My garden in the middle of winter

I finally went outside to see what is going on in the garden. When it began to get cold I stopped going out, because of the pain I get in my joints. I only went out to decorate the house for Christmas, and when it was over, it took me like 2 weeks to take the decorations away, I know some people leave theirs for awhile, but we built a manger and the wind really messed it up, it looked very disrespectful, but because of my condition I had to wait until it warmed up a little. I saw that my yard was not tidy, but I was not to get all sore because dead branches of my plants all over. I know some people leave them to put some "winter interest" in their garden, and since people that drive by don't know the reason of brown stuff all over, it looks as if I was trying to put some "winter interest" on my garden.
Hopefully they have me as a very unique gardener. I wonder if I'm the only gardener that worries about what other people think about our gardens.

But I will pay for not picking up in the fall. Do you see all these seeds below? Some of them fell down, and when spring comes, I will be doing a lots of weeding. These seeds are from a plant called blanket flower, I like these plants, I planted them and took care of them, but if they come up where I don't want them, they become weeds.


This plant is called Goldilocks, but it becomes browneilocks in the winter.


And not everything is brown, I have a mixture of greens and browns. like these dead branches of mums in the back and foxgloves in the front.


Here is a patch of green, these are some of the tough plants for this zone, the shasta daisy on the right, and the foxglove on the left, they are some of the spring blooming plants. below is another plant that is green. It is called Achillea (Yarro) it blooms pink, I put it together with blue salvia, and looks really good, I wrote about this plant here.

I was surprised to see that my thyme made it trough the cold weather we had so far. The seed bag said it was perennial. but some where else, I read that it would not make it through the winter in this zone. So it made it, and I didn't even mulched it!

As the weather warms up this rose bush will begin blooming, and even though now it looks like a pile of sticks, it is the pride of the house, once it begins blooming it does not stop for anything. Friends ask me of what do I put on the soil? What kind of rose is that? How come it doesn't stop blooming? Well, its a Knock Out Rose, given to me, by one of my best friends, with lots of love. I put some fertilizer like 3 years ago. I think it is happy that it does not get too much sun. That is the way Knock Out Roses are, once they find their favorite place, they can't stop blooming.