Unexpected Light Rain .... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Week 43, 2013.

Date:  October 20th

Season:  mid-Spring and dry season



Rain in October is not unheard of here, but it is not usual.  So I've really enjoyed listening to the drumming of rain on the corrugated tin roof over a couple of nights lately.  The garden has certainly enjoyed the showers, although it really needs a drenching to recover from the dry season.  Still, our short wet season is quite a way off yet, and the plants will have to keep soldiering on until then.

As you can see from the collage above, not much has changed around my place since my last journal post, back in August.   Most of the garden bed plants remain in survival mode, trying to get through the dry conditions the best way they can.  Quite a lot simply drop most of their leaf load in order to conserve energy, and apart from the tough reliable Hibiscus and Russelia, there are not many other garden bed plants that are covered in blooms right now.

There certainly is a single flower here and a couple of flowers there, if you look closely and don't blink!  That's the nature of gardening in the tropics, as we have flowers somewhere in the garden all year round.  Let's check out what you might spot in the various garden beds around my place.

Starting with the long driveway garden beds that stretch from our front gate down past the pergola that leads to our house ...

There are a couple of deep purple blooms on my Thunbergia erecta as it starts another blooming cycle for the year.  The Turneras are always blooming, as are the creamy yellow Russelia juncea and the Galphimia glauca.  Underneath the Cadaghi Gum trees, my Brunfelsia has been blooming, but is now at the end of its springtime flowering period.  A couple of the Crotons have started throwing out their long flower sprays, and my Polygala has just started another flowering cycle.

As you wander along the driveway you might notice some unusual flowers wilting and withering on the ground beneath your feet in a couple of places.

These are the blooms of our native Planchonia careya or Cocky Apple tree.   These flowers can only be seen on the branches of the tree in the late evening, overnight and very early in the morning.  The fall off the tree as the sun comes up.

Now wandering on down to the tiered garden beds outside the shadehouse ...

The very first flower spray has appeared on the Oleander I planted late last year.  I'm loving the colour.  I think I'd call it 'cerise'. 

The very first bloom of the spring flowering cycle has appeared on my Callistemon 'Pink Champagne'.  The Sunbirds found it almost the moment it started to open.

The clumps of Russelia juncea are always blooming.  I'm so pleased to see the Sprekelia formosissima starting to really establish itself in this section of the tiers.  It's taken its time, but it looks pretty happy now in amongst the arching stems of the Russelia.  I'll just have to make sure that the Sprekelia doesn't get overtaken by the Russelia.  Actually I haven't seen any flowers on the Sprekelia since late Spring back in 2010, so I'll be keen to see if it does bloom this year.

The poor Justicia brandegeana is making a come back after being eaten almost to the ground by hordes of hungry Agile Wallabies during the dry.   I've been missing its wonderful flowerheads.

My sprawling Salvia madrensis is showing the first two flower spikes of its springtime flowering cycle.  It always puts on a great show in late Spring / early Summer.

There are two little flower heads on my Salvia leucantha 'White Velour' as well.   It's been slow to establish itself in the bottom section of the tiers, but it's still there and still showing the occasional bloom.

The Adeniums are both blooming at the moment.  They're still quite young and one has remained very small, but both are putting out these brilliant flowers.

The Mandevilla 'White Fantasy' has taken a long time to come back from its destruction by some unknown wild creature, but they are some stunning little Caladium leaves popping up in the pot just to cheer me up.

The very last fading bracts of my Euphorbia pulcherrima are still hanging on, but they really do look past their prime now.

Now let's pop into the shadehouse garden nearby to see what's going on in there.

Again, not much has changed over the last few months.  The hanging pots and standing pots of Impatiens walleriana continue blooming, as do the hanging baskets of Dragon Wing Begonia.

The Stromanthe has bloomed, and the first spathes have appeared on the Spathiphyllum.  The large pots of Impatiens that are standing on the tiled area have become a haven for an army of mealy bugs.  I've had a hard time trying to control them ... and I'm losing that battle.

One truly terrific surprise this year out in the shadehouse has been the appearance of the first flowerheads on my Indian Rope Hoya.

Six corymbs or balls of porcelain-like flowers opened up on the long penduncles at long last.  It's been a long wait, but well worth it.  It's such a special sight.

Now walking out through the other end of the shadehouse, onto the courtyard garden, you would spot quite a few little flowers amongst the various potted plants.

The mixed pack of Liliums I ordered and planted up back at the end of July, began to show flowerheads in late September,

and I've been enjoying the flowers since the beginning of this month.   I think I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Lilium fan now, and I'm going to have to have a few bulbs every year.  I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with the bulbs once they've had their hey-day.  I haven't had any luck getting many of them to come back and re-bloom the following year.  I get a few little leaves pupping up, and maybe a stem of two, but that's about it.  I need some suggestions about that.

Other blooms you might notice in the courtyard include Violas, Cleome spinosa, Petunias, Begonia, Azalea and the first plume of the new flowering cycle of my white Justicia carnea.

I purchased a few more Hemerocallis along with the Lilliums at the end of July.  They've been growing in pots out in the courtyard while waiting for a new spot in the soon-to-be-completed garden beds.

Let me introduce Hemerocallis 'Tootsie' at the top, 'Taken By Storm' at bottom right, and I think it's 'World Class Oddity' at bottom left.

Blooms aside, one other little treat out in the courtyard garden is the appearance of a new flush of growth, called 'breaks', on both of the Cycas revolutas.   I am always fascinated at the progress of this new growth. 

So that's a pretty good round-up of what's blooming at the moment.  The conditions here had started to warm up, but with the showers of rain hanging around in the last couple of days, we've had some very pleasant days and cooler evenings of late. I'm not looking forward to the coming Summer as the predictions are for a very long, very hot one, and of course, that's when cyclone season rolls around once again.

Anyhoo ... one thing I would like to share, before I finish up my post, is the progress on my new garden beds.  My dear sweet husband has been slaving away in his spare time trying to get the new shed erected and the garden beds built as quickly as possible, given that he hasn't had a whole lot of spare time over the last few months.  Anyway, they're finally finished, as off this morning.

Around the newly extended car shed

Down beside the first section of the car shed

Beside the second, newly completed section of the car shed

This will be my new Daylily and Desert Rose bed, I think.

At the end of the shed extension 

I rather like the colour choice on the blocks.  I think dear OT did very well with that decision.

This end bit gets quite deep

This end section is going to need shrubs, shrubs and more shrubs.  Big shrubs, little shrubs.  I haven't made up my mind yet.

Down the slope

Underneath the Triangular Palm, on the way to the house

The new section of garden bed that sits next to the shadehouse garden is going to be filled with Cordylines, Gingers and other tropical beauties.

Quite a big space to fill

I've been looking forward to transforming this rather bleak part of the place for ages now.  It's really going to make the entrance to the house look so much better.

It's been a mammoth effort by my OH and I'm really pleased with the end result.  I've started adding some gypsum to break down the clay soil around the shed area, and topped that with some manure.  Soon it will be time to shovel in some hay mulch and compost, and top up with some good quality soil.  The section near the shadehouse still needs a little bit of finishing off, and then I'll start the same layering procedure in there.  I've been accumulating a few plants to add, but I will wait until just before the wet season to actually plant them.  That way, they will get a good head start to their growing and establishing period.

So It's Been A While ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Week 32, 2013

Date:  August 4, 2013


Season:  end of Winter, dry season


So it's been a month since my last Garden Journal post ... where does the time go???  Well, I thought it was time to catch up again.

August is our last Winter month.  Of course we have quite mild winters here in the tropics, with very reasonable temperatures and loads of bright blue sunny sky days.   It's my favourite time of the year.

This year's winter has been particularly mild so far. The average daytime temp for our first winter month of June was 26.6 deg C (79.8 F), and for July it was 26.3 deg C (79.3 F).  Night-time temps averaged 15.1 deg C (59.1 F) in June, and 16.1 deg C (60.9 F) in July.  Definitely warmer than the same time last year.  I've worn a jumper only twice, and we've turned on the electric blanket about four times since our winter began.

The downside of winter here, is that it coincides with our dry season.  We're now into our fourth or so month of the dry.  Over the winter so far (June-July), we've had 4.8 mm of rain, which is around 0.1 of an inch.  It barely touched the ground! 

Consequently the landscape around here looks dry and parched, with grasses and weeds turning a delightful shade of brown in both our yard and in the bush paddock.   We're all used to it, it's part of the cycle here.  We don't bother with watering the yard, as we consider this a waste of a valuable resource, and it's very expensive to do so.  We know the grass (and weeds) in the yard will turn a lovely shade of green again when the rains return much later in the year. 

Anyway, there is a bit of colour amongst the trees and plants.  Down the driveway, when you raise your eyes from the strip of dead grass and look to the trees, you will see stark white flowers on the Bauhinia variegatas and pretty pink blooms on the Tabebuia impetiginosa.   They're a welcome sight in the dry season.

The Calliandras, at the entrance to the driveway, have been blooming for some time now.  They're winter bloomers and the pop-pom blooms attract lots of honeyeaters like the Dusky Honeyeater and the Yellow-bellied Sunbirds.

Winter is the time for the Bougainvilleas to begin another blooming cycle.  I only have two Bougs.  One ekes out its existence under a Delonix regia behind the carshed, while the other struggles on near the pergola.  Both have lovely crimson pink flowers.  It's also time for the Begonias to show off, especially the Cane Begonia and Begonia 'Tiger Paw'.  The Dragonwing and Bedding Begonias bloom pretty much all year round.

Winter is of course the time for the Euphorbia pulcherrima to show its pretty pink bracts and little orange and yellow flowers.  It grows in the top tier of the tiered garden beds and always catches my eye when I drive in from work in the afternoons.  Out in the shadehouse, the Streptocarpus caulescens and Impatiens wallerians brighten up the space at this time of year.

Out in the courtyard, the Petunias are on show.  This is the best time for Petunias at my place.  It's still hot enough for them, and there's lots of direct sunlight for them to soak up.  This year I'm only growing my special favourites ... the double 'Bonanza Series' and the 'Bumblebee'.

The courtyard garden is my solace during the dry season.  It's where I tend all the potted plants that fill the space with colour, when elsewhere, things are rather dreary.

All these potted plants sit out underneath the spreading bare branches of our native Sterculia quadrifida.  It's winter deciduous and is covered in seed pods, which change colour from green,

 to bright orange-red.

Quite a few birds drop by to feast upon the seeds that are exposed when the fruit pods open.
 
The gardening jobs during the dry season here are relatively few and far between.  Watering of course, is an essential job, but primarily only in the courtyard and shadehouse gardens.  I'm watering the potted plants about twice a week.  With the slight drop in temperatures and humidity levels during winter, the water needs of the potted plants drop off a little, compared to their summertime needs.

I did order a few more Hemerocallis plants again this year.  I find it hard to resist the sale prices!

They're potted up now and waiting to be planted out in their new spot, along with the Asiatic and Oriental Lilies that are just starting to spring up from their slumber in those large pots, and a few other little things I've been collecting or propagating. 

Did you catch the fact that there's about to be a new spot for gardening.  I'm so excited.  Actually I'm getting a couple of new spots.  One of the projects that's happening at the moment, is the creation of a couple of new garden beds.  Woohoo!  I've been planning and scheming about this for quite some time.

When you drive in the long driveway, arrive at the car shed and park your car, there's a sloping stretch of concrete driveway that you have to walk down to get to the entrance to our house.  The area beside this stretch of concrete driveway has always been rather boring and dull. 

Here's a shot I took way back in 2009, when I first starting planning about the changes I would love to make to this entrance area to our house.  In the wet season it didn't look too bad, and it provided a convenient parking place for visitors. 

During the long, long dry season though, it was a remarkably unattractive view to all those who came to visit.  It became the bane of my gardening life, and I've so longed for lush garden beds on either side.

Well, it's been a long time coming!  Of course, cost was the most prohibitive factor.  We simply couldn't afford to start the project for years, and quite a few more important jobs kept springing up along the way.  One of which was the building of a proper car shed area at the end of the long driveway onto our property.

Towards the end of last year my darling husband finally finished most of the car shed project.  It had been a very long laborious job.  He had done all the work himself, mainly because of the tight budget, and also because he knows when he does it himself, it's done properly.  He's a bit of a perfectionist.

Anyway, just a couple of weeks ago he decided it was time to start the 'garden bed' project.  Again, he's doing all the work himself so it's done properly.  I really wanted the garden beds to be edged with huge rocks, but hubby convinced me that the garden beds absolutely had to be built with retaining walls because of the slope on this part of the property.  In the wet season here, the water rushes through this area like a raging river.

Hubby got a great deal on some blocks for the retaining wall.  They were seconds and were quite heavily discounted.  Just perfect for what we wanted!

So, there will be a quite narrow garden bed beside the first section of the car shed.  I think this will be the spot for the Lilies ... Hemerocallis, Asiatics, Orientals ... and some Rain Lilies ... Habranthes and Zephyranthes.  I also wanted to add a couple of dwarf Gardenias for perfume.

The bed will continue along beside the back section of the carshed, where it becomes a little wider.  (The carshed structure has now been delivered and that will be the next project for my darling ... putting up the structure on that concrete slab shown in the photo).  I'm still deciding what to plant in this section.

Towards the back of that concrete slab, the land slopes quite considerably and the garden bed in this section will be very deep and wide.  I intend planting a few Hibiscus shrubs and Pentas back there.

Standing at the corner and looking back to the driveway, you can see just how much of a slope there is in this area. Quite a challenge when it comes to building a garden bed, but my DH has taken on this challenge willingly ... well if I ignore the grumbles and moans and constant reminders that he is only doing it because he wants to make me happy .... yes willingly and happily!!!

On the other side there will be another new garden bed as well.  I'm not totally convinced that there needs to be a block wall on this side, but I suppose it would have a more consistent look about it if the blocks are used on this side as well.  I would prefer rocks for a more natural look.  Well, we'll see just how far the blocks that we've purchased will go.  If we use most of them on the retaining wall around the carshed, then maybe I'll get my rocks.

I've been amassing a little collection of plants ready for the new bed on this side, but I've still got a few more purchases to make yet.  I'm going for a tropical look with lots of Cordylines, Ferns, Diffenbachias, Plumerias, small Palms, Hymenocallis and Costus.

So, there we are now.  I'm up-to-date with the goings-on around my place.  I can't wait until I can start planting up all these new garden spaces and watching them take off during the wet season next year.