installation guy punctured a few leaves with his ladder. Then mother nature pummeled it with hail. Poor thing.

These little green sprigs are an emerging Amsonia hubrichtii. I had just been admiring how it's starting to bulk up.

That was before the guy painting the window trim stepped right in the middle of it and broke the tips off about half the stems.

The same guy asked what he should do with the dead twig. He was laying down tarps to catch lead paint chips as he scraped, and I'd already been propping things up that I felt would bend to the point of breaking. Thank god he asked.

This isn't a dead twig but rather my Caesalpinia gilliesii and I do think it's alive! (see the little red nubbins?).

Starting it's third season in the ground is Rhamnus frangula (Fine Line Buckthorn), it's really getting some height on it.

I've started pruning at the bottom to reveal more of those fabulous spotted stems.

Such a cool plant.

One of my taller opuntia has five ripening fruit, it's funny how many people have pointed at them and said "look it's going to bloom!"

I was just about ready to give up on the Geranium maculatum ‘Elizabeth Ann’, then I spotted that little leaf to the left. There's hope.

New foliage is pushing out everywhere around the garden, none prettier than on the Schefflera brevipedunculata. No I cannot spell that name without looking it up.

Callistemon viridiflorus

I can never remember if this one is currently going by the name Metapanax delavayi or Nothopanax delavayi.

I think I might just start calling it by a common name I recently heard...Pot Leaf Aralia.

Old. But cute, and sleepy...

Very happy (and spreading) Podophyllum peltatum.

Praying hands, aka the new growth of Schefflera taiwaniana.

The Veratrum Californicum (large pleated leaves at the bottom right) sustained a little hail damage as well.

Both patches of Syneilesis are thick this year.

And after threatening to dig them up and put them in a container the Podophyllum pleianthum and 'Red Panda' are finally gaining some size. Unfortunately they've buried the P. delavayi...

Completely bored with this garden-photo-taking business.

Pug-tail fern. Okay not really but there should be such a thing.

It's is one of just a hand-full of plants left from when we moved in. Another fern, a clematis, that's pretty much it. Oh wait, and those horrid Styrax japonica.