An Article Relevant for the Coffs Coast Gardening - Humidity and Heat!

Kate Wall has written on a subject that is exceedingly relevant for us here on the Coffs Coast. 

She writes: 'So many gardeners who live in the subtropics tell me they must have brown thumbs because they keep killing lavender. My plea to ‘subtropicallians’ is this – your ability to grow lavender has nothing to do with the colour of your thumbs and everything to do with your climate!

Modern western gardening has its roots in a cool temperate European climate, extending through to warm temperate and Mediterranean climates. This has taught us much about temperature tolerance of plants, with the impact of frosts and the severity of frosts still being the one of the most used climate factors when assessing what to grow where. For gardeners in those climates this remains very useful information. For those of us in the subtropical regions, it is almost useless. For us, temperatures matter mainly in that we have (almost) no frosts at all so there is no cold spell that many temperate plants need. And yet so many plants which are tolerant of high temperatures do not necessarily grow in the subtropics. Why? – Humidity! 

To continue reading this article please click here for full article from Kate Wall