The Wet and Dry Seasons in my Garden

Last year, during the extremely dry season experienced in my country, this was how my garden looked like.
This scene lasted till April this year...and caused death to many of my plants, such as the medenillas and my lone fern tree.

This year, with just a few days of the early rains of May, however, the brown grass has turned green again and my plants look happy.
I wonder if the gardeners in this part of the world also experienced this extreme dramatization of the seasons in their gardens.
Would love to hear their experience as well.

Thanks!
Balaitalisai

This is how my garden looks with the apparent start of the wet season this year...

...Dry...

......WET...

That's just a typical tropical monsoonal climate. Roughly, it works like this: low pressure systems develop bringing storms and rain. The high pressures in the southern hemisphere move up closer to the equator pushing air masses over the warm oceans.

The dry season will set in when there is a reversal. High pressures in the southern and northern hemispheres move further south, the low pressures between them go south of the equator. The wind streams head over the warm waters into the southern hemisphere taking the wet season with them. So then you have a dry season while we have a wet season.

Being relatively close to the equator the sun is always strong so cloudless skies in the dry season mean very hot days and usually low humidity. Wet season the rain and frequent cloud cover means cooler days and warmer nights.

You being on an island means your humidity shouldn't get all that low. Here the dry season winds come across the continent (land) so the humidity would drop more. So, we're just into the dry season now and you're getting all our rain, LOL.

Do you know what degree of latitude your place is?

Thanks, tropicbreeze, for your feedback. I just hope we won't be deluged with all the flashflood-causing rains.:)

But what I was actually expecting to see are actual pictures or postings of other gardens , or perhaps yours, during seasonal changes in this part of the world. We have seen many pictures of gardens during winter, spring , summer and fall in the West..and gardens in each season somehow seem to still look beautiful...even the snow covered fields.

I just wanted to see if gardens on our side of the globe can still be beautiful during the dry season. . Mine isn't!

I guess this interest was triggered when I saw the very lovely tulips, roses, peonies and lilies in my sister's place in the US this spring, which was a great contrast last winter but her garden nonetheless still looked beautiful somehow.

Cheers!

You are just trying to make me jealous....showing pictures of your lovely cool thatched garden house!

Hi Stellamarina!

That is far from my mind...aren't we supposed to share our gardening ups and down ...our happy as well as sad experiences in gardening...in this community forum?
I do admire the beautiful flowers shared by others in this forum like those of Braveheartsmom...but I didn't feel jealous at all. I appreciated their sharing of the beautiful plants they have which I may not have. I sympathized when I read RJharrison's sad expereinces last year with his garden...when the snow ruined his unique garden. That's what I like with this forum...you learn from others' experiences.

I wish I could only share the nice ones...but I do have problems with my garden during dry season...I was hoping I could also see the difficulties experienced by other gardeners during the dry season and maybe learn from their experience.

Sorry if you misinterpreted my sharing.



This message was edited May 30, 2011 7:25 AM

Balaitalisai, for the dry season I have automatic irrigation because I'm regularly away from home. Without it there wouldn't be a garden. At least not a garden that I want. So dry season photos of the garden are not a lot different to wet season photos. But walking around you can see the difference, and the light is much harsher. Away from the irrigated garden it's dry dry dry. There's 4 months (mid May to Mid September) of absolutely no rain with daily hot bright sun. Early May and late September there could be a little rain, sometimes not.

I did two articles with lots of photos of my garden (in the wet season):
http://cubits.org/Jungle/articles/view/819/
http://cubits.org/Jungle/articles/view/872/

This is along one boundary of my property the other day. Mangos on the left, boundary on the right. I've been cutting the grass. Because the ground is still too wet from the heavy wet season rains I can't get my tractor in there, so the cutting has to be done by brushcutter. The grass has mostly dried off but in a month or two it will be much drier in there.

WOW, Tropicbreeze...I love the feel of your garden...and I guess we have the same taste about the kind of place we wanna live in..

" Most of my life I've lived in remote and outback areas, city living isn't for me, even though I've spent a bit of time in places like Paris, London and Sydney. However, it's the wide open spaces that have the greatest attraction for me. And here I find the opportunity to share some of my outdoor experiences."

I wish I could transform my garden into a forest-like haven like yours!
Thanks a lot for sharing! :)

We are in the midst of the hottest and dryest time of year here, temps in the 40°C and up but no rain and lower humidity. I have to water every day or my garden would die. Out in the countryside, everything is brown and stick like and there are dozens of large fires. Once the rains start in about a month, it will turn green almost overnight. I have friends in the country who don't irrigate and only plant native plants, they enjoy the changes and feel strongly about their choice. I'm more interested in a tropical, green garden and so I water and water during these months. In another month I will be worrying about the ponds overflowing and things drowning. I think most of the plants I have would survive the dry season but they would die back and not be very attractive. I have a lot of heliconia and they might actually die, I don't think they are designed for a long dry season. The orchids would survive, they do fine in the campo, the bamboo and palms would be fine. Nothing would look very good though and this garden is for me to enjoy all year, so I water.

Thanks, extranjera, for your feedback. You and tropicbreeze have the same message...water...water...water...especially during the dry season.

I do have sprinklers in various parts of my property but the grass still turns brown and some flowering plants still die during the dry season.
I guess green -wet and brown-dry are our equivalent of spring and winter in the west....something we, gardeners in this part of the globe, just have to contend with!

Muchas gracias ! :)

It takes an enormous amount of water to keep everything green during the dry season. The resorts water for hours every night to keep those expanses of green lawns and golf courses. Whether they should be allowed to use the water resources that way is often debated, I don't know the answer. We seem to have sufficient water underground here in my part of the peninsula so there are no restrictions on wells, my main expense is the electricity to pump the water up for irrigation.

I agree that we have dry and wet instead of cold and hot as our seasons. I think of summer as our 'winter', the time when it is a bit more difficult to live in paradise. It's hot, later on there will be monsoon type rains and more humidity, there is the chance of hurricanes - that is summer for us. I like it though, I like the downpours and the way the smell of blooming flowers hangs in the air. I love sleeping with windows and doors open during a heavy rain, the air cool and charged from the lightning. So, I like both of our seasons but I wouldn't feel that way about a cold winter. :)

saludos

It's much the same here. But my lawns are Axonopus compressus, an easily managed grass. Takes very little maintenance. Doesn't need much water but if it gets no water will just die back and then return in the wet season as if nothing had happened. And I can get away with only having to mow it about 4 or 5 times over the wet season. I weed out any other kind of grass that gets into the lawns.

When it comes to other plants, you really have to work out what will do well, what will be okay with protection, and what you shouldn't even think about. And over the years I've planted many things I shouldn't have even thought about.

Extranjera, you just gave me a lead to have my own water supply by digging a well on this mountain. I will , however, have to consult some local experts on this....where to put the well, its project cost and maintenance.

Tropicbreeze, the grass on my garden are also supposed to be the easy- to -maintain kind. We call it carabao grass here...but as you can see in the picture, they also turn brown despite the sprinklers being on almost all day during dry season.
I planted all sorts of plants that I fancied when I first started with this project and learned that not all of them thrive in this kind of environment. I have learned some lessons there but, like you did, I am still planting those that I fancy to see which ones can be sustained here.

I feel I am transitioning from the city life of a corporate executive to a real mountain living amidst beauty of nature....which , alas, also has its own challenges!

Thank you, both, for some enlightenment!

Balaitalisai: My comment was made in fun.....sorry about the dry weather but I always love your houses. :0)

Balaitalisai, you'll just have to wait until your trees are grown...big trees filter the summer sun and act as wind barriers for the smaller, tender bushes on the ground. In the meantime, find a way to water the carabao grass lawn in summer, even if it's just the areas near the house, so you won't feel too oppressed by too much brown lawn. :-)

Balaitalisai, I have the sprinklers on the Axonopus compressus for about 20 to 30 minutes a day in the dry season and it remains very green.. There's other areas where I don't water it and some of that is starting to brown off now (about 2 months into the dry season).

Tropicbreeze, thanks again for your feedback...water indeed is the miracle of gardening ! :)

This message was edited May 31, 2011 4:02 AM