Season by season
Six 'seasons' rather
than the traditional four are used here to provide a planting and
garden
maintenance guide.
The suggested planting
times are those used in our eastern suburbs property and based on the
guides produced some years ago by Graeme George for Permaculture
Victoria's newsletter. Graeme is
a permaculture practitioner and teacher based in Healesville.
Even within the one
city there is significant climate variation depending on things like
topography and
tree cover. Backyards within any given suburb will
have their own climates too, according to their
aspect, sun, shade,
surrounding greenery and hard surfaces etc. As well as this, each
individual
garden will have its own range of microclimates – a
hotter area beside a heat trapping brick wall, a
cooler spot to the south of the house, a dry patch near a large tree.
And every year is
different from the one before and the one that will follow: we have
hot, dry summers
as well as milder, wetter ones; we may have a long,
warm autumn one year while in the next year
summer seems to vanish
into winter with hardly a glimpse of autumn gentleness. Wonderful
spring
rains can fill water tanks to overflowing one year while in
the next year we head into summer with no
water to spare.
So these seasonal
guides are only guides. We each need to experiment on our own bit of
land (or
balcony, or courtyard) and learn what works best there.
We will have failures,
and often these will be a consequence of' 'unseasonable' weather.
These are for
learning from, not to make us give up in disillusionment!
Find seasonal information here:
