Adventures in Gardening: the Black Thumb Turned Green-ish?

Remember my post about my horrible gardening skills and how I make easy plants die?   Well, I might not be such a bad gardener after all.  We are having some spring-like weather here in Southern California and I think my plants are confused.  Well, a couple of weeks ago, I pruned some of my flowers, plants, and bushes,  just to get the dead flowers and leaves off so they didn't look so bad.   And to my surprise, some of them are making a nice comeback!  How 'bout that?!

My calla lillies are looking so healthy right now!  There's no new flowers, but those leaves grew like crazy in the last couple of weeks.

And my poor hydrangeas that I planted in the spring, which promptly died after about a week and a half?  They sprouted new leaves!  See those dead leaves on the taller branch?  That's what all three hydrangea heads looked like.  Pretty bad - I know, I know.

I was so excited to see I didn't kill it after all.  Yay!

And my purple Salvia came back looking amazing!  It's one of my favorites in my backyard.
Maybe next spring I'll try a bit more to see how I do.