Summer in Western Australia

By Marilyn N. Dudek, Master Gardener

 

Western Australia is the real Australia! I think this claim might be due to the books I have read or the travel promotion influences, but the largest state in Australia is impressive with its towering Karri forests, calm aqua-blue flat beaches stretching endlessly, vast open spaces, rolling hillsides, diverse and protected botanical specimens, and unique cities and towns. Western Australia features almost half of Australia’s 25,000 plant species and two-thirds of these do not occur naturally anywhere else on earth.

From winter in Manitoba to summer in Western Australia! Yes, seasons are opposite to ours, and I experienced their very hot summer and the falling leaves of autumn’s arrival on my stay with daughter Debra this year from January to mid-March. We stayed with her in the city of Fremantle (or the abbreviated “Freo” in keeping with the many Australian words that are shortened in this manner), which is part of the metropolitan area of Perth.

Over the past twenty years, I have visited Australia four times travelling from Airlie Beach (Great Barrier Reef area), south to Canberra (the capital city of Australia), and Adelaide (Barossa Valley wine area), with long-term stays in Melbourne, Woonona, and Austinmer, the last two suburbs approximately 1 ½ hours south of Sydney. Western Australia (WA) was familiar from a previous one-week stay, but with two months on this visit, I learned to appreciate this western state much more.

Fremantle is a well-preserved port city with beautiful Victorian architecture of the Gold Rush era. It is the principal port of WA and of Perth. The unique architecture of the area makes Freo a wonderful destination to live or for holidayers to escape. It is filled with history, art, culture, markets, and cafés.  Coffee culture is paramount in Australia, and Freo is no different with a variety of places to enjoy the various coffee combinations. Over my visits, I have become totally addicted to their iced coffees with one café in Freo being the winner!

With the ideal seasonal weather, gardens flourish. The often heritage-preserved workers’ cottages offer perfect conditions for beautiful gardens and public garden-themed art influences and eclectic neighbourhood pocket parks offer relaxation and fun for all ages. Freo is a very walkable city, and I peeked into many yards, enjoyed the plantings in public spaces, and chatted with the residents. Our everyday early morning walks to South Beach for a swim took us by some of the quirky streets of the area. Front yards were filled with ‘collectibles’ made into art pieces, the sidewalk was painted with native plants, and the boulevards (verges as they are called in Australia) were used as blank canvasses for whatever the residents wanted to plant or display. At the top of one of the streets was a shady neighbourhood park with beautiful brickwork arches, a mural with the native to WA black cockatoos, a natural children’s playground, shady areas where one could sit and chat and play board games, and a vegetable garden where all were welcomed to partake.

Debra loves to garden, and we toured many garden centres that surprisingly offered many of the same annuals we plant in summer but also large selections of native plants. One garden centre was totally dedicated to succulents. I was in my element! Debra has a varied garden but strives to include many of the natives in her garden, and it was a learning curve for me to learn their botanical names. I was familiar with the popular Banksia, Grevillea, Anigozanthos rufus (kangaroo paw), Protea (although I learned this plant is not native to Australia but to South Africa), and Chamelaucium uncinatum (wax flower). But then there were so many new native plant names to learn. One of my favourites that Debra has planted in containers, and that acts as a fence, is a Syzygium called Lilly Pilly. It belongs to the myrtle (Myrtaceae) family. Her plants bloomed continually on my stay, and at the same time produced beautiful small red fruits—the ideal plant: flowering and having fruit at the same time. The red fruits are bush food, better known as a ’bush tucker’ to Australians.

On previous visits, I learned quickly how self-sustainable Australia is with fresh local food availability.  From potatoes to passion fruit, all fresh food is locally grown throughout the various seasons that occur in this vast country’s climatic zones from the tropics of the north to the temperate zones in the south. Restaurants in WA incorporate seasonal local foods frequently, and one example I learned about was Coogee Commons, a restaurant south of Fremantle with a 1 ½ hectare kitchen garden. Never far from thoughts of gardening, I began watching ‘Gardening Australia’, on Australia’s national television station.  It was a wonderful way to learn about the plants of Australia but also of local groups, gardeners, and businesses like Coogee Commons.

The absolutely perfect place to learn about the native plants of WA is in the Western Australia Botanic Garden at King’s Park in Perth where plant science and conservation are featured. Around 3,000 WA plant species are displayed. This botanic garden, covering 400 hectares, features only native plants of this state, offering an unsurpassed educational experience in its vastness. There are unique areas dedicated to the various plant families that explain how the plants survive, their required growing habitats, and how the specimens are used by Indigenous peoples. One meanders through specific areas dedicated to Banksia, Eucalyptus, Grevillea, and to plants bred at the gardens including Anigozanthos ‘Cocktail’, the blue kangaroo paw. There are also valleys, wooded areas with bridges crossing ravines, with one almost at treetop level, and sections that traverse the hilltops overlooking Perth and the Swan River. The Boab (Adansonia gregorii) tree in this area is a prized specimen at approximately 750 years old. Boabs are believed to grow up to 2000 years. Endemic to only the Kimberley area of Australia, this tree is a rare specimen to showcase. It was transplanted to the garden in 2008 because it required moving due to the construction of a road bridge on the Great Northern Highway. Many botanical gardens feature plants from the world, but the enlightening enjoyment of this garden is that it features all native plants of Western Australia and is an excellent resource for Australians to learn what grows successfully in the area and what habitats the plants require.

Local birds kept us busy trying to identify them. Our prized discovery was a family of tawny frogmouths, featured in the documentary Planet Earth III. We were in awe of these unusual nocturnal birds. They blend in perfectly with their plumage matching the bark of the tea tree they were perched in and have adapted very well to urban living.

What stole my heart on this trip, besides seeing my grand dog, Merlin, for the first time, were the majestic towering trees of WA, especially the eucalypts which belong to the Myrtaceae family! There are over 800 species of eucalypts in three genera, Angophora, Corymbia and Eucalyptus. The majority of eucalypts are evergreen and readily adaptable to Western Australia’s drought conditions, nutrient-poor soils, and fire, regenerating very quickly by displaying epicormic green leaves on their trunks after being stressed. The vibrant-coloured flowers, different for each variety, ripen into a woody unique fruit called a ‘gum nut’.  The gum nuts are different for each genus with some growing to 10 cm. The lovely aroma of ‘eucs’ is both invigorating and healing.

On a four-day trip south to Margaret River, my forest appreciation for WA grew because we experienced beautiful large tracts of eucalypt forests still present due to the foresight that previous generations had to save these giants. Karri, Eucalyptus diversicolor, are Australia’s largest trees growing to 90 metres and are the third tallest tree in the world. Shedding their bark annually, the tree’s white trunk exposes rainbow colours of pink, yellow, and orange. A late afternoon drive and stop in the large Boranup forest in the area shows these amazing giants and the beautiful understory that grows amongst them, including intriguing wildflowers and orchids. The holiday residence where we stayed backed onto a Karri forest and walk—impressive with the colourful tree bark and its peelings covering the forest floor. The meandering stream attracted Australian birds, including green Australian ringnecks, pink Galahs, and flocks of Kookaburras whose loud laughing calls filled the evening air, as did the aerosols of the eucalypts. Forest bathing at its finest! Margaret River area vineyards are plentiful and were definitely enjoyed on my visit. The region is not only known for its diversity of wines, large vineyards, and fine restaurants but also for the beautiful gardens at many of the wineries. Some places we visited were Fishbone with native plantings and trimmed grass trees (Xanthorrhoea) and Voyager with the kitchen garden supplying the restaurant with seasonal bounty. The walled sunken garden also features a lovely rose garden.

As much as I enjoyed touring the Freo and Perth areas and south to Margaret River, my solace was coming back ‘home’ to Debra’s garden. Everyday began with breakfast in the garden, and after the early beach swim returning to tweak the plants, planting and enjoying the newly purchased ones, watering daily once or twice when the temperatures were in the low 40s Celsius, pretending to be a pollinator in hopes that the passion fruit vine would produce its delicious fruit, and watching how quickly plants grew in this climate—all the while remembering this season is ‘winter’ for us but summer here in this beautiful and unique country of Australia which offers so much diversity and learning about how the peoples have embraced native plant life.

Some interesting links referenced in the article:

https://www.google.com/search?q=coogee+commons+gardening+australia+youtube&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA1007CA1011&oq=Coogee+Commons+gardening+australia&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgCECEYoAEyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigAdIBCTE4NzQwajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:179b9262,vid:8n_qDkBWnGY,st:0

https://www.bgpa.wa.gov.au/plants-bred-kings-park

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3kcwHDPKRnSQNN1Kv0bb35L/the-intriguing-world-of-tawny-frogmouths