My Garden Starts To Dry Out ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Beginning of Winter, Week 26, June 2025

Garden Journal Entry - Week 26

This week's weather:

Seasons:  Beginning of Winter & Dry Season  (also Bushfire Season)
Daytime Temps:  24°C - 27°C            
Night Time Temps:  15°C - 19°C
Humidity Levels: around 70%     
Hours of daylight:  11 hours
Rainfall:   2 mm (0.07 inches)

June In The Northern Tropics

Here in the northern tropics of Australia, June heralds the official start of our rather mild wintertime - and what a beautiful time of year it is. Our winter months are typically dominated by glorious weather: crisp, dry air, mostly fine days, and daytime temperatures rarely falling below 21°C or climbing much above 27°C.  It's a welcome relief after the intense heat and humidity of summer.

The Shift To The Dry Season

We're also firmly stepping into the dry season, which in Townsville usually stretches from May through to October. It's been quite a year so far weather-wise. The wet season at the start of the year was record-breaking, leaving our region with an astonishing 2,532 mm (about 100 inches) of rain by the end of June - already smashing past the average annual rainfall of just 901 mm.

There is now a noticeable browning off happening in the front yard

But this month has brought a clear transition: only 25 mm of rain has fallen in June, slightly above the monthly average but a sure sign we've moved into the drier months. Around the garden and in the surrounding bushland, things are drying out fast. Grass cover is browning off, and native trees are starting to drop their leaves in preparation for the leaner months ahead.

Bushfire Season Preparations

With the dry comes another reality of life in the tropics: bushfire season. Our City Council began hazard reduction burns late in May, carefully managing fuel loads to reduce bushfire risk. At home, we've started work on creating a fire break along our bushland fence line - a yearly ritual that's essential for safety.

Garden Watering Routines Begin

While the couple of very light showers this month were welcome, it's clear that moisture has disappeared quickly from the soil. I've already resumed my dry season watering routine, especially for the younger plants that have started to look a little stressed.

Fortunately, the cooler daytime temperatures - sitting comfortably between 24 and 27°C - mean that a good hour of watering every week is enough to revive the garden beds.

The potted plants, however, are another story!  The courtyard and shade house garden areas will now demand a more intensive watering schedule as the dry season progresses.

Garden Jobs Completed

Once the driveway had dried out completely, we started filling up some holes with road base

The gardening workload has eased significantly over the past six weeks, which has been a nice change of pace. One of the biggest tasks we tackled was repairing parts of our entrance driveway. The wet season had left it riddled with erosion, so we spread fresh road base to even out some of the lumpy, bumpy surface leading into our property.

My shade house garden

The shade house garden also got some much-needed attention. The pathways and tiled area had become slippery and overgrown thanks to rampant algae and weeds. Everything was whipper-snipped and then power washed, transforming the area into a safe and inviting space once again. It's wonderful to be able to stroll through the shade house without fear of losing your footing!

Signs Of Winter In The Garden

Along with the change to milder weather, winter reveals itself subtly around the garden. On my wander today, I spotted:

- Lagerstroemia speciosa, commonly known as the Queen Crepe Myrtle: Leaves changing colour

- Lagerstroemia indica, commonly known as Crepe Myrtle: Branches covered in seed pods

- Koelreuteria elegans subsp. formosana, commonly known as the Golden Rain Tree: The three-sided papery capsules are browning off

- Euphorbia leucocephala, commonly known as the Snowflake Bush: In delicate bloom

- Iris domestica / Belamcanda chinensis, commonly known as the Leopard Lily or Blackberry Lily: Seed pods dotting the ends of the stems

Highlights Around The Garden:

• My Aloe vera plants have surprised me by blooming for the very first time - a lovely splash of soft orange among the greens.

• The Jasmine that rambles over one end of our pergola is still flowering, infusing the courtyard garden with its gentle, sweet fragrance both day and night.

Top left and centre:  Pentas
Top right:  Justicia carnea and Tabernaemontana corymbosa
Bottom Row:  Plectranthus and Gerbera

• I'm also thoroughly loving all the splashes of crisp white blooms scattered here and there, adding a fresh brightness to the garden's winter palette.

Potted Impatiens in the courtyard garden

• All of the potted Impatiens have recovered beautifully from their wet season drowning and are now looking healthy and vibrant once more.

Looking Ahead

Oriental Lily bulbs pushing through and sweet Viola faces on show

One of the reasons I love this time of the year so much is that it's the perfect time to start adding little pots of flowering annuals and to plant out bulbs and perennial seedlings. As winter progresses, there will be more fabulous colour appearing in both the courtyard and shade house garden spaces as a result. I'm looking forward to the bursts of blooms that will brighten these cooler months and carry a touch of springtime joy into the tropics.

A tropical wintertime sunrise

Until next time,

🌸 Happy gardening from the northern dry tropics!

Out In The Twilight Zone .... The Great Bulb Experiment!

I've started a new project this year ... and I feel that I'm now another giant step closer to being a bit of a gardening lunatic!   


When I first joined the gardening website world there was one thing that just blew me away.  There are gardeners out there who go to (what I would consider) extraordinary lengths to grow plants not at all suited to their garden's particular location or climate.


When I found out about these gardeners, I honestly thought they were right out there ... in the Twilight Zone.  (Those of us of a certain age will know exactly what that means.  For those who don't ...   it's to do with an old TV Show all about weird stuff! ... and not about vampires or werewolves!)

Now I must admit, I have seen my father ... many, many years ago ... stuffing cotton wool balls between the petals of his roses just before he loaded them into the car to take to a Flower Show ... and as a child I thought he was slightly deranged, but it seems this was nothing compared to some!!!!! 
There are gardeners who plant tree ferns in areas that get inches of snow and lots and lots of frost.

These poor old tree ferns have to be radically trimmed, wear hats and get wrapped in plastic!!! 

These gardeners might also wrap up their plants in fleece or pack them in straw to protect them from the elements.

Their garden must surely look so strange at these times of the year with these freaky caterpillar-looking shapes all over the place!


There are gardeners who grow plants in greenhouses lined in bubble wrap and/or aluminium foil with heaters blazing away for hours on end.  Seeds are raised on heated trays in heated greenhouses ... such vast amounts of energy used just to get seeds to germinate.  I have to admit I was completely unaware that these things happened.

In my part of the world ... and now I'm speaking from my somewhat limited experience as a serious gardener ... most gardeners here grow plants that are fairly well suited to the climate, weather conditions and the type of soil.

Of course we don't get snow, hail or frost here ... although, included in the list of horrid conditions we do get, are the endless days of relentless sun-baking.  But I've never seen a gardener covering their plants with umbrellas or sloshing sunscreen all over them.

Although we do grow some plants in sunshade-covered greenhouses or in pots under patio roofs for protection, I don't consider that very strange ... I would however consider it very odd if we enclosed our greenhouses and added air-conditioning!!!  This would be the comparable action to heating greenhouses ... wouldn't it?


Our approach tends to be - choose plants that are suited to the conditions, prepare the garden bed, fertilize when needed and use pest treatment if necessary.  But aside from watering them and maybe having a general conversation with them, plants don't receive extraordinary, out-of-the-ordinary attention once they're in the ground or pot.   If they die ... oh well ... try something else better suited!  If they thrive ... fantastic ... and we'll water them and feed them to keep them going.

Well ... I've now been infected with the 'let's-try-something-completely-out-there' gardening disease! I completely blame fellow online gardeners and bloggers ... yes it's all your fault!   This year I purchased bulbs that are far more suited to the more temperate/cooler areas of our great country.  They were labelled in the catalogue as 'Hot Climate Bulbs' ... so I ridiculously decided to put MY money where THEIR mouth was!
I am pretty convinced that didn't really mean my particular hot part of Oz ... but muggins here waded in hook, line and sinker.

Yes ... your eyes are not deceiving you!  There's Jonquils ... for heaven sake!!!  Am I completely nuts?  This is the tropics ... with over 300 days of temps that hover around the 30 degrees C mark and humidity levels that are usually up around 80-90% .... hardly every drop below 60%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway ... my bulbs arrived on March 1st, which is the first day of our Autumn, and ... after a rather strange conversation with a person at the online nursery that sent these ... I promptly placed them in my downstairs fridge until our Winter had begun.  Yes ... occasionally I would open the fridge door and have a little chat ... well I had reached the depths of weirdness anyway by purchasing them in the first place, so it didn't seem that out of place!

Strangely, some of the bulbs began to sprout in the fridge by the beginning of June ... our first Winter month ... so I got them out and planted them up.  I had to read instructions about how to plant them ... having had absolutely no experience with these plants whatsoever!!!

This was June 6 ... instructions carefully laid out and a ruler for measuring depths!!!  You can see some of the bulbs that have sprouted sitting on the table.  Well ... nutso here crossed her fingers, toes and eyes (rather like my children when they were very young and naive) hoping all would be well ... and placed all the containers in the greenhouse, except for the container with the Jonquils.  That one went back into the fridge ... until the daytime temps. dropped even more.

OK ... so how has the experiment gone so far? ... I can hear you all asking!

WEEK 1:  we have lift-off!

WEEK 2:  still reaching for the sky!

WEEK 3:  everything's taken off!  Think the poor Hyacinths need staking however!

Now I know you're just as fascinated as I ... but I won't bore you with more collages of the week-by-week growth ... needless to say, I'm astounded that any of them took off, let alone all of them.

Ah ... but what about those Jonquils I hear you ask!  Well the container of Chincherinchees and Jonquils came out of the fridge about a week and a half ago and here they are ..... un-be-liev-able!! 

To top all this off ... before I went off on my visit to see my boys and grandchildren, another package of Asiatic bulbs arrived.  All I had time to do was to open the plastic bags and leave them on a shelf in my Greenhouse Garden.  This is what happened while I was away ...

Now, unfortunately I've had a visit to the hospital since I've been home and I'm still recovering, so these poor things are still out there on the shelf ... and still growing madly.  I desperately needs more pots!!!  I am truly, truly reaching the depths of complete gardening insanity.  Hubbie thinks I need help!