Canberra has made it through the hottest January on record, but did your garden?
Throughout the first month of 2017 there was just 8.4mm of rain. While we had 7.4mm in the first few days of February, and patchy showers are forecast, Bureau of Meteorology's Jordan Nortara said hot and dry conditions were here for the long term.
"There isn't any dramatic shift in the climate make-up at this time," he said. "There is potential in this first week we may see showers, but into the longer term February and March that climate outlook of drier, warmer conditions should prevail."
Weekend temperatures are set to hit 35 degrees on Saturday, climb to 37 degrees on Sunday with a 36-degree high predicted for Monday.
Wandering through dappled light under the Australian National Botanic Gardens rainforest gully canopy head gardener, Dave Taylor, shared some hot weather watering tips.
As curator of the living collection he and his team have to manage the diverse needs of 5000 plant species drawn from alpine, arid desert, rainforest and bushland habitat.
Drought conditions in the early 2000s forced the gardens to think carefully about how best to manage water drawn from Lake Burley Griffin.
The gardens are carving contours for water salvage into the landscape design and have adopted misting, fog machines, pulse watering and drip irrigation to maximise the impact of water used.
"95 per cent of watering is done at night," Mr Taylor said. "The idea is to work with nature and establish microclimates that create shade and cool areas so the plants don't need as much water."
He said the 1000psi fog machine watering the the entire Rainforest Gully used 24 litres of water each minute, almost half what just one old-style knocker sprinkler used.
The most common home gardening sin was failing to "water up" a garden ahead of a hot dry spell and reacting to wilted plants by drenching them.
He advised pulse watering, three cycles of on and off, at night so water could soak deeply rather than run off the soil.
And while mulch was wonderful stuff for helping to lock in moisture, it could serve as a barrier in dry conditions too.
The trick was to pull mulch away from around from the base of plants, directly water them and then recover the area with mulch again.
"It can take a lot for the water to soak through all that mulch and infiltrate the soil," Mr Taylor said. "Take the time to get underneath it, while it might take a bit longer, your plants will thank you."