Gardening in my Backyard

I live in the desert, but that doesn't stop me from trying to garden! I "terraformed" a portion of our backyard (the area that gets shade at the hottest times of day) and planted:

• tomatoes
• basil
• Spanish Lavender
• dark green zucchini squash
• peppers
• 4 different kinds of mint (I like the square stems)
• a really small thyme plant
• mammoth sunflowers
• nasturtium
• moonflowers
• milkweed seeds (collected from a wild plant)
• a mix of butterfly flowers
• cilantro
• sweet broom
• a lantana
• a bottlebrush (it looks sad)
• Some trumpet vines
• a carrot
• Some random annuals that were on sale (they look happy now)
• A pine tree the garden center guy said would do really well in the climate (so we can have more shade in the backyard)

I have a cool arbor built by my sweetie and I strung up fairy lights and other solar lights around the garden. I even have a mini fountain feature powered by a solar pump. I even have a cool birdbath that the birds are really using.

One of my co-workers gave me a whole bunch of rain lilies  I planted them everywhere. They are really neat looking. I'm happy that I have something to work on. My next project: building a sun dial. For reals.