Summer's almost over ... and the 'wet' season is coming to its end.

Our great country envelopes your soul,
From the bush, rainforest, desert or shoal.
Wet season, dry, cyclones, deep blue sky,
Breathtaking beauty that makes you cry.

('Our New Mates' by Dave Delaney)

I love this first verse from Dave Delaney's poem ... if truth be told it's the only verse I know by heart!  But this simple yet somehow evocative string of words clearly paints a picture of what we live with .... particularly here in my corner of this vast country.  

Here I'm surrounded by the bush .... the shoals are not far away ... the rainforest is a day trip away and to see the desert we would only have to travel for a few days.  



But it's those next few words that articulates what it's like for me as a gardener living in this place and living with the worst and the best of our climate:  Wet season, dry, cyclones, deep blue sky ...


There are only two distinct seasons here:  

• the 'dry' which is a long period of warm temperatures, at least 300 days of sunshine, fresh breezes, low humidity and almost no rain (March to November).  This is the time when the area surrounding my home looks dry and brown ...

• the 'wet' which is a short period of intense tropical downpours, possible flooding, high levels of humidity, overcast skies, the occasional dramatic electrical storm, thunderstorms, and possibly cyclones (December to February).  It's also known as the 'green season' as everything looks refreshed, lush and alive.

To garden successfully in these conditions means you must nurture many drought hardy, heat hardy, sun hardy and humidity hardy plants through a very long 'dry' and then cross your fingers and hope that they all survive the days without the usual sunshine and the torrential monsoonal rainfall that can last anything up to a month.

Well it's almost the end of 'wet' right now and as it draws to a close, it's time to take stock and get ready for the approaching 'dry'.  As a few of my January/February posts indicated, we had monsoonal rainfall and flooding, storms and monsoonal troughs but the cyclones didn't visit our area ... and I did lose plants again.  It happens every year without fail ... but I'm learning as I go and the losses are not as bad as last year.

So right now it's time to begin planting my seeds .... for my potted annual display ... 

the fertilizing is done ... now that it won't all just get washed away ...

and the re-potting is done ... out with the old and dead and in with the still alive and kicking!  


But still one more h..u..g..e job left ... I've just gotta get into the greenhouse garden and start trimming back some of that jungle ... now that's one part of my garden that loves the 'wet'!