Right in the morning, before breakfast, Jay's younger sister started watering the plants near the house. There was no rain during the couple of weeks we were away. It's not uncommon because this is generally the driest part of the year in this part of Sri Lanka.
For a relatively small island, about the size of Ireland, there are many variations in climate and temperature here. Some have to do with elevation. There are also two separate monsoons one affecting this side of the island and also when another heads into the Bay of Bengal. A large variation in annual rainfall occurs in Sri Lanka. Some areas receive less than 900 mm per year while one section on the western slope of the mountains gets more than 5000 mm annually.
The plants in Minuwangoda can handle the dry season but Jay's sister waters the plants purely for aesthetics. The plants would pop back into lushness when they get water, but no one wants to look at brown shrivelled leaves during the dry spells.