Finally Breathing A Sigh Of Relief ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Week 11, 2012

Date:  March 11, 2012

Season:  beginning of Autumn and 'wet' season

I've finally reached the stage now where I can wander around the place and actually enjoy what I see, rather than cringe at every turn!

I no longer feel like hiding inside the house and trying to avoid looking out.  This weekend has been the first time that I've felt absolutely over-the-moon to be out in the garden in a very long time.  Those who follow this blog will know exactly why that has been the case.  Finally there was a fantastic change of circumstance, with all the re-construction, repairing and cleaning up done.   All the rubbish has been removed and all the garden areas are now looking so much better.  Both my darling husband and I commented how lovely the place feels once more.  It seems like even the wildlife are little more relaxed and at-home when visiting our place these days!

The rain has continued.  So far this month we've had at least seven days of heavy rolling showers and have reached 63 mm or 2 ins in that time.  Of course, even though Autumn has officially begun, the temps have continued to be high, up around 32 - 34 deg C  (89 - 93 F).  It's not too bad on overcast days, but once those clouds part and the sun starts streaming down, things get rather sweaty and uncomfortable.

Thankfully, the weekends tend to be marked primarily by lovely overcast days, so that means I've been able to get out and do some much needed weeding.  Wet season means lots and lots and lots of growth, and particular plants tend to become overgrown very quickly.

I've now got a handle on the weeds down the driveway at long last.  I still have to patrol and catch the remaining escapees, but on the whole it's looking pretty tidy down the long entrance driveway.  I can't wait for all the new plantings to take off.   While they've certainly had a great start with all the end-of-summer rainfall we've received, with, thankfully, no torrential monsoonal downpours, I will need to coax them along during the coming dry season.

I spent a few hours this weekend battling with the overgrown patches in the tiered garden beds outside the shadehouse garden.  The Giant Sword Fern and the Salvia madrensis were choking most of the other plants in this corner of the garden.

I pulled out most of the fern, gave the Salvia madrensis a nasty haircut and then trimmed back all the unruly straggley plants growing underneath.  In their quest to reach sunlight, they had grown into all sorts of strange forms.  The end result of all the trimming back and tidying up doesn't look all that great, but  ...

... now the Dietes, the Pentas, the other Salvias, the Ixora, the Cuphea, the Euphorbia, the Scaevola and the Scutellaria that are planted in there, have some room to breathe.  It looks like I've lost the Kalancoe blossfeldianas and the dwarf white Euphorbia pulcherrima though.  Obviously, it was one wet season too many for these plants. 

Form a distance though, while the garden bed itself is now much tidier, it can be seen that the poor block wall needs some attention.  It's certainly did a mighty job holding out through all the horrid weather last year, so I can't complain too much.

For now though, there are no extra really-pressing jobs in the garden any more.  I can get back to the usual gardening jobs, like planting up annuals in pots to put out around the courtyard.  Early Autumn is always the time I start this particular job, and I've already begun planting out some little Cosmos 'Purity Dwarf' and 'Tall Mix', Zinnia 'Summer Brilliance', Nasturtium 'Alaska Mix' and Torenia 'Clown Magic'.

They're sitting in pots down in 'potting alley', where I'm trying my best to protect them from the heavy showers of rain that roll in every couple of days.

I've also planted up some Rain Lily seeds sent by a wonderful garden blogger 'Frangipani Gardens'.  There's Zephyranthes primulina and Habranthus robustus well on the way, and the Zephyranthes verucunda and Zephyranthes andersonii seeds have just begun sprouting.  Thanks so much, Pitta. 

Aside from a little more planting and some regular weeding, I get to wander around enjoying the foliage in my early Autumn garden...

 Caladium

Epipremnum aureum syn.Scindapsus aureus or Pothos,

Schefflera arboricola or dwarf variegated Umbrella tree,

Crotons,

the Sprial Gingers,

and ferns.

There's also a few flowers to enjoy in my early Autumn garden ...

an unknown Orchid,

the fabulous Cosmos,

Costus productus or Orange Sprial Ginger,

 a Marigold that's soldiered on from last year's Autumn planting,

my beautiful Mussaenda philipipca 'Aurore',

 Ixora 'Twilgiht Glow'

and Ixora 'Raywards Pink'.

The Koelreuteria formosana or Golden Rain Tree is flowering for the first time since we moved to this property over ten years ago now.  The flowers are quite lovely.

There's also some berries and fruit to be seen in certain spots.

Here's the bright orange berries on a Duranta repens, and the maturing fruit of the Ardisia elliptica or Shoe-Button Ardisia, which will eventually turn bright red and then black.

Then, of course, there's the wonderful wildlife that accompanies me on my wanderings ...

the Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly or Papilio aegeus,

the Forest Kingfisher or Todiramphus macleayii,

the laughing Kookaburra or Dacelo novaeguineae,

female and male Figbirds or Sphecotheres vieilloti flaviventris,

Rainbow Lorikeets or Trichoglossus haematodus,

Agile wallabies or Macropus agilis  (this is a little joey),

... oh, and then there's the snakes, like this Spotted Python or Antaresia maculosa.

All these creatures were spotted over this past weekend, doing their thing in and around the garden that makes up part of their natural habitat.  I think we've all had a fabulous weekend.

PlantingTime ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Week 10, 2012.

Date:  March 3, 2012

Season:  Beginning of Autumn and 'wet' season



March is the beginning of our Autumn here, and it's the beginning of my favourite time of the year in the garden.  Whilst the hot, steamy weather will continue for a little longer yet, at least the end is in sight now.  We've had a very mild 'wet' season this year compared to last year's fiasco.  We've had no significant weather events at all really which has been most appreciated by this gardener.

Actually, our place is finally starting to look good once more.  The repairs are now all completed, the debris from all the repair work has been completely removed now, and we're finally feeling like we've got our old place back again.

The garden has been appreciating the rainfall we've been having, and I've been planting in some of the bald spots left behind after Yasi last year.  Planting out in the garden beds is not a regular activity for me as it is with a lot of gardeners.  I've only actually done this a couple of times over the years we've been on this property.  When we arrived here, most of the landscaping had been completed and it was almost impossible to dig anywhere because of the degree of soil compactness and the presence of so much bedrock and rocky outcrops. 

When I starting becoming more interested in gardening around four years ago, nearly all planting involved planting up containers and hanging baskets for both the shadehouse and courtyard garden spaces.  Then around three years ago, my husband and I built a tiered garden bed beside the shadehouse ... you can see the brown block creation in the photo above ... and I finally had a new garden bed to plant in.

It's been an evolving creation and I'm still working on suitable plantings as this area is in full sun, gets flooded during heavy wet seasons, and it's a spot that's very exposed to the winds that whip through the little valleys here in the foothills.  Right now I'm pleased with the way it's shaping up, although it really needs a good clean out once the rains have finished.

When Cyclone Yasi paid us a visit early last year, some more planting opportunities opened up.  First there was the space around the heavily damaged white Bauhinia tree.  When the tree was enormous it covered this area and nothing much grew around it, but when it was knocked over and had to be trimmed back to a stump, there was a huge gaping hole left behind.  With a little bit of work, I managed to create a new rock garden bed.

This new garden bed is still in development but has taken off surprisingly easily.  Creating and planting out this area took up a fair bit of my time during the middle of last year and coincided with the dry season.  I've been very pleased with the progress considering how dry the last dry season actually was.  Of course, most of the plants still have a way to go before they reach maturity and fill in the gaps, but with the recent rain I can see it's going to work out well.

Towards the end of the dry season last year I also spread some Cosmos seeds, sent by a fellow blogger, in a spot left bare by the removal of Melaleuca tree that had been smashed to the ground by the cyclonic winds.  I can't tell you how happy I am to see how well those Cosmos seeds have established themselves and spread to fill in that bare spot.

I think the patch of cheery orange and yellow flowers looks fabulous, and it always brings a smile to my face when I drive in at the end of a long working day.

At the beginning of this year, I started adding a few more new plants to various other bare spots down the driveway.

I did write a post about the plantings in this rocky section of the driveway beds a couple of weeks ago, but since then I've also added a little Ixora and some tiny little 'Captain Cook' Bottlebrushes ... all of which are very hard to spot as they're only wee little things at the moment. 

Two weekends ago, I added a couple of baby Oleanders,

two apricot coloured ones, two cerise pinks and two double white ones, in three locations further along the driveway.  I also added a couple of lovely Abutilons as well in two other spots.

There's a lovely lemony yellow variety,

and a couple of what I thought were going to be pretty pink ones.

It turns out one in rather more peachy in colour.  It's gorgeous, but I'm not sure how they're going to go right beside each other.  There may be a move for one of them in the near future.  I certainly don't want to dig one up and move it right now, as it's hard going enough for little plants to get established during our Summers.

Indeed, Summer may not seem the ideal time to be planting, given how excruciatingly hot and humid it is here, and given how the soil cooks for most of the day.  New plants do get a little singed at this time of year, but at least there's rain for the plants to drink.  Planting during our dry season, which lasts anywhere from early Autumn to mid-Summer, is not really an option as young plants would find it particularly difficult to thrive even though the temperatures are slightly cooler and the ground is not being baked by harsh sunshine.  Lack of rain really precludes any serious attempts at planting during the dry part of the year. 

One of the other spaces where I've been able to do some planting is under the newly re-built pergola area beside the courtyard garden.  It still jars a bit to see this area without the spreading canopy of the Hibiscus schizopetalus and Jasmine officinale, but both are recovering beautifully and I just have to be patient!  I know they will eventually return to their former glory.

Anyway, underneath the re-built pergola I've been building up the beds a little and doing some planting.

It's not quite the barren landscape it had been for months at the end of last year.  The Palms are coming back and the new plants seem to be settling in nicely.  With some special attention and lots of mulching, this area should do well over the coming year.

So far, I've added ...

a couple of Caladiums,

a Dietes grandiflora or Wild Iris,

a Wrightia antidysenterica 'Arctic Snow',

two Spathoglottis plicatas or Ground Orchids.

One is the regular purple flowering variety and the other has these lovely white flowers.

There's a Eucharis grandiflora or Amazon Lily,

some Salvia 'Victoria Blue', a white Spiraea and some Plectranthus 'Cape Angel' which is the new waterwise variety being sold in our nurseries now.

I also had some other Salvias, started from cuttings sent to me by another wonderful garden blogger (thanks Titania).  Unfortunately I've lost the sheet of paper with all the varietal names on it, so it will be a wonderful voyage of discovery finding out which ones are which.

The next part of re-vamping this area under the pergola is to work on the pond.  I'm not sure what to do with it just yet although, now that there is no shady canopy over the top, I was considering finally adding some pond plants and not worrying too much about re-stocking with fish.  Still thinking!

In the next few weeks it will be time to start planting up containers with annuals like Petunias and Snapdragons, and adding them to the courtyard garden display.  Ooh, I do so love the beginning of our Autumn.