It's gotta be edible or useful.

I work at a garden centre. It is easy work for me, too easy, I find it boring, but it is permanent part-time, which is handy while I am at uni.

However, I'm less and less interested in selling people anything that isn't edible or native. Why plant an Azalea in that acid soil when you could grow delicious healthful blueberries? Plenty of native plants can grow in semi-shade areas (after all, there was an overstorey of tall Eucalypts or Banksia in most areas to give shade and protection to the plants below. In fact it works both ways, the little plants act as mulch and provide a sanctuary for soil microbes for the larger species to develop).

Flowers do have a place in a garden of course, but it's best if they are insect attracting ones, to encourage pollinators into your garden to help with fruit fertilisation. Beneficial insects rely on pollen to give them the energy to come and lay their eggs in your garden so their young can destroy the bad guys who damage leaves, buds and flowers.

There are plenty of ornamental looking edible species that can be integrated into gardens, so at least there is some edible yield coming out of it. Rainbow chard, lettuces of all kinds and colours, parsley and all the herbs are pretty. Peas can be grown in spots where deciduous vines are bare over winter.

Many fruit trees are also quite handsome too. Many dwarf varieties are available these days so even small gardens can have an orchard of sorts, even in tubs. Citrus are excellent for very sunny spots. Stonefruit love the climate here in Perth. There are effective controls for Mediterranean fruit fly and citrus leaf miner which are both prevalent; regular and dedicated resetting of traps and sprays are necessary for organic control.

Everybody needs to learn how to grow food so get out there and grow something to eat.

Blood oranges are delicious...

About a month ago.

Our little blood orange in a pot has been good to us, in return for us spoiling it rotten all summer, and now has 10 ripe fruit (nine, we just ate one).

Mmm, tasty.

Water-repellency in Perth sands.

Here we are still hanging out for rain in Perth. It's on a promise .. "chance of a cloud" all week they reckon at the Bureau of Meteorology.
Even when it does rain, because surely it has to eventually, it will take some time before there is enough to soak into the ground and if we are really lucky some might even make its way to the dams or aquifers that are all parched too.

When the rain does come it also needs to be able to soak into the ground through our water resistant sands. I suspect there will be more problems with water-repellency this winter than previously. More soil has been allowed to dry out and have no vegetation on the surface so the organic bacterial and fungal compounds that are suspected of causing the problem have taken a stronger hold. Add to this the number of ants that are drying people's gardens out this desert year... we really need the rain!

Want an easy garden? Plant a tree.

If you want a garden that is easy to look after, just plant one carefully chosen tree. You could let the leaves fall and rot into the ground - no sweeping or feeding necessary.
It would provide shade and cooling effects - with sunshine from the north in winter if you plant a deciduous tree.

Macadamia nuts (Aus Mac site).

Citrus trees are good, not really prone to fruit-fly, too much. Or a nut tree - macadamia or almond - so you can accidentally feed some black cockatoo in a few years time.

There are a number of small Eucalypts and Hakeas that can fit in well in a garden. A few grasses and small shrubs can make a good little garden to provide habitat for local small birds.
Eucalyptus caesia is not a big tree, Euc forrestiana is another good one. Hakea bucculenta and Hakea laurina are also beautiful small flowering trees. Australian flowering trees are an important part of birds needs so a garden gets lots of visitors when they are flowering. The birds also provide pest control for any fruit and veg that are growing nearby.

Passionfruit's new home and lemon grass garden edge.

Our passionfruit is looking marvellous at the moment, one of the happiest things in the garden (we do spoilt it a bit). The other night my feller went across the road and reclaimed an old metal ladder from a skip bin. It is now holding up our lovely passionfruit vine, which we now notice has quite a few fruit forming. Tidying and rearranging that is also making way for a large pot of lemongrass to become an extension of the row of lemongrass in the ground, that will make a new layer of garden in front of the biochar garden patch. Slowly the edible garden extends north.

After one bit of rain the other day and temperatures finally falling below 30 C (just under halfway through autumn) Perth gardeners are starting to think it's okay to plant food plants again. Poor old Perthites, we miss the rain. It can be such a long time between visits.