Rather off-topic, I'm afraid, as the main plant I'm showing here would be very unhappy in typical mediterranean conditions - but I hope I'll be forgiven, as at least it is pictorial, and is in our garden now!
The plant in the first two pictures is Desfontainea spinosa, in a sheltered corner by our house in south-east England, growing to a height of nearly 3 metres. What's unique is that this has already flowered, in June, and now is flowering for a second time - it's never done that before, and this year's weird weather with such a wet dark summer must be responsible. I've loved this evergreen, from humid parts of southern Chile, ever since I first saw it in my aunt's garden in Scotland, and discovered that if you pulled off a flower you could suck a delicious nectar from the back of the tube. And it's always fun to see a "holly" (actually the leaves are opposed in pairs, unlike any true holly) that has such pretty flowers. Sadly, it needs far too equable a climate to cope with mediterranean heat, sun and summer drought.
The third picture shows some salvias here, rather more "mediterranean-happy" plants, coping well with our non-summer, and like the Desfontainea photographed this morning.