April In My Townsville Garden ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Mid-Autumn, April 2026

Garden Journal Entry  - April

Weather Report for the month:

Seasons:  Mid-Autumn / Start of the Dry Season 
Maximum Temps:  26°C - 32°C            
Minimum Temps:  16°C - 24°C
Humidity Levels:  60 - 70%   
Hours of daylight:  12 hrs 30 mins
Rainfall:  15 mm (around half an inch) 

Yes, it's been a while since my last post dear gardeners and my excuse - our 2025–2026 summer conditions and wet season lingered for quite some time and the combination was not much fun for either a dry tropics gardener or the garden! 

The challenges experienced from December through to March continued - heat, relentless humidity, scorching sun that rose early and set late, annoying and abundant insects, sodden ground, rampant weed growth, overgrown beds.  Some plants loved it, but many others struggled with the sheer persistence of the heat and the endless heavy rain.  

My gardening efforts dwindled to almost nothing. By the end of March, everything felt tired, overgrown, or in need of attention. The arrival of April felt so good. 

💛 Mid-autumn in the coastal dry tropics

April, our mid-autumn month, is always the time when the garden catches its breath. When the wet season is no longer in command, there is a subtle easing in the weather conditions that feels so welcome. The horrid, hot, humid days end, as do the endless heavy downpours of rain. The lovely milder days and cooler nights set in, and constant breezes move through the garden drying things out considerably. It becomes safer and easier to move around the garden once more, and after months of slippery paths, soggy ground and oppressive humidity, that felt like a real pleasure.

🌿 The feel of April

April is one of the gentler gardening months in Townsville and the start of my favourite time of year. It is not that the garden suddenly changes overnight, but the whole place begins to feel different. The air is lighter, the mornings are cooler and the light seems clearer. After the greyness and saturation of the wet season, those big, bright, clear blue skies are a welcome sight.

We also begin to see some stunning sunrises at this time of year, and they always seem to mark the turning of the season for me. There is still warmth in the days, of course, but the edge has gone out of things. The garden is still full and green after the wet, but it no longer feels burdened by it.

🧤 Catching up on garden jobs after the wet

I was very busy over the last couple of weeks of April, making the most of the cooler mornings and the much kinder conditions. There was lots of weeding and cutting back, which is hardly surprising after such a long wet season. Everything had grown with great enthusiasm, including all the things I did not want.

I also had to re-pot and fertilise a number of the potted plants and hanging baskets, and top up the mulch out in the rock garden beds. These are not especially exciting jobs, perhaps, but they are the sort of essential post-wet season tasks that make such a difference. 

With the cooler morning temperatures, it was actually quite lovely to get back out in the garden and start ticking off these tasks. That is one of the pleasures of April in the dry tropics. The work feels possible again.

Post-wet season fun

The weeds that exploded along the fence line on our property — the one that divides our house yard from our bush paddock — were at the top of the task list and became the target of a planned attack.

During hubby's slash and burn attack.

Hubby deployed the “slash and burn” principle to create a break between the weed-infested mess in the rest of the bush paddock and our side yard. I did not think to take before and after shots, but I can attest to the fact that the weed growth along that fence line was shoulder-high. It was one of those jobs that absolutely had to be done, and has made a huge difference.

There is still plenty more to do, of course, but at least that section no longer looks as though it is about to swallow the yard whole.

🦘 The weed-eaters

There were quite a number of critters out and about, enjoying the post-wet season abundance.

A flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos were also doing its bit. They spent a number of days enthusiastically feasting on the seeds of the weedy growth along another fence line. There was (and still is) a massive patch of weeds growing on the other side of our fence — not on our property unfortunately, so we couldn't attack that as well.

The Agile Wallabies however helped us out a little.  They spent every morning and evening feasting on the multitude of weeds that sprang up in our front and side yards during the wet season.

🌼 Autumn wanderings

Wanderings are wonderful at this time of the year. With lovely blooms here and there, it is simply a fabulous time to be out in the garden, enjoying the colour and foliage rather than just trying to cope with the conditions.

Out in the bush land, the native Acacias were blooming throughout April. 

Both Acacia mangium, with its creamy lemon flowers, 

and Acacia auriculiformis, with its golden yellow flowers, brightened the landscape. 

They are both a lovely reminder that autumn in the dry tropics has its own beauty.

The Kookaburras kept an eye on my progress in cleaning up the place, quietly supervising proceedings from above. 

I also noticed lots of lovely moths, dragonflies and butterflies fluttering around. After the long wet, it was nice to see this lighter, livelier side of the garden returning.

💛 What flowered during April?

Top left:  Jasmine officinale (Poet's Jasmine)
Top right:  Adenium obesum (Desert Rose)
Middle left:  Combretum constrictum (Thailand Powderpuff)  
Bottom left:  Ixora
Bottom right:  Coleus flowers

Top left:  Streptocarpus caulescens (Nodding Violet)
Top middle:  Ixora
Top right:  Pennisetum rubrum (Purple Fountain Grass)
Bottom left:  Pseudomussaenda flava (Dwarf Yellow Mussaenda)
Bottom right:  Begonia semperflorens (Wax Begonia)

🌱 What April asks of the garden

April asks for recovery rather than urgency. After a long wet season, it is the month for restoring order, reclaiming space, and helping the garden settle into a steadier rhythm. There is weeding to be done, plants to cut back, pots to refresh, mulch to top up, and all the small maintenance jobs that are so easy to put off during the worst of summer.

It is also the time of year when I am able to spend much longer out in the garden again. The cooler mornings, milder days and constant breezes make such a difference. After months of working around heat, humidity and rain, April brings back that sense of ease. Jobs that felt rushed or unpleasant in summer can now be done slowly and properly, with time to stop, notice things, and enjoy being outside as well.

April also reveals what has come through the wet season well and what has not. Some plants respond to the change in season by freshening up almost immediately, while others show just how much the heat, humidity and endless rain have taken out of them. The garden begins to tell you what needs pruning, what needs feeding, what needs replanting, and what simply needs time.

Most of all, April asks for a gentler kind of work. The garden no longer needs to be battled with — it needs to be read, tidied, and guided into the next season. That is one of the things I love most about this time of year. There is something very restorative about April in the dry tropics. The work is still there, but it comes with room to notice, to wander, and to enjoy the garden again.

Until next time,
🌸 Happy gardening from the dry tropics!

Snapshots of Mid-Autumn on this April Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, 2013

Continuing my Snapshots series ...

I know I'm a little late for GBBD, but better late than never.  It's been such a long time since I last posted on here anyway, that I felt I should make the effort, even if the due date for joining Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day has passed.   Work life, home life and family life are always priorities over blogging, and those areas of my life have been so very, very busy over the last couple of months.  The garden has suffered somewhat as a consequence, with the more favoured areas, the courtyard and shadehouse gardens, receiving very little attention; and the other garden spaces being left to fend for themselves.

Conditions during April?

We've had mostly fine blue-sky days so far this month.  Our dry season more or less begins with the start of our mid-Autumn month of April, so our skies tend to be clear and bright blue.  We did have two days of quite decent rain which totalled around 43 mms (almost 2 inches).  As the wet season had been a big disappointment, it seemed like a rather cruel joke that right at the end of the wet, we get a reminder of what decent rain is like!!! 

So far this year our rainfall total has reached only about 516 mms ( 20 inches), which is less than half the total reached by the same time last year.  It's meant that our wet season has been remarkably dry this year, which is not good news for a garden that's about to suffer through a long nine-month dry season.  I think it's going to be tough going for some of the younger plants that have only been planted out in the last two to three years.

Anyway, let's take a wander around and see just what's going on this mid-April.

Starting with the trees on the property ... what's blooming?

The answer is short and sweet.  Very little!

I found one lone flower spray on one of my three Lagerstroemia speciosas, or Queen's Myrtles.  This particular Queen's Myrtle is growing at the end of our hillside driveway, and the flower spray is the last for its flowering season.  The other two Queen's Myrtles finished their flowering season quite a while ago now.

The only other tree blooms to be spotted were those on a couple of the native trees around here.

There is one Acacia mangium growing near our shadehouse, and it's covered in lovely lemon flowers.

There are also blooms on the Acacia leptostachya trees, out in the bushland.  Luckily there's a rather large tree growing very close to one of our fences and the flower-laden branches are hanging out over the fence onto our property.  It's a lovely sight.

April last year, I remember there were still blooms on the Tabebuia heterophylla and Citharexylum spinosum on the property, and there were loads of flowers on the Melaleucas out in the bushland.  There are no flowers to be seen on any of these this April.

Onto the shrubs ... what's blooming?

There are a few more blooms to be spotted on the various shrubs around my place.   Of course, there are always flowers showing off on the various red-flowering Hibiscus scattered in the far corners of the garden.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Snowflake' at the back of the courtyard,

Hibiscus schizopetalus near the pergola,

more Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Snowflake' in the front-of-house garden bed,

and Hibiscus rosa-sinensis in the hillside driveway garden bed.

The Mussaenda philippica 'Aurore' growing down at the end of the hillside driveway is covered in white bracts and little yellow flowers.

Down the gravel driveway there are flowers on some of the Crotons,

and out in one of the front-of-house garden beds the Allamanda cathartica 'Sunee' is still showing a few of its bright yellow flowers.

Now, out in the potted courtyard garden ... what's blooming?

Again, not much, as I cut back most of the potted plants out there a couple of weeks ago now, and they're still filling out.

Tabernaemontana 'Sweet Love' is showing off its stark white pinwheel flowers.

There are flower spikes on the Coleus and the Angelonia angustifolias.

The lovely double white Impatiens walleriana flowers are still on show.

The climbing Jasmine officinale is still flowering and filling the air with a soft, sweet perfume.

There are a few flowerheads on the Cleome 'Senorita Rosalita', 

and the Salvia splendens 'Vista Mix' and Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' are all starting to fill out and bloom once more after their cut back.

Onto the shadehouse garden ... what's blooming?

 Once more the answer is pretty short and simple ... not much.

My fabulous Dendrobium bigibbum continues blooming,

and the Streptocarpus caulescens is putting on a great show.

The Aeschynanthus lobbianus and Costus productus also add a touch of red,

and there are a few Impatiens walleriana flowers to be seen here and there.

In the front tiered garden beds ... what's blooming?

The huge sprawling Salvia madrensis is throwing out loads of flower spikes,

and the Justicia brandegeeana is covered in its wonderful bracts and tiny blooms.

Here and there, around the place ... what can be seen?

There's a Vriesea bromeliad blooming as it sits in amongst the stumpy ends of old palm fronds,

and there's a patch of Cosmos sulphureus that have re-seeded in a spot in one of the gravel driveway garden beds.

I'm joining Carol for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

April Shower Bonus ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Week 19, 2012.

Date:  April 29, 2012


Season: mid-Autumn and 'dry' season



Lots of dark dreary clouds rolled in on Friday and we had a brilliant downpour of rain which fell a little short of an inch of rain ... around 17 mm ... but was most welcome.  While we are certainly at the beginning our 'dry' season here in the northern tropics, an April shower is not totally uncommon.  It does happen, but it's not all that commonplace.  In fact, the rain that fell on Friday was the only rain that's fallen all this month.

I was over the moon when the heavens opened, because I hadn't yet gotten around to the mulching of the newer garden beds.  So it was very serendipitous that the ground got a lovely soaking just before I visited the nursery to get some bags of sugar cane mulch.  I didn't have to use up precious water to do the job.

Mulching is so very important for these newly developing garden beds, especially as our dry rolls on.  When I do start the regular watering by hand schedule out there, I need the watering to be useful for the newly established plants and not wasted through rapid evaporation.  Even if the daytime temps are dropping slightly, it's still very warm outside during the day and the ground gets baked quickly.

So I rushed out to the nursery yesterday to buy a couple of big bags of my favourite mulching medium ... sugar cane mulch.   On the opposite side of the driveway the mulch is provided by the overhanging trees, but on the side where this rock garden bed is located, I need to add mulch if I want it on the bed.  I've been using sugar cane mulch for a couple of years now, and I can't speak highly enough of it.  It is wonderful for moisture retention and for water penetration as the coarse mulch does not compact like others.  I also find that here in the tropics, this particular mulch seems to promote earthworms, which is fantastic for the rather nutrient poor soil that's the norm for this property.

I'm sure I almost hear the plants smacking their lips when it's time to add this 'Sweet Garden' product!!!  Of course, we're lucky that we live close to sugar cane farm country, so this is locally produced in our region, and not very expensive.

While I was at the nursery I'm afraid I didn't stop at just buying a couple of bags of mulch.  I couldn't resist picking up just a couple more little plants to add to one of the rock garden sections of the driveway garden that I've been working so hard on lately.  It was only a few little babies, and so necessary to fill in some empty spots!!!!  Sounds good doesn't it?

So, I've added a couple of dwarf Ixoras ... Ixora 'Yellow Sunshine'.  Ixoras are just so well suited to the climate and conditions here, and they flower almost all year round when well-established.  I'm looking forward to the splashes of colour the these Ixoras will provide in this difficult spot along the driveway garden beds.

I also added two beautiful little baby Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Phantom Black'  ... otherwise known as Mondo Grass.  This particular variety has upright green foliage which turns jet black as it ages.  The two I bought already had tiny spikes of white flowers, which apparently are supposed to be highly scented, but I didn't pick that up at all.  Maybe as they mature, the flowers' perfume will develop.

Finally, I added just one pink-flowering Serissa foetida.  I've been looking for the white one for ages, but I'm quite happy to add the pink form to this section of the garden.  Serissa foetida is another dwarf evergreen shrub.  This variety will bear masses of very tiny pink flowers, and will develop lovely variegated foliage as it matures.

After the planting, I then went about tucking the sugar cane mulch in around the plants on this rock garden section.   This section has now had compost added, fertiliser added and given a healthy covering of mulch.  I now want everything to hurry up and grow!  At the end of the year, nearer to the 'wet' season, I'll add a ground-cover or two which should then spread quickly with the arrival of the rains.

I also mulched the other little rock garden section and watered them both down as well, just to settle the mulch.

While I was out in the driveway section of the property this weekend, I decided to tackle a weeding / clearing out job I'd been putting off for ages.  My darling husband has been working on extending the garage at the end of the driveway for a while now.  It's slow-going, as he's doing everything himself, but only doing what we can afford each step of the way.  He's now up to the 'adding-fill' part of the job, so the end is getting a little closer. 

You may remember I took a shot of this spot after a particularly bad storm we had during our 'wet' season just back at the end of March.  It looked like we had installed a strange looking swimming pool, as it was completely filled with water.

Anyway, since then we had to wait until the area dried out so the next stage could begin.  Here's the first load of fill that arrived last weekend.  Now that pile is only half the size it was when the whole load first arrived.  By the time I'd taken this shot, darling husband had already spread almost half of it.  It's amazing just how much fill is needed for a job like this.

When he had spread the load, he realised it wasn't enough.  So ... we will need to get another load soon.  Well ... during this on-going project that section of garden bed you can see over near the fence in the photo above was completely neglected by myself mainly because of the mess that was scattered around.  After the long 'wet' season, this whole section was almost over-run with the horrid Passiflora foetida, or what we call Stinking Passionfruit.  It's a real thug of a vine, and very difficult to remove once it gets its little twirly bits curled around plants branches.

I did my best and the section does look a whole lot better now.  I ended up pulling out quite a few baby Delonix regia or Poinciana trees as well.  They had literally sprung up everywhere.  They can also become a big nuisance and take over very quickly.  They're very very hardy in this climate.

One of the hardiest trees of all time though, has to be the Spathodea campanulata or African Tulip Tree.  Out of shot in the photo above, to the right, there's a section where a mature Spathodea has been growing every since we moved in here.   It was completely knocked over during Cyclone Yasi at the beginning of last year.  It crashed through the fence over into our neighbour's yard, falling flat on the ground and exposing the root system.

Well, after I had finished clearing out this section beside the new garage area, it became very noticeable just how tough this old tree is.  Despite the root ball still being exposed, it's sprouted and has grown considerably in the year since being flattened.

Just look at the size of it now.  That's one hardy specimen.  There were lots of little babies as well that had sprouted from the suckers spreading out along the ground.  I ripped those out, as I really don't want any more of this huge tree growing in the garden.  While I'm happy enough to keep the old girl, I don't want any of her offspring.

Moving further along to the end of this garden bed, I weeded the patch underneath the enormous Eucalyptus platyphylla or Poplar Gum, for the first time.  Whenever I took photos from this angle, like this one that I took back at the beginning of last month, I would always avoid including the spot right under the Gum tree.  It was too ugly to share!  Anyway, this weekend I decided to plant some things in this patch, as it had been an eyesore ever since we moved in over ten years ago now.

I actually planted a non-red-flowering Hibiscus!!!  Yes, you heard right.  Those who have read my blog for a while know that I have many of the red-flowering Hibiscus rosa-sinensis shrubs in my garden, and I was very content with those ... until I walked past this particular variety during my nursery visit over the weekend.  It was on special ... and looked a little sad and unloved.  Apparently it has hot pink flowers which sounds good to me.  It's only a dwarf Hibiscus, so it should settle in nicely underneath the Eucalyptus.  It already has a few buds on it, so I'm looking forward to seeing those hot pink blooms soon.

In the same patch under the Eucalyptus, I planted some more of the Pennisetum advena 'Rubrum' or Purple Fountain Grass along with some unknown Cactus plants that were given to me a long time ago.  You can see them planted on the left in the shot above.  I have no idea what they are, but it seemed like the perfect spot to finally plant them up.  Let's hope these all take off well in this previously ugly corner of the garden.

While wandering back from the driveway at the end of the day, I nearly jumped for joy when I noticed the first ever bloom on one of my Desert Roses appearing.  It seems odd that it's the littlest of the two Adeniums that is about to flower first, but I'm not complaining.  Maybe the April shower gave it the boost it needed.  I'll be out there every morning now waiting to see the bloom.