In Perth, we are not really built for cold weather. That’s all there is to it. We kind of pretend that it never gets really cold in Perth and that the cold weather from June through to September is something that our Eastern states cousins have to endure. We complain when the temperature goes below say 23 degrees Celsius and whinge really badly if it sits at around about 18 like it is today. The wind is actually quite brutal today and our sensitive plants, also not really used to the colder days can get whipped about by the winds.
It is dark in the mornings until about 7am and gets dark again by about 530pm. I have to say that it’s really not my favourite time of the year and given the choice would be drinking champagne on a beach in Broome
The bottom line is though, that we have just come away from the driest May in history with almost no rain recorded and things were looking pretty dire for our farmers who had dry seeded in the hope of rain coming and also home gardeners who’s sandy soil has cooled but is as dry as a chip. We NEED this rain! This rain is getting through to the Wheatbelt and inland areas as well as giving our Perth gardens a really good soaking-it’s a good thing!
We spent most of yesterday cleaning up leaves that have dropped from a few of our large trees, the American sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) in all its autumn, colourful glory and the very large Citharexylum spinosum, ‘Fiddlewood’ -which is actually a native of South Florida and is at maximum height of 12m and 6m across-it’s huge and provides a great green screen so that we can’t really see our neighbours awfully chosen sky blue house paint and his aversion to trees of any description (he loves his chainsaw). We have a Schefflera actinophylla or tropical umbrella tree, that I’m sure the previous owners of our property must have had as a houseplant in the ‘1970s and they decided to stick it down the back of the yard. This tree is now at least 10m tall! In parts of Queensland, it’s a declared invasive species and I can see why. It is growing over our sewerage system and is basically loving life. Let this be a lesson to you if you are thinking of transplanting your current houseplant.
As the rain is falling heavily and the wind blowing everything horizontally in my garden today, it brings me to thinking and planning about trimming these trees. I have an arborist who comes here every 12-18 months to keep everything under control. I’m looking at the shapes of the trees and how I want the landscape to look in the summer. I will have quite a list for him to do in the next month or so when the deciduous trees have lost their leaves and I can take a good look at the bones of my garden. We love our well-treed garden but it requires quite some management and that’s perfectly OK by us.
What do you do when the wind and the rain come to visit in your neck of the woods, are you staring out the window like me, considering all the possibilities for your garden???
