things that happen in my garden without me really doing anything

My backyard garden has been, shall we say, neglected for a few months.  I know most gardens around the U.S. have been left to their own devices during the winter- mainly because of the piles of snow and ice that have covered them, but in southern California, we really don't have that excuse.  Things grow here all the time... all year round.  Which is wonderful.  Unless you're a kind of lazy gardener like me.

But I've noticed that despite my laziest efforts, my garden has been working on its own (yay!  now if it would only tell my trees to start raking their own leaves that would be truly wonderful...).  Seeing new flowers bloom and buds coming out inspires me (a bit) to help the rest of my garden look as nice as the hands-free part...

I planted these tulips at least two years ago... and every year after the spring I forget completely about them until the next year.  (yes I see those green bugs... I guess I'll have to go do something about them...)

These were my favorite tulips...

Somehow this gerber daisy survived the winter and the snails...

And then there's the ginormous geranium that I do nothing to yet continues to expand and bloom...

I bought these pansys because of their variety name- they are called Mickey-Penny's...

...Mickey and Penny are my in-laws... I had high hopes of growing them healthy and huge and giving them to the real Mickey and Penny but Mr. Incredible killed them (so I thought) when I was out of town... then all of a sudden they started to make a come back... so maybe there's still hope...

I started growing succulents this year... and they're doing well all on their own too! (Mr. I thinks that succulents may be my new calling since they are everywhere in our backyard...)

Crazy ornamental grasses.

And this daisy thing is doing really well (those are more daisies in the bokah background).

And this is Nora's mad face because I stopped throwing the frisbee for her to grab my camera.  Its hard to deal with this kind of disappointment but I know I can bribe her with a Milkbone and she'll get over it!