Bernieh's Profile

I live in North Queensland, Australia, on a 3 acre property that is situated on the side on a rocky hill. There is a little poor quality decomposed granite soil on the site - but mostly there's granite rock. Because we live on the side of a hill most water drains off very quickly ... but the granite soil and rock is hydrophobic as well, so the water just runs through it without doing any good whatsoever.

The plants have to be quite drought, heat and humidity hardy. We do not get much rain during the year here - annual rainfall is around 1000mm (falling mostly during the 'wet season' Nov-Apr) in a very good year ... most years it's more like 500mm. We live in the 'dry tropics' and rain is very much a 'hit and miss' affair.

Daytime temperatures range between 18 degrees C in the winter to over 31 degrees C in summer. We get very high levels of humidity during our summer.

My garden consists of:
- the outdoor garden beds on both sides of the long driveway into our property
- my courtyard garden where I grow my potted plants and plants that need some shelter from the hot midday/afternoon sun
- my greenhouse/nursery which is covered by shadecloth and provides protection for the ferns, coleus, begonias, irises growing in the garden beds and shelter for the hanging and potted plants
- some garden beds around the front and side of my house
- and my new tiered outdoor garden beds.

I have two gardening blogs ...

For photos and information about the plants I grow in my dry tropics garden, please have a look at my website highlighted over on the right >

For a lighter look at what goes on in my garden, please go to my other site: http://bushbernie.blogspot.com/

I also have a facebook page specifically for my gardening life. Just cut and past this address:

https://www.facebook.com/bushbernie.atdrytropicsgarden?ref=tn_tnmn