Planting in summer - soil preparation.

Soak the plants that are going into the ground to make sure the root ball is drenched.

Firstly dig the hole twice as wide and as deep as the pot size to be planted.
Fill up the hole a couple of times with water and let it soak in. This can take a long time.
You could fill up the hole with seasol and let that soak in too.

Combine the existing sand with some organic matter of some sort: soil conditioner or potting mix or manure .

When you plant consider including soil soil wetting granules on top to make sure the water will soak in correctly and evenly. Dry pockets in the soil can prevent a plant ever really taking off.

Water in thoroughly with a weak solution of kelp/seasol. Water again at lease twice a week, giving a good soaking each time to keep the soil damp enough for the roots to grow easily.

San Pedro cactus in flower.

This stunning, rather tall and successful cactus has been threatening us with flower buds for a few months now and has decided to suddenly flower.

5 flowers were out this morning when I noticed it and then after night fell I thought I'd check again, and there were another 7 out.
Stunning.

Creating shade.

At this time of year there's never enough shade around in urban areas. This is true for tree shade as well as shade for the soil level in the garden.
Mulching is an important part of garden maintenance, but it is really better to have plants as a living mulch where possible. This will add to the cooling air that is created by plants and help more water soak into the ground on those odd occasions that it does rain in Perth these days.

There are many useful and hardy ground covers: native plants include Myoporum parvifolium, Hemiandra pungens and various Grevilleas. Exotics include: Arctotis daisies, Mysembryanthemums, carnations, thyme, oregano and many others.

Dragonfly nymph.

I'm pretty pleased to see dragonflies are using our pond to breed.
This is a dragonfly nymph.

Planting in summer.

Strictly speaking, it's probably not the best time to plant, being the middle of summer, but it is the time when you really notice areas that need some shade or shelter.

I have finally planted a couple of shrubs to hide the neighbour's window and have thought of a way to plant something else to hide another of their windows.
I used a lavender which will grow tall enough to cover the lower part of their window without cutting out too much light and a little further into the garden is a Westringia fruticosum (native rosemary; apparently the largest form available, so it will be about 1.5 metres in all directions.)

It will also provide nectar for certain insects.

It has been cool and overcast today, not the 40 degrees Celsius Perth summer is known for. It's even rained a little just recently, not enough to make a real difference, but I guess it reduces evaporation for a couple of days, and that helps.
It is handy as it will help a couple of the newly planted shrubs settle in.