Many of Perth’s streets are lined by “inappropriate” trees.
Just which ones really are inappropriate – and why – are matters of much-divided opinion.
Regardless of whatever is one’s opinion of how “right” or “wrong” is any particular “introduced” tree, it strikes me as wilfully blind and/or plainly stupid to deny the beauty of “Autumn” leaves.
(and it is worth remembering that – when imposed upon Australia’s southwestern metropolis – a “true blue Australian” rainforest species and a deciduous “exotic” from another hemisphere may prove equally “invasive”/“inappropriate”/ “ill-suited”/ “high maintenance”)
Not every Perth calendar year includes a “real” Autumn; often, a too-long, too-hot, too-dry summer suddenly yields to a cool, wet winter.
Other years offer more than one “Indian Summer”, or a “donut” winter, a too-warm winter, a too-dry winter, or an unusually short or an unusually long period of “proper” winter weather.
In any event, in almost any year, a Perth winter is much sunnier and warmer than are the winters in the European, Asian and North American places whence came most of the deciduous “exotics” that grow in Australia’s non-tropical streets.
Understandably, these trees often struggle to decide when to drop their leaves, and when to leaf up again.
This is particularly evident in Perth
Here, “Autumn Leaves” are usually more of a “Winter” event.
Perth’s deciduous exotics sometimes look “Autumnal” in Spring, and/or they may undergo more than just one cycle of leaf-dropping and leafing-up within a single year.
The photo was taken in a West Leederville street at 4.33 pm on 12 June 2022.
Personal opinion: in Perth we should be planting more tree species that naturally occur here, and/or trees which provide good food and shelter to WA-endemic birds, most particularly to our magnificent, now-vulnerable, black cockatoos.
Click here for a more detailed, considered proposal, which is Perth-specific, but relevant to all Australian cities.
Click this for practical advice for how to make your own garden more helpful to cockatoos.