Heat, Hesitation, Then The Wet Season Begins ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Start of Summer, Week 52, December 2025

Garden Journal Entry - Week 52

Weather Report for December:

Seasons:  Beginning of Summer / Beginning of Wet Season 
Maximum Temps:  31°C - 37°C            
Minimum Temps:  21°C - 26°C
Humidity Levels:  60 - 90%   
Hours of daylight:  12 hrs 15 mins
Rainfall: 202 mm (8 ins) - updated to the end of the month

By the time December rolls around, the garden feels like it’s holding its breath… and then exhaling in warm, wet gusts. This is the dry tropics doing its classic seasonal pivot: the dry season hangover still lingers in the soil, but the sky starts practising for the coming wet season - more humidity, bigger clouds, sharper storms, and that unmistakable smell of rain hitting hot ground.

The Summer Weather Shift 

December, our first month of summer and the beginning of our wet season, brought full summer weather and the unmistakable "build-up" feeling.  Overnight temperatures ranged from 21-26°C, with daytime highs sitting between 31-36°C. 

Days ran hot, and the humidity changed the whole experience of being outside. The garden didn’t just feel warm; it felt steamed. By mid-morning you’re already gardening in a slow simmer, and anything physical becomes a negotiation: two minutes weeding, five minutes recovering in the shade.

The sky also got dramatic. Mornings could look deceptively bright and calm, and then by afternoon the light turned silvery, the horizon stacked up with cloud, and you heard distant rumbles that may or may not actually arrive. December was full of those weather “almosts” - big cloud builds that collapsed into nothing… until the day they didn’t, and we got a proper downpour that made the whole garden looked like it had been revived overnight.

First Rains: The Garden’s “before and after” Moment

Rain arrived in bursts this month rather than a steady wet-season pattern.

• Dec 1: a strong opening downpour of 33 mm

• Dec 2–16: no rain — a long dry pause after a promising start

• Dec 17–18: a modest return, 7 mm over two days

• Dec 24–29: the real shift — around 162 mm over four days

While the early wet season rain wasn't consistent, the late December run finally felt like the wet season stepping in properly and the garden responded quickly once the deeper moisture returned -

• Soils softened after months of feeling like concrete.

• Plants that have been sitting in survival mode suddenly pushed fresh green growth.

• Mulch that looked tired started doing its job again - holding moisture, cooling roots, feeding the soil life.

Everything seemed to relax into growth again and the first proper soaking also revealed the garden’s little truths: where the water runs, where it pools, which beds drain beautifully, and which ones silently hold grudges until they’re waterlogged.

December Growth: Soft new leaves, fast decisions

Once our wet season arrives, the garden responds with that tropical speed that’s equal parts thrilling and slightly alarming. Shoots stretch, vines take opportunities, and anything you’ve been putting off (staking, pruning, re-potting) becomes more urgent because the plants are suddenly making plans.

The “summer green” starts to look different:

• New leaves are often lighter, shinier, and softer - more vulnerable to sun scorch and hungry insects.  In the early weeks of this month, time was spent re-arranging some of the potted plants out in the courtyard, like the Impatiens walleriana, to offer them a break from the direct sunlight.

• Some plants, like the Combretum constrictum, flower with a sense of timing, like they’ve been waiting all year for the heat, humidity and rain cue.  

• Other plants just explode into foliage.

What flowered this month?

Early on in the month:

Cassia fistula (commonly known as the Golden Shower Tree).

Covered in pendulous clusters of golden yellow flowers, it is a breathtaking sight.  As the flowers emerge, the tree sheds some of its foliage, allowing the vibrant blooms to take centre stage.

Lagerstroemia speciosa (commonly known as the Queen's Crepe Myrtle).

Looking spectacular in flower with large crinkled purple blooms that look like delicate crepe paper.

Throughout the month:

Thunbergia erecta, Ixoras, Allamanda, Begonia, Turnera ulmifolia, Gerberas and Mussaenda philippica x flava 'Calcutta Sunset'.

More recently, with the arrival of consistent rainfall:

Murraya paniculata (commonly known as Mock Orange or Orange Jasmine).

All the Murraya shrubs have burst into bloom, and the perfume has been extraordinary — the kind that fills the air rather than simply drifting through it. In the humid summer conditions the scent hangs beautifully, especially in the mornings and evenings.

Gardenia ‘Soleil d’Or’.

Over the last couple of days it has exploded into bloom and is now covered in richly perfumed flowers. The colour shift is especially lovely to watch up close: blooms opening white, then gradually deepening through cream to warm orange as they age — like a little seasonal sunset happening across the plant.

Summertime Wildlife Regulars Returned

• December brings the cicada chorus back. Even before the wet season truly settles in, you’ll hear it, louder by day but still discernible at night.

• More insects, like the Rhinocerus and the Christmas Beetle, appear at night, drawn to lights and the thickening air.

• It’s also the month when you start keeping an eye out for the less charming cast members - sap-suckers like mealy bugs, leaf-chewers like grasshoppers, and anything that thrives in warm, damp conditions.

What The Garden Asks Of You In December

December is not the month for heroic marathon gardening. It rewards a different approach: short sessions, strategic timing, and letting the season do some of the heavy lifting.

A few classic December rhythms:

• Garden early (or late) and accept that midday is for observation, not effort.

• Weed after rain while the soil is soft - this is when you can actually win.

• Top up mulch before the real wet season hits so the soil is protected and splash is reduced.

• Check drainage and pots after storms - water can pool fast, and roots can sulk.

• Prune lightly, aiming for airflow (humidity plus still air is when fungal issues start flirting with your plants).

The Feeling Of December: Hope with thunder in the distance

December in a dry tropics garden is a month of anticipation. It’s the beginning of the season where the landscape stops enduring and starts responding. Even if the rain is patchy, the promise of it changes everything - clouds build, breezes shift, plants lean into growth, and you find yourself looking up at the sky more often.

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

November Round-Up ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... End Of Spring, Week 48, November 2025

Garden Journal Entry - Week 48

Weather Report for November:

Seasons:  End of Spring / Dry Season 
Maximum Temps:  30°C - 37°C            
Minimum Temps:  19°C - 27°C
Humidity Levels:  50 - 80%   
Hours of daylight:  12 hrs 49 mins - 13 hrs 12 mins
Rainfall:  60 mm (ins)

Conditions

While November was officially our last month of spring, the garden and the weather had clearly decided that summer was already here. Most days hovered around 33–34°C, with nights staying warm at around 24–26°C. The skies were mostly clear and bright blue, but in north Queensland the colour is an intense, vibrant azure. These skies were punctuated by soft, white cumulus clouds under a strong tropical sun.

Humidity, though, was the real game-changer. By 9.00 am the thermometer might read 30°C, but with the humidity sitting around 67%, it felt more like 35–37°C. By midday, when the temperature climbed to 33°C, the humidity could push the “feels like” temperature up to a sweltering 39–40°C. It’s the kind of weather that makes both gardener and garden wilt.

The dry season lingered into the first week of November. We’d had no rain in August or September, and only 5 mm in October, so the soil had taken on that familiar concrete-like, parched crust. Then the pattern shifted slightly and we occasionally slipped into proper “build-up” conditions.

There were days when the overcast skies lifted my hopes that lots of rain was on its way. Thunderstorms began to roll through intermittently, mostly overnight or in the early mornings, bringing very light showers. These were just enough to give the potted plants a refreshing rinse, but not enough to soak into the hard, thirsty ground.

Then, during the second week and again in the last week, we finally had a couple of daytime thunderstorms with decent downpours. At last, there was some genuine penetration through that tough top layer of soil. You could almost hear the garden exhale.

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Gardening Jobs

With the heat and humidity ramping up so early in the day, gardening jobs were few and far between. After about 9.30 am it was simply too hot, too humid, and too uncomfortable to do much outside.

Regular deep watering became the main priority. At this stage of the dry season, the garden would not survive without it. I spent a fair bit of time each week setting up and shifting sprinklers around the outdoor garden beds, trying to give each corner a decent drink.

Some of the well-established plants—Ixoras, one of the Gardenias, the Murrayas and the Crotons—put on brief flushes of flowers, as if to remind me they were still hanging in there. But, overall, the outdoor beds were fairly quiet bloom-wise.

Most of the colour and life was concentrated in the shade house and courtyard garden, where the potted plants were watered almost every day. Those sheltered spaces became my little refuges: green, damp, and full of small surprises.

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Mother Nature’s Early Christmas Decorations

Despite the heat and the slog of watering, Mother Nature gifted the garden some early Christmas decorations.

One of my greatest joys this past month was coming home and walking past—sometimes right under—the exquisite blooms of Hibiscus schizopetalus, commonly known as the Japanese Lantern Hibiscus or Coral Hibiscus. This shrub is one of the original hibiscus forms and it has a character all its own.

It’s a tall, arching evergreen shrub with long, slender stalks and a beautiful, drooping habit. The flowers are delicate, pendulous lanterns, finely cut and lacy, reddish with coral-pink streaks. They hang and sway in the slightest breeze, like little festive ornaments. In a month dominated by heat, those intricate blooms felt like a quiet celebration.

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Colour in the Garden

My garden walks were brief—usually just quick wanderings in the early mornings before retreating back into the air conditioning—but even in those short strolls, there was plenty to notice:

• Signs of the coming summer: Flowering Delonix regia (Poinciana) trees and Cassia fistula (Golden Shower) trees were clear heralds that our true summer season is just around the corner.



• Caladiums waking up: Caladiums planted in the ground have popped up from their hibernation, adding splashes of colour and interesting foliage to shaded corners.



• Fireball Lilies in bloom: My Scadoxus multiflorus (Fireball Lilies) have also emerged from dormancy and are blooming, their bold, spherical flower heads adding a dramatic note to the garden.



• Gardenia in her glory: One of my Gardenia shrubs has been covered in blooms, and the perfume has been magnificent—soft, sweet clouds of scent drifting through the warm air.



• Perfume from the honeysuckle: Flowers have appeared on the Lonicera japonica (Japanese Honeysuckle), adding yet another layer of perfume and making early morning walks especially fragrant.



• Desert Roses with promise: A number of my Adenium obesum (Desert Roses) are carrying seed pods, hanging from their branches like little green ornaments full of potential.



• Queen’s Crepe Myrtle waking up: One of the Lagerstroemia speciosa (Queen’s Crepe Myrtle) has flower sprays forming, promising more colour as we move deeper into the hot months.

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Closing Thoughts

November was a month of contrasts: parched soil and heavy skies, oppressive humidity and delicate blossoms, discomfort in the heat and small, fragrant rewards in the early mornings.

Even when the weather makes serious gardening difficult, there is still so much to notice and appreciate. A lantern-like hibiscus bloom, a fireball lily emerging from nowhere, or the familiar scent of gardenia on a hot breeze—these are the small, steady joys that make keeping a garden worthwhile, even in the toughest of seasons.

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

Mid-Spring Notes ... My Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Mid-Spring, Week 44, October 2025

Garden Journal Entry - Week 44

This week's weather:

Seasons:  Mid-Spring / Dry Season / Bushfire Season
Daytime Temps:  31°C - 34°C            
Night Time Temps:  24°C - 26°C
Humidity Levels: 55% - 92%  over 24 hours    
Hours of daylight:  12 hours
Rainfall:  4 mm (less than 1 inch)

☀️ Weather & Mood

Our mid-spring month is about to end, and already the air carries summer's weight.  The surrounding bushland has slipped into the brittle, beige palette of the dry season.  It's exceedingly unattractive at the moment, typical for this time of the year.

In the open outdoor garden beds, even the hardy, heat- and dry-tolerant stalwarts are showing signs of stress - leaves flagging and textures dulled.  Heat builds early; humidity surges through the day.  The soil pulls tight.  It's the time when the tough mature plants earn their keep out there.

A tiny mercy arrived this past week:  4mm of rain.  It barely kissed the outdoor beds, but the potted plants under shade or in sheltered spaces drank it like a blessing. 

🌺 Where The Colour Lives

At this time of year, I step back from those larger outdoor garden spaces (apart from occasional deep watering) and lean into the smaller spaces where I can actually make a difference.  The contrast is stark.  Out there it's survival.  In here - close to the house, in the shade house and courtyard spaces - it's small pockets of cheer that lift the mood when everything beyond looks tired and thirsty.  

Hanging baskets and pots become the canvas for colour, and because I can fine-tune light, airflow, and watering, these sheltered spaces keep the garden's spirit alive.

💧 Water Is The Work

Most dry season maintenance happens in the early hours.  I set the sprinklers before the sun climbs, or as the sun is setting, then spend time hand-watering the courtyard and shade house garden spaces.  After a long, dry season, watering the most important job - not glamorous, just essential.

🍃 Signs of Mid-Spring

• Surrounding Bushland:  Fresh, bright green leaf-flush on the Eucalyptus platyphylla (Poplar Gums).  

Their flowering is done now, and the Rainbow Lorikeets, Scaly-breasted Lorikeets, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, Figbirds, and bees have been making the most of the last nectar and seed run.

• Close to the House:  New leaves unfurling on the Sterculia quadrifida (Peanut Tree), the deciduous Plumerias (Frangipanis), the Tabebuia heterophylla, and the Lagerstroemia speciosa (Queen's Crepe Myrtle).  Their flowering cycles are over for now as well.

• Open, Outdoor Garden Beds:  Colour (other than green) is thin on the ground, held mostly by Nerium (Oleander) blooms) - top & bottom right, the old Hibiscus rosa-sinensis - bottom left, and the Hibiscus schizopetalus shrubs - middle & top left. 

 

Sporadically, blooms can be spotted on the various Adenium obesums (Desert Roses),

the Gerberas, the Alpinia zerumbet (Shell Ginger) and the Neomarica gracillis (Walking Iris)).

🤔 The Jobs I'd Been Avoiding

At the start of this month - before the heat and humidity spiked - I finally tackled two messy corners of outdoor beds, one near the shade house and one near the car shed.  

Near the shade house, a Duranta had gone from "vigorous" to "tyrannical", crowding a Mussaenda and a couple of Lagerstroemias indica (Crepe Myrtles), and generally making the whole bed look unkempt.  Everything needed a hard reset.  

Near the car shed, an extremely vigorous climber (weed) had migrated from the yard next door and had literally smothered the top of two Hibiscus rosa-sinensis shrubs.  Removing it meant shearing off half of both shrubs, then digging out the roots of the climber.  Brutal, but necessary - the only way to give the Hibiscus a fair chance to rebound.

After two days of cutting back and clearing out, I could step back and breathe a sigh of relief.  I'm fairly sure the shrubs did too.  

The Mussaenda and the Lagerstroemias near the shade house have now sprouted new growth after their severe haircuts, and the Hibiscus is starting to recover as well.

👍 What's Working Right Now?

As I've mentioned the shade house and courtyard spaces are a sanctuary of colour and interest right now.  They are the saving grace of this mid-spring month.  Years of trial and error have taught me exactly what will perform right now without fighting a losing battle with the dry season conditions.

Plant Roster (Courtyard & Shade House Performers)

Below are the plants that consistently carry the courtyard and shade house at this time of year. These aren't strict cultivation notes - just how I use them to keep the smaller spaces lively when the big beds are struggling.

• Neomarica longifolia (Walking Iris)
  Architectural fans and occasional elegant blooms; anchors the shade corners and gives structure when blooms are scarce.

• Evolvulus
  A soft, low accent in hanging containers; useful for lightening compositions and bridging between foliage‑heavy plantings.

• Begonia semperflorens (Wax Begonias)
  Reliable dots of colour; neat habit that behaves well at eye level in baskets and along the benching.

• Petunias
  Cheerful fillers for quick impact; I rotate them through sunny edges of the courtyard for a seasonal pop.

• Salvias
  Slender spires that lift the eye above low plantings; I use them as vertical punctuation between broader leaves.

• Alyssum
  A fine, edging froth in pots; helpful for softening container lines and drawing the eye along pathways.

• Impatiens
  Shade‑friendly colour blocks; I cluster them in large pots where their steady show offsets the dryness outside.

• Pentas
  Sturdy, long‑view flowers; I use them as reliable mid‑height anchors that keep the courtyard feeling animated.

• Spathoglottis (Ground Orchids)
  Jewel‑like accents; they reward the shaded positions with a composed, tidy presence.

• Plectranthus
  Generous foliage and texture; excellent for filling gaps and cooling down hot colour combinations.

Years of trial and error taught me where to find momentum in a dry spring:  shelter, containment, and control.  Pots and baskets let me tune conditions without fighting the broader climate.  When the open garden feels parched and stubborn, these rooms of colour keep me gardening - eyes on small miracles.  The rest can wait for rain.

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