It’s tree planting time…

Have you ever asked yourself-when is the best time to plant trees in Perth?

Well, it’s right now…just check out all this wet stuff falling from the sky, rain, glorious rain, it’s so exciting after such a long dry spell. Time to start planning and digging-and a bit like art on your walls at home…there’s always room for one more tree, I say.

This week I will be speaking at Perth Garden Festival-on Friday at 11am and am talking trees.

My 6 favourite trees for Perth gardens are:

6. Nyssa Sylvatica or Tupelo

I love these and have planted a few over the years where I would like a triangular shaped specimen tree. I selected one for a friend of mine who calls her tree ‘Ruby’ such are the beautiful red heart shaped leaves in Autumn. The Nyssa is one of the few trees which colour up beautifully in Perth, to let us know that we have a change in season. If you look closely there always seems to be two leaves close together which turn red at the same time-a tree filled with love. The Nyssa will grow to about six metres

5. Poplus Simonii

These majestic tall, slender trees are fast growing in our climate and provide excellent screening along fence lines. They are great in small spaces and I like the way they sway in the breeze. They cope really well with our dreadful soils and can grow to about 15m so if you want to hide your neighbours new 2 storey extension-get yourself 3 of these!

4. Magnolia

There’s a few to choose from that’s for sure but at the moment I’m loving Coolwyn Gloss, Kay Parris and Howard Poole. It’s great to have a reliable evergreen tree that provides fragrance and flower and generally keeps it’s form-any of these three will do a great job

3. Lagerstroemia Natchez-White

It’s hard to go past the stunning Crepe Myrtle in the late summer and early Autumn with their beautiful crepe like flowers and then when the leaves fall the incredible colour and form of the bark. I prefer the white ones-I think they look stylish planted either as a specimen or in  an avenue. These beauties will also grow to about 6m

2. Mandarin

There is nothing more rewarding than having an edible tree in your garden and these trees provide fruit through Autumn and early winter which your children can easily pick and eat. You can get the semi dwarf varieties now which are great. At the moment ours is heavy with fruit so we are picking mandarins daily for family and friends to enjoy-no chance of scurvy here!

1.  Cercis canadensis  Forest Pansy or purple leafed red bud

I love these small specimen trees and try and fit one in wherever I can in my designs. They do quite well in our soils with a little tender care and a feed of mature compost every now and again. They colour up beautifully and the leaves are large and heart shaped and fade to yellow after a summer of red fading to green and then in spring the branches are covered in rows of stunning tiny pea shaped hot pink flowers before the leaves emerge and off we go again.  A Cercis will grow to about 5m and has a round growing form.

It’s so hard to select just a few treasures for the garden-there’s just so many gorgeous trees to choose from and it really depends on the site and the position and of course shade requirements and soil type and location. I also love Plumeria in all their colourful forms for summer flowering and shade and allowing winter sun and find Pyrus ‘Chanticleer’ or ‘Capitol’ very handy in small gardens or accent spaces planted in threes.

Happy Tree Planting 🙂