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| Callirhoe involucrata |
Native plants are great for gardens, but knowing which native plants best suit the conditions of your garden can be a make-or-break proposition during a drought. While such natives as
Caulophyllum thalictroides, which prefers moist conditions, flag in the heat and dryness, other natives, such as wine cups,
Callirhoe involucrata, just shrug them off. The close-up photo above gives no hint as to the terrible state of things here at Squirrelhaven now.
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| Note the vague resemblance to green of the lawn in the background. |
This photo tells a more poignant story.
Even tougher than the
Callirhoe, which is growing in partial shade, is
Ruellia humilis.
These plants are growing in full sun at the edge of an asphalt driveway. Granted, the day's blooms have all faded by midafternoon in 90+ degree heat, but every morning, a new, fresh crop greets me as I get the paper from the driveway. Neither of these plants has received supplemental water, which means I can use the water for other, more drought-sensitive plants.
Nearly everything else looks terrible, but at least these two plants still offer up blooms for me to stave off the despair that threatens to engulf a gardener of a garden in drought.
This post is part of Gail's
Wildflower Wednesday.
8 comments:
I have had wild petunias for a number of years, and the ones I've been moving into the front yard the last few weeks are doing well. I am watering those, though, at least until they get established. I am enjoying the wine cups I planted last spring. Nice photos of yours!
These are two beautiful plants Barb. I will have to look for these. I have the perfect spot for them. Of course I will wait until next year. Hopefully the drought will have receded by then. Great photos.
You've got to love these tough natives!
Yours is the second mention of ruella - am definitely going to have a look for it - or perhaps some seed. We're headed into week 2 of heat and no rain, the more of these treasures I can find the better.
Barbara
The heat is a bear, isn't it? It's so hard to watch the plants struggle and know that sometimes even water won't help - they're just baking out there. We had 109 Monday and I'm watching my agastache die 1 limb at a time. Hope you get some relief soon.
Fabulous colour in that first photo. wow!
I garden in a semi arid area so I know what drought is all about. When my daylily leaves start to look like that I cut them back to about 6 inches. Overall the garden looks better that way.
Thank you for highlighting drought-tolerant perennials!
We haven't had any meaningful rain over a month here in TN, with temps hovering in the 100-109 (!) range over the past 10 days or so.
Drought-tolerance may be the #1 quality I look for when adding plants to the garden next year.
As for this year, I've found that Hardy Blue Plumbago and Sweet Woodruff are two of my top performers (the latter in partial shade, the former in both shade and sun).
I have other plants that are barely hanging in there, but those two are taking the heat and drought in stride.
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