Weather and Garden Design

What is weather?

The short-term variation in atmospheric conditions including humidity, rain, fog, visibility, cloud cover, UV, temperature, wind, flooding, hail, cold fronts, warm fronts, and snow. Weather events usually occur due to differing air pressure, temperature, and moisture levels.

What is Weather Vs Climate?

Weather is the short term events (daily weather) whereas, climate is the longer term trends of an area.

Session objectives

Predicting Weather

Weather systems are incredibly difficult to predict. As technology improves will we ever have forecasts that are correct 100 percent of the time? And how doe...

Learn about the various layer to the atmosphere, the hydrologic cycle, the earth's energy balance, and much more. --------------------------------- National ...

 

Learn about air pressure, what happens with high and low pressure systems, the various types of fronts and what kind of weather they bring, and airmasses. --...

Air Pressure

Changes in air pressure determine weather events. Temperature of surfaces determine the air pressure above them. The air pressure then tries to equalise creating winds.

Sun - Temperature

Depending on where you are in the world heat might be the most limiting factor of what plants can be grown in your area. It might also be lack of heat or a combination of the two. Where I live in Victoria, we have days over 40 degrees Celsius and days below 0 degrees Celsius which determines the palette of plants that we can choose from.

When temperatures are high plants become stressed and can potentially die. It is also less desirable for people to be outside enjoying a garden when temperatures are excessively high.

UV

UV radiation is a serious problem for about 2/3 of the year in Australia. Once the UV index is over 2 it is recommended that you protect your self from the sun. The following chart is representative of the average annual UV index in Melbourne.

 
UV.JPG
 

When the UV index is high it means that gardens are less likely to be enjoyed without cover and relief from the sun.

Wind

Wind is motion of air. Differences in temperature and air pressure determine wind. It moves from high pressure areas to lower pressure areas.

  • How does it change throughout the year?

  • What direction?

  • How fast?

  • What are the worst winds for your area?

Wind coupled with heat can lead to plant stress. Wind by itself can lead to broken limbs.

We all know that warm air rises, but how does this scientific fact influence our weather and create those flows of air molecules that we know of as wind? In ...

 

Rain

  • When is the rain?

  • Is it drizzling often or are there high rainfall events infrequently?

Rainfall can determine what palette of plants you can work with in your garden. You also have the option of irrigating your plantings if they are outside their comfortable range for all or parts of the year.

Clouds

Often high pressure pushes air around and stops the formation of clouds, meaning blue skies

Frost