THE PERTH PLANT PALETTE
YOUR GARDEN’S CAPSULE WARDROBE OF TOUGH & BEAUTIFUL PLANTS
A$49 - 120-page guide
Perth garden centres (lovely as they are) will sell you hydrangeas, camellias and hostas with a smile. They're beautiful plants - I love them. I also hate them, because they always (always!!) die on me. These plants dislike almost everything about Perth, and keeping them alive is a frustrating uphill battle.
That’s not what gardening is supposed to be!
After more than a decade gardening in hot, sandy and dry Perth, I've found the plants that actually want to be here. The ones that are tough, genuinely beautiful, and combine endlessly in ways that make a garden feel like it was designed rather than cobbled together.
This is that list.
The Perth Plant Palette is a 120-page guide to 36 of my favourite Perth-proof plants, organised into a capsule wardrobe you can mix, layer and repeat throughout your garden.
What's inside:
36 detailed plant profiles across six categories: trees, larger perennials, annuals, climbers, edibles and bulbs. Each plant has a full entry covering why I love it, how to use it in your design, growing notes for Perth's conditions, and pairing suggestions so you know exactly what to plant beside it.
Six garden recipes: Shady Grotto, Edible Garden, Jungle/Tropical, Cottage Garden, Mediterranean/Dry Garden and Potted/Courtyard, each with a full plant list and step-by-step layering guide so you can apply a ready-made planting template to your own space.
Original photography throughout, a Perth-specific Pinterest board, and a design approach that treats your garden like a capsule wardrobe: a considered, curated collection of plants that work together beautifully, rather than a random assortment of things that looked good at the nursery but suddenly made no sense once you got them home.
This guide is for you if:
You're tired of plants dying on you and want a reliable starting point
You want your garden to look thoughtfully planted, rather than chaotic or accidental
You're starting from scratch and have no idea what to plant where
You've been gardening in Perth for years but you’re bored and want some new plant inspiration
What you won't find here: generic advice written for England, the US, or east-coast Australian gardens, plants that need coddling, or a list so long it's paralysing. This is deliberately edited - that's the whole point :)
A$49 — instant PDF download. Perth-specific. 120 pages.
After purchase you'll receive an automatic download link to your inbox. Check your junk folder if it doesn't arrive, and download the pdf within 24 hours.
Perth garden centres (lovely as they are) will sell you hydrangeas, camellias and hostas with a smile. They're beautiful plants - I love them. I also hate them, because they always (always!!) die on me. These plants dislike almost everything about Perth, and keeping them alive is a frustrating uphill battle.
That’s not what gardening is supposed to be.
After more than a decade gardening in hot, sandy and dry Perth, I've found the plants that actually want to be here. The ones that are tough, genuinely beautiful, and combine endlessly in ways that make a garden feel like it was designed rather than cobbled together.
This is that list.
The Perth Plant Palette is a 120-page guide to 36 of my favourite Perth-proof plants, organised into a capsule wardrobe you can mix, layer and repeat throughout your garden.
The Perth Plant Palette
a capsule wardrobe for your garden
What’s inside:
36 detailed plant profiles across six categories: trees, larger perennials, annuals, climbers, edibles and bulbs. Each plant has a full entry covering why I love it, how to use it in your design, growing notes for Perth's conditions, and pairing suggestions so you know exactly what to plant beside it.
Six garden recipes: Shady Grotto, Edible Garden, Jungle/Tropical, Cottage Garden, Mediterranean/Dry Garden and Potted/Courtyard, each with a full plant list and step-by-step layering guide so you can apply a ready-made planting template to your own space.
Original photography throughout, a Perth-specific Pinterest board, and a design approach that treats your garden like a capsule wardrobe: a considered, curated collection of plants that work together beautifully, rather than a random assortment of things that looked good at the nursery but suddenly made no sense once you got them home.
Book Reviews
This guide is for you if:
You're tired of plants dying on you and want a reliable starting point
You want your garden to look thoughtfully planted, rather than chaotic or accidental
You're starting from scratch and have no idea what to plant where
You've been gardening in Perth for years but you’re bored and want some new plant inspiration
What you won't find here:
Generic advice written for England, the US, or east-coast Australian gardens, plants that need coddling, or a list so long it's paralysing. This is deliberately edited - that's the whole point :)
Perth garden centres (lovely as they are) will sell you hydrangeas, camellias and hostas with a smile. They're beautiful plants - I love them. I also hate them, because they always (always!!) die on me. These plants dislike almost everything about Perth, and keeping them alive is a frustrating uphill battle.
That’s not what gardening is supposed to be!
After more than a decade gardening in hot, sandy and dry Perth, I've found the plants that actually want to be here. The ones that are tough, genuinely beautiful, and combine endlessly in ways that make a garden feel like it was designed rather than cobbled together.
This is that list.
The Perth Plant Palette is a 120-page guide to 36 of my favourite Perth-proof plants, organised into a capsule wardrobe you can mix, layer and repeat throughout your garden.
What's inside:
36 detailed plant profiles across six categories: trees, larger perennials, annuals, climbers, edibles and bulbs. Each plant has a full entry covering why I love it, how to use it in your design, growing notes for Perth's conditions, and pairing suggestions so you know exactly what to plant beside it.
Six garden recipes: Shady Grotto, Edible Garden, Jungle/Tropical, Cottage Garden, Mediterranean/Dry Garden and Potted/Courtyard, each with a full plant list and step-by-step layering guide so you can apply a ready-made planting template to your own space.
Original photography throughout, a Perth-specific Pinterest board, and a design approach that treats your garden like a capsule wardrobe: a considered, curated collection of plants that work together beautifully, rather than a random assortment of things that looked good at the nursery but suddenly made no sense once you got them home.
This guide is for you if:
You're tired of plants dying on you and want a reliable starting point
You want your garden to look thoughtfully planted, rather than chaotic or accidental
You're starting from scratch and have no idea what to plant where
You've been gardening in Perth for years but you’re bored and want some new plant inspiration
What you won't find here: generic advice written for England, the US, or east-coast Australian gardens, plants that need coddling, or a list so long it's paralysing. This is deliberately edited - that's the whole point :)
A$49 — instant PDF download. Perth-specific. 120 pages.
After purchase you'll receive an automatic download link to your inbox. Check your junk folder if it doesn't arrive, and download the pdf within 24 hours.
After purchase you'll receive an automatic download link to your inbox. Check your junk folder if it doesn't arrive, and make sure to download it within 24 hours.
About casey
I'm a Perth gardener, writer and cookbook author who has spent the last ten years turning a sandy, empty patch of dead grass into a flower-filled, bug-filled, slightly wild garden.
I've written a Sunday Times gardening column, published three cookbooks, and run sold-out garden workshops across Perth.
This plant palette is the result of ten years of experimenting in my own garden - finding plants that don’t mind my slightly-lazy-slightly-neglectful approach, and that reward me with flowers, fruit, interest and beauty.
I hope you love them as much as I do.
The Perth Plant Palette: a capsule wardrobe for your garden
A$49 — instant PDF download
Perth garden centres (lovely as they are) will sell you hydrangeas, camellias and hostas with a smile. They're beautiful plants - I love them. I also hate them, because they always (always!!) die on me. These plants dislike almost everything about Perth, and keeping them alive is a frustrating uphill battle.
That’s not what gardening is supposed to be!
After more than a decade gardening in hot, sandy and dry Perth, I've found the plants that actually want to be here. The ones that are tough, genuinely beautiful, and combine endlessly in ways that make a garden feel like it was designed rather than cobbled together.
This is that list.
The Perth Plant Palette is a 120-page guide to 36 of my favourite Perth-proof plants, organised into a capsule wardrobe you can mix, layer and repeat throughout your garden.
What's inside:
36 detailed plant profiles across six categories: trees, larger perennials, annuals, climbers, edibles and bulbs. Each plant has a full entry covering why I love it, how to use it in your design, growing notes for Perth's conditions, and pairing suggestions so you know exactly what to plant beside it.
Six garden recipes: Shady Grotto, Edible Garden, Jungle/Tropical, Cottage Garden, Mediterranean/Dry Garden and Potted/Courtyard, each with a full plant list and step-by-step layering guide so you can apply a ready-made planting template to your own space.
Original photography throughout, a Perth-specific Pinterest board, and a design approach that treats your garden like a capsule wardrobe: a considered, curated collection of plants that work together beautifully, rather than a random assortment of things that looked good at the nursery but suddenly made no sense once you got them home.
This guide is for you if:
You're tired of plants dying on you and want a reliable starting point
You want your garden to look thoughtfully planted, rather than chaotic or accidental
You're starting from scratch and have no idea what to plant where
You've been gardening in Perth for years but you’re bored and want some new plant inspiration
What you won't find here: generic advice written for England, the US, or east-coast Australian gardens, plants that need coddling, or a list so long it's paralysing. This is deliberately edited - that's the whole point :)
A$49 — instant PDF download. Perth-specific. 120 pages.
After purchase you'll receive an automatic download link to your inbox. Check your junk folder if it doesn't arrive, and download the pdf within 24 hours.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Yes, entirely. Every plant on the list has been chosen for Perth's climate - the sandy soil, the hot summers, the droughts. It's written from over a decade of gardening in Perth specifically, and so applies best here, although if you live in a Mediterranean climate (e.g., Spain, California, South Africa), you may find a lot of these plants work for you too.
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Absolutely! The guide is designed to take the guesswork out of choosing plants, which is exactly where beginners get stuck. I’ve also made sure it covers the plants that are most robust in my garden (they’re usually easy to source from local nurseries, they transplant easily, tolerate some neglect, and many can be propagated easily too). They’re the plants I would recommend first to anyone starting a garden. in Perth.
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Probably. Most Perth gardeners reach for the same reliable handful of plants. This guide introduces 36 varieties - some may be familiar, some you may not have tried - and shows you how to combine them in ways that make a garden look considered, rather than thrown together.
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After purchase you'll receive an automatic email with a download link. Click the link, save the PDF to your device, and it's yours to keep. Check your junk folder if the email doesn't arrive within a few minutes, and be sure to download the pdf within 24 hours.
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The guide is written for Perth's specific conditions but most of the plants will also do well across coastal WA with similar Mediterranean climate conditions - Margaret River, Busselton, Geraldton and surrounds. If you're in a significantly different climate zone (very high rainfall, frost-prone areas, extreme droughts) some plants may not be suitable.
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If you want to plan your garden from scratch, The Blank Slate Garden walks you through laying out beds, dealing with lawn and getting irrigation right. If your soil needs work first, From Sand to Soil is the place to start (it’s my guide to fixing Perth’s sandy, dry soil). And if you're ready to plan for colour across all four seasons, A Year in Blooms is your next step.
Perth garden centres (lovely as they are) will sell you hydrangeas, camellias and hostas with a smile. They're beautiful plants - I love them. I also hate them, because they always (always!!) die on me. These plants dislike almost everything about Perth, and keeping them alive is a frustrating uphill battle.
That’s not what gardening is supposed to be!
After more than a decade gardening in hot, sandy and dry Perth, I've found the plants that actually want to be here. The ones that are tough, genuinely beautiful, and combine endlessly in ways that make a garden feel like it was designed rather than cobbled together.
This is that list.
The Perth Plant Palette is a 120-page guide to 36 of my favourite Perth-proof plants, organised into a capsule wardrobe you can mix, layer and repeat throughout your garden.
What's inside:
36 detailed plant profiles across six categories: trees, larger perennials, annuals, climbers, edibles and bulbs. Each plant has a full entry covering why I love it, how to use it in your design, growing notes for Perth's conditions, and pairing suggestions so you know exactly what to plant beside it.
Six garden recipes: Shady Grotto, Edible Garden, Jungle/Tropical, Cottage Garden, Mediterranean/Dry Garden and Potted/Courtyard, each with a full plant list and step-by-step layering guide so you can apply a ready-made planting template to your own space.
Original photography throughout, a Perth-specific Pinterest board, and a design approach that treats your garden like a capsule wardrobe: a considered, curated collection of plants that work together beautifully, rather than a random assortment of things that looked good at the nursery but suddenly made no sense once you got them home.
This guide is for you if:
You're tired of plants dying on you and want a reliable starting point
You want your garden to look thoughtfully planted, rather than chaotic or accidental
You're starting from scratch and have no idea what to plant where
You've been gardening in Perth for years but you’re bored and want some new plant inspiration
What you won't find here: generic advice written for England, the US, or east-coast Australian gardens, plants that need coddling, or a list so long it's paralysing. This is deliberately edited - that's the whole point :)
A$49 — instant PDF download. Perth-specific. 120 pages.
After purchase you'll receive an automatic download link to your inbox. Check your junk folder if it doesn't arrive, and download the pdf within 24 hours.
RELATED PRODUCTS
1 - Got your plant list sorted but not sure how to actually start creating a layout for a totally empty garden? The Blank Slate Garden will show you how to get started when you’re staring down the barrel of a bare and barren block.
A practical guide to starting a Perth garden from nothing.
Starting a Perth garden from nothing is both exciting and completely paralysing. Where do the beds go? How do you get rid of the lawn? What goes in first?
This practical guide walks you through how to sketch your layout, decide where to place garden beds, trees and paths, deal with whatever lawn you're starting with, and get your irrigation right from the beginning.
If you have zero time to think, let alone garden, it also gives realistic guidance and options for a ‘bare minimum’ approach, so you can get your garden underway even with young kids/a hectic job/general life chaos.
There’s no complicated design theory, this is just a clear, step-by-step process for turning an empty block into a garden that grows with you.
Instant PDF download. Perth-specific.
Important note:
After your purchase, you will receive a secure link to download the ebook. The link is valid for 24 hours, so be sure to download it directly following your purchase. If you do not receive the download link, check your junk mail.
2 - Got a sandpit instead of a garden? Perth soil is notoriously difficult to garden in, and even the toughest plants featured in the Perth Plant Palette will do better in a garden with healthy soil. Find out how to fix Perth’s sandy, dry soil with my guide, From Sand to Soil.
If you've ever watched Gardening Australia and wondered what on earth you're doing wrong - why your plants grow spindly and pale, why water runs straight off your beds - the answer is almost always the same.
Soil. They just have good soil. And you just have bad soil.
Perth soil is sandy, hydrophobic and nutritionally poor. The products the garden industry sells you to fix it (liquid fertilisers, power feeds, soil wetters) are a bandaid. They don't fix anything.
This 30-page guide shows you what actually does work: clay, compost, animal manure and mulch, added in the right order. Written specifically for Perth's conditions, not the east coast or the UK.
Over 350 Perth gardeners have already used it to build healthier soil, stronger plants and more productive gardens.
What's included:
30-page PDF guide - instant download
12-minute video walkthrough of a real Perth garden bed being improved from scratch
You'll learn:
Why Perth soil behaves the way it does
What to add and in what order to build soil structure properly
How to maintain healthy soil through summer without constant intervention
Why wetting agents and liquid fertilisers don't move the needle (and what does)
After purchase you'll receive an automatic download link to your inbox. If it doesn't arrive, check your junk folder. Make sure to download your file within 24 hours.