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In My Garden Blog

November 8, 2007
New England
By Kathy Bond Borie,
Richmond, Vermont

Agastache 'Blue Fortune' is a magnet for pollinators, including this black swallowtail.

Plants for Dry Times

When it rains, it pours, but when it stops ... we waste a lot of time watering our gardens. I call it a waste of time because I'd rather be doing just about anything other than standing with a hose or lugging a watering can. Even with automatic watering systems, there's still the issue of whether we should be providing a lot of supplemental water, with droughts becoming more prevalent around the country. I read recently that the month of August was the second driest in the Boston area in the past 100 years.

We all have tropical annuals in our gardens that are extravagant water guzzlers (impatiens come to mind), but do we need them? If we can't live without them, do we need to blanket the ground with them or would a few choice plants in a prime spot create enough of an impact?

When I lived in Colorado I fell in love with the grey-green foliage and masses of tiny flowers common to many dry-climate plants, and even though I now garden in the traditionally moist Northeast, I'm still drawn to them. I mix gravel into my clay soil so I can grow lavender and agastache, and try to keep the mulch away from the crowns so they don't rot in winter. But if dry times lie ahead, these plants may be the stalwarts of the garden.

Xeriscaping is the official term for water-wise gardening (coined in Colorado in the early 1980s), and using this water-conscious lens involves taking a second look at native plants that have proven their adaptability to periods of drought, as well as plants that are native to other regions of the country where rainfall is less abundant. There's lots of information from Denver Water, Colorado State University, and other Western organizations about planning and planting with xeriscaping principles in mind. But for New Englanders it's not as simple as taking plants that thrive in the arid West and plopping them into our gardens. Not all of them will be able to tolerate the moist conditions that alternate with the dry times here in the East. There are many plants generally adaptable to both situations, and you likely grow many of them already.

Trees and Shrubs
Junipers are well known for their drought tolerance, but there are many more interesting low-water-use plants available, including beauty bush (Kolkwitzia amabilis), blue mist shrub (Caryopteris spp.), chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), cotoneaster, flowering quince, lilac, ninebark (Physocarpus spp.), potentilla, rugosa rose, Siberian pea shrub, and staghorn sumac.

Perennials
I love all the agastaches, with their licorice-scented foliage and tall, hummingbird-magnet flower spikes, but I've killed a few by planting them in a low spot where it stayed too moist. Some varieties -- 'Blue Fortune' and 'Desert Sunrise', in particular -- are tolerant of occasionally moist soils.

Other adaptable flower choices are bergenia; brunnera; columbine; coreopsis; dianthus; echinacea; echinops; gaillardia; gaura; gazania; bearded, German, and flag iris; penstemon; rudbeckia; Russian sage; salvia; veronica; and yarrow.

Many drought-tolerant perennials have grey-green foliage that complements many colors of flowers and even holds its own without flowers. A friend planted short dianthus (don't know the species) as a ground cover, and it's eye-popping. Other drought-tolerant choices: artemisia, catmint (Nepeta spp.), coralbells (Heuchera spp.) hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum spp.), lamb's ears (Stachys spp.), lavender, snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum), and thyme, especially woolly thyme.

Ornamental grasses blend beautifully with many of the billowy and bushy drought-tolerant perennials. Choice options are 'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass (Calamagrostis acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'), blue fescue (Festuca glauca), blue oat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens), and maiden hair grass (Miscanthus sinensis).

Annuals
If you've grown cosmos you know they rarely need water. The same goes for globe amaranth (Gomphrena globosa), lavatera, nasturtium, portulaca, and Zinnia angustifolia.

Group the Guzzlers
As for favorites that are less water thrifty, such as astilbe, filipendula, cardinal flower, and tropical annuals, plant them in a low spot or against a north- or east-facing wall or on a north- or east-facing slope. At the very least, group them together in the same area of the garden. Then if you do have to water them, you won't waste time and water on those that don't need it.

GREAT article. I will keep this one.

As gardners we need to stress this conservation of water far more. 
There is nothing I hate more that irrigation water running down the
street.  Plantings that are native or will tolerant an area's
climate need far more stress by landscapers and nurseries.  Exotics
are wonderful but need to be accent and not bedding plants.

I really got a lot out of this article. I will coy it and keep in my
plant files.  Thanks

A great plant for dry shade -- one of the most challenging dry
gardening sites -- is hepatica.  There are all sorts of lovely
cultivars with different early season flowers, then the foliage
holds beautifully as a weed suppressing groundcover even through the
driest of summers.  Seems to be deer resistant (at least where I
garden).

I've been transforming a formerly bark and bush (with chemically
treated lawn)set of mini gardens (I'm land poor but love to garden)
into low water perennial gardens over the past several years. I was
surprised that Kathy did not mention the wide variety of plants in
the sedum family. I've at least 6 varieties - different heights,
blooms, color, foliage, etc. - in addition to many of the other
plants she mentioned. I use them as natural mulch around trees and
to replace sections of what was chemically treated grass. I use them
to prevent erosion on a narrow strip of sloped, sandy soil along a
hot street. The common creeping sedum gracefully sculps over large
rocks adding architectual interest. The dried flower heads of my
late summer and autumn blooms provide some interest to my winter
garden as they rise above the snow cover. If they invade an area
where they should not be, I pull them out without guilt.

Excellent post. Thank you.

Thanks to all of you for your comments. I'm glad this article has
been helpful. And my hope was that it would generate suggestions for
other suitable plants for dry conditions because the list could go
on and on. So thank you Ladygardener and Sherri for mentioning
hepatica and sedums. I have several different sedums and they are
almost indestructible. I grow hens and chicks and another
low-growing variety in hypertufa troughs, which spend the winter in
my garden shed without any special insulation from the cold or any
attention until spring.  

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