What to Plant in Perth - Month by Month

January is not a planting month in Perth. It's a keeping-alive month: deep soaks on new plantings, wetting agents on water-repellent sand, mulch topped up to keep roots cool. The one exception is emergency screening with advanced stock and drip irrigation. Otherwise plan, don't plant, the rains that do your establishment for you arrive in autumn.

February is Perth's hottest month. Established natives shrug it off; anything planted now fights for its life. Use the month to design: walk the block at 5pm, note where shade is missing and sight lines are open, and build the plan in the garden pricer. When the first fronts arrive, you'll be planting while the queue is still forming.

March turns the season the moment the first fronts land. Soil is warm and finally moist: natives, westringia and coastal species go in first, followed by hedging as the rain settles in. Everything planted between now and August gets a free establishment from the sky. Start with the boundary, priced in the calculator.

April is the best planting month in the west. Warm soil, reliable rain beginning, months of mild weather ahead. Hedges, screens, fruit trees, natives, feature trees, everything establishes with minimal help. Bigger sizes are the smart play here: 45L hedging planted in April looks established by Christmas and survives its first summer easily.

May is peak planting with the rains in full swing. Citrus and fruit trees, olive trees, viburnum and lilly pilly screens, waterwise natives, all go in now. On Perth sand, always plant with soil improver and a wetting agent, the difference next February is survival. The waterwise garden look is built for this city.

June is cool, wet and ideal. Bare-root roses and deciduous fruit arrive now at the year's best prices. Evergreen planting continues without pause, there's no frost near the coast to stop it. Every week of winter a plant is in the ground is a week of root growth banked against summer.

July is Perth's wettest month and every drop is doing establishment work for you. Keep planting: hedges, screens, natives, trees. This is also the month to fix drainage where winter puddles reveal it, on sand that usually means enriching soil so it holds water rather than shedding it. Bare-root season continues.

August is the final month of guaranteed rain, which makes it the deadline for carefree planting. Anything in by the end of August gets spring to harden before the dry. It's an excellent month for hedging and for an instant garden pack, one delivery while the weather is still doing the watering.

September plants well but the clock is now audible: what goes in must establish before November heat. Favour natives, westringia, olives and proven waterwise performers; be honest about irrigation for anything thirstier. Kangaroo paws and spring natives planted now flower immediately, an instant reward month.

October closes Perth's planting season for anything without irrigation. Early in the month is fine for tough species with a deep watering routine behind them. From here the job flips to establishment care: deep soaks over sprinkles, mulch checks, wetting agent on repellent patches. Late projects should go on the pricer for an autumn start.

November heat arrives fast. Planting now means committing to hand-watering through summer, only worth it for urgent screening in advanced sizes on a dripper. Otherwise: shade sails over young beds, mulch deep, and let the established garden carry the show while you plan autumn's work.

December is for the beach and the watering can, in that order. Nothing plants happily into a Perth summer without infrastructure. Keep new season plantings alive with deep twice-weekly soaks, harvest the first stone fruit, and browse the garden ideas with an autumn shopping list in hand.