Color and a new garden bed

Volunteer sunflowers are just outside the living room windows and so cheery. Cleared out the oaxalis in this bed (pulled up half, cut back half, so hopefully it'll be nice and lush again next spring) and planted seeds for a few dark red sunflower varieties and orange cosmos.
Decided to plant some things on the south side of the front porch last weekend. Before:
And after everything got planted and mulched. Unearthed a brick border while digging in the soil and reused it. Clockwise from the left: beach vitex, a salvia w/dark blue blooms, Black Knight butterfly weed, copper canyon daisy, and liriope (not new).
To the right of the copper canyon are some false dayflowers I couldn't bring myself to uproot (still a few blue flowers there); in front of that, cigar plants.
On my 'to do' list this weekend, pull out dead cyclamen and replace with euphorbia. I should probably pull the kale out, too, but it still looks happy.
Need to get crazy with some scissors in here. Time to thin the zinnias and Mexican sunflowers...but it's so hard!

Front landscape, one month later

When you check on new plantings several times a day, like I'm doing, the growth feels glacial. I can't help it though; every seedling that pops up or bloom that sets into a fruit or vegetable just makes my day. So, I looked back at photos from when these plants went in about a month ago, and things have changed! Full sun and the drip irrigation are doing the trick. Here's the corner of the yard this afternoon:
The artemesia, gregg's mist and sweet potato vine have all doubled or more in size since this shot a month ago :

The burgundy hibiscus today:
And a month ago:

Today:

A month ago (opposite perspective):
The gaura love it here, but the firebush is not filling in as fast as I imagined; I'm already thinking about replacing it with a mutabilis rose this fall. The rosemary and artemesia went in at about the same size, but you can see below how the artemesia's outstripped the rosemary in just a few weeks. I've only ever had mature rosemary shrubs; is it normally slow to start out?
The veggie bed's had the most growth. Today:
April 9:

I knew that the zucchini was growing fast (never had veggies in full sun before!), but I wasn't sure the tomatoes were doing much. However, they've filled in nicely, and the watermelon vine is stretching out as well. I may have underestimated the space needed for zucchini (shown crowding out bush beans and eggplant):
And figs!

Gold in the Trumpet Vine

Saw a flash of warm gold in the pecan tree next door while I was sitting at my computer. Some type of oriole, I think, female or juvenile. Grabbed the telephoto lens and took these photos of the antics from the comfort of my desk chair (an entirely different view than the bare fence I looked at all winter). Apparently there's good eatin' in trumpet vine flowers.

Sunday walk at Turkey Creek

Some wildflowers I hadn't seen before (the two purples) at Turkey Creek this weekend. And Lloyd.

Trumpets and Volunteer Tomatoes

Trumpet vine has been opening its orange-red bells all week. Above is the view from my back porch. You can see behind the canna that the vine has put a pretty solid claim on the fence (and anything near the fence). Saw a hummingbird visit for a sip yesterday. First angel's trumpet bloom of the year. This started in a 4" pot from the Ladybird Wildflower Center sale several years ago and somehow survived last summer's drought and my move. The buds always fool me into thinking it might bloom lavender instead of white.

Below: Volunteer tomato 1, Roma. I love a volunteer in the garden, but there's just something extra special about these tomatoes because there wasn't a vegetable garden anywhere here before. No pot that they strayed from. The only thing that used to be where this Roma is was lawn. Then that died, and the spot was parking. It's like a little savory miracle.

Below: Volunteer tomato 2, cherry This one's right next to my back porch where the ground used to be covered in concrete. And I threw out some seeds a week ago in a patch of dirt that I haven't figured out a landscape plan for yet. Just thought it'd be nice to have some cosmos and sunflowers. And apparently zinnias (I found an unlabeled ziploc bag of seeds that I thought were Mexican sunflowers but turned out to be zinnias).

Days of thistles and butterflies...and rock slides

It was all hearts and thistles and butterflies till I came upon this yellow tape stretched across Walnut Creek. What?! The entire side of the cliff fell down into the creek. Just this past Friday, I was walking exactly where the rock fell (luckily it did not come down till Monday). And according to the news, no one was injured. Guess I won't be taking the strength of rock walls for granted anymore!

Caterpillar with a ladybug head

Does anyone know what this is? The closest I could find was a pearly wood nymph caterpillar, but this seems hairier than the images I found online.