Into Each Garden,
a Little Drought Must Fall
Underused Drought Tolerant Perennials
Monday March 2, 2009
Annoying, but true. Even if you aren't in a drought state of emergency. No matter how much rain gets dumped on your garden in the spring, you can bet that sooner or later you’re going to hit a dry spell. As gardeners, we might as well work that fact into our garden designs and choose some plants that can handle both extremes. That's the idea behind xeriscaping or waterwise gardening. We're not talking about a cactus garden here. Xeriscaping is a method of gardening that involves choosing plants that are appropriate to their site and creating a landscape that can be maintained with little supplemental watering. The real beauty of xeriscaping is that by choosing and maintaining your plants wisely, they’ll survive both drought and mud. Here are some ideas for incorporating xeriscaping into what ever garden design you have in mind.
There are many plants that aren’t often listed as drought tolerant, but once established, they can withstand the heat better than many gardeners. Here’s my Top 10 plants for dry spells. Let me know yours.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti.
Comments
I’m a fan of centranthus ruber, commonly known as jupiter’s beard. It blooms like crazy in late spring-early summer and will then bloom in lesser quantity throughout the rest of the summer. Once established it can get by on no supplimentary water, even in dry climates, but it keeps blooming better, over a longer period if watered a few time throughout the summer. It is also heat tolerant. It self sows enthusiastically and can become weedy so deadheading especially after the main bloom period is usually a good idea.
frankincense, Boswellia serrata, where can I get a tree to grow ?