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Finally, it feels like summer here in Perth and we are getting some hot, sunny days, easterly winds and dry heat. The children arrive home from school all red-faced from their bike ride or walk and ready for a dunk in the pool and a long, cold drink.  I love the heat that summer brings and adore all the gorgeous summer blooms that I have in my garden. They make me happy.

Magnolia ‘Teddy Bear’

My garden is only 4 years old and as much as I could, I salvaged favourite plants from the old garden. I have planted tough plants in our garden, which will bloom for us, mostly all year round but especially in the summer when we are spending lots of time outdoors enjoying the long days and warm evenings. I have a good collection of Salvias, Roses and Succulents and I guess our space has a “formal cottage” feel due to the diversity of plants.

Want White?

Our garden survives on the two allowable reticulation waterings per week. We do not have a bore on our property, if we did we would be able to water three times a week.  I hand water my pots, they are not on drip irrigation.

I group plants together depending upon their water requirements.

This year, my veggie garden is having a bit of a rest and I have planted lots of Salvias and a couple of roses in that bed behind a hedge of Rosemary Tuscan Blue. I, of course, still have herbs and veggies growing in pots! I just can’t resist having fresh herbs for my cooking.

The garden is fertilised with mature compost and liquid fertilisers like Seasol Powerfeed and Compost Tea, a great product I picked up in the USA. I try and keep it all as organic as possible. I use anything organic that will bind together our ancient but gutless sand that lies beneath my feet.

Pretty in Pink…..

I mulch my garden every two years with wood chips that I get from my friendly Arborist and I top it up with lupin mulch for pots. We re-use a lot of the leaves and nuts that drop from our Eucalypts for mulch too, they get raked up by Dr Garden Consultant and put into the garden beds.

I’m not really one that likes being told that I can’t do something- and so, I break all the rules for our climate. You can have a pretty garden in the summer. You can have an organised, abundance of flowers. You can have lovely garden on just two waterings a week. You can have a healthy patch of lawn. You can create a habitat garden in an urban setting.

I am always observing my garden to see the huge variety of bugs and birds that come to visit, I have provided lots of height variation so that we get a variety of birds and insects and somehow in this relatively small patch of dirt, we have created a habitat where they all seem to live in happy harmony and no-one eats too much of what they shouldn’t, everyone is kept in check by the other. Even Jazz, the Labradoodle chases away the doves when they eat too much of her kibble!

What’s flowering at your place this summer?