It’s so dry right now in my little part of Rain Shadow, Virginia that even the blades of Japanese stilt grass are curling. When, last night, my husband decided, mid-sip, that we needed to stay off the aging deck or risk falling through it, all I could think was, “Oh good. That means I can stop watering the containers and let them die.”
We’re D2ing it in my part of the world. And that was seven days ago. Map from Just In Weather – a terrific weather site for MD/VA/PA area.
No rain means no water collection from the nine water barrels around the barn that provide ‘supplemental irrigation’ (me schlepping a watering can) to what is the majority of my garden. Sadly we don’t have pumped water in the one place where pumped water would be a damned good thing to have.
I’d dig an agricultural well, but I don’t have a spare $10K knocking around, or failing that, a long enough shovel. And I’m hesitant to water containers near the house at this point as my neighbor’s artesian well just dried up. Hence my bizarre enthusiasm for a condemned deck.
My garden can deal with high temps, but high temps and no rain for weeks is brutal.
Meanwhile, there are so many weeds growing on sandbars in the creek bed and so little actual water, that the ducks, minnows, tadpoles, crayfish and two pissed off water snakes are all sharing a tiny pool under the bridge all day long. They’re the fastest and smartest tadpoles east of the Mississippi.
It is – as they say – what it is. And I lay out what it is here not to gain sympathy, elicit cries of “It’s only getting worse!” or incur righteous wrath over my plant choices – as many of them are drought tolerant. But ‘drought tolerant’ rarely means ‘gorgeous under stress’ unless you are a Joshua tree bathed in full summer sunlight – something my stream valley is also unable to offer.
Then why am I whining about the dry conditions? Besides the fact that this is GardenRant and I’m trying to stay on brand, there’s an interesting thing that happened to my attitude once I decided that lush beauty was out the window and detached observation was the only thing left to me.
It is tough to see this viburnum look like this in September….
When it’s supposed to look like this.
This is an opportunity to see which plants (and which plants with smart planting techniques) can roll with the punches. It’s certainly not the driest it’s ever been – it’s just the driest I’ve seen it – and the September temperature records we keep breaking by a degree or by a single minute date all the way back to 1881 and 1898.
Here’s what I’m observing with some of my plants, transcribed from voice notes from a mid-day death march around my Zone 6b, Northern Virginia garden. It’s amusing how long, involved and articulate the notes are as I start, and how I can hardly get words out by the end. I’m lucky I made it back in the house alive. It’s currently 96F/35C at 4.30 on Wednesday afternoon. I can’t imagine how hot it is at the top of the lane in asphalt-ville.
And yes, I know you Texans are rolling your eyes, but feel free to tell me just how far back in your head they’re rolling in the comments below.
My long hügelkultur bed has proved its worth on another level, keeping many of my tropical plants like Curcuma and Ensete in decent shape without supplemental water. The difference has been especially obvious because I have tropicals planted in other amended but relatively flat beds that look terrible because I’m not watering them. The hügelkultur I put in seven years ago was meant to use biomass, direct groundwater, and provide deep root runs for my plants. It’s cool to see it acting as a slow-release sponge, though I assume, all sponges dry up at some point. [Long pause] Man it’s hot out here.
It’s hard to believe that I haven’t watered either of these since they were planted in June, but it’s true. The paler color in the leaves of the Ensete is telling me how stressed they are.
Several MockTrops [my term for tropical-looking non-tropicals in my book Tropical Plants and How to Love Them], are taking the heat and drought on the chin and looking great. Tetrapanax papyrifera [rice paper plant] is top of the list, as well as Ficus carica [edible fig] and Ficus johannis Afghanistanica ‘Silver Lyre’ [Afghan fig]. At least I think that’s what the last one is as I got it in a plant swap.
This Curcuma is showing stress with curled leaves – the Tetrapanax looks like it was born for this.
This is a fun little ficus that took me by surprise as it’s in almost full shade. Possibly ‘Silver Lyre’
I am more in love with Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ than I have ever been. Seriously lightening the mood around here. ‘Silver Lining’ pyracantha also stunning.
I admire the resiliency of Hydrangea paniculata species, which dejectedly hang their leaves every day, all day, but recover their posture at night. And they haven’t sacrificed the flowers yet. H. quercifolia are even better, having bloomed earlier, dried those blooms in situ, and are starting to add color to foliage with the dry conditions. Wouldn’t give either up. H. macrophylla? Between winter, drought, and deer, the heartbreak is just too heartbreaking.
It doesn’t look great, but points for hanging on. ‘Baby Lace’ H. paniculata
Verbena bonariensis is possibly my favorite self-reliant self-seeder that looks like a chic designer showed up here at some point. Looks like it’s been waiting all year for this weather, but it also looks like that when we get normal rainfall too. I need to throw a lot more of those seeds in a month or so.
I love the way it looks in scrubby spots, but I can never get a decent photo of it.
Aralia cordata ‘Sun King’ is a bright, happy spark – puts the dried up hostas under it to shame.
And yes, I know I could preen that hosta, but I’ve lost the will to live. This post is about what can cope without preening.
Geranium macrorrhizum may be deer resistant and drought resistant, but it ain’t resistant to looking tired when the rain stops falling.
Ditto Brunnera macrophylla – I’ll always grow both though. I’m not winning any beauty contests myself, but I’m still walking. [Quick post-voice note on Brunnera macrophylla: This is a shade tolerant plant that seeds itself prolifically in cracks and crevices (as below). When it finds those places, these plants are much more drought resistant and look better than those in soil. If I ever pull them out, the root runs are very long, which allows them to take advantage of trapped moisture and what I assume is a cooler root run.]
Foliage over flower when it comes to containers – particularly in the shade. I couldn’t be happier with some of these tropical combinations.
And when you can’t be bothered to combine, and need a one-and-done? Carex ‘Feather Falls’ is ridiculously tolerant of drought – this one in terracotta no less – far away from any hose. Still a juvenile, put in this year.
I’m sure there are plants that look as good as variegated Solomon’s seal in either really moist or really dry conditions, but I can’t think of any right now. Those tough little rhizomes are something else.
They’re somewhat bleached in the sun, but they aren’t burnt, and they’re moving toward their rich yellow fall color. Great plant. Period.
I’d forgotten how drought tolerant rhizomatous begonias are. Result.
Jurassic Snowfall is a real stunner this year.
Epimedium. That is all. [pause] Actually that’s not all. Epimedium and Rohdea. More of both please.
Epimedium and Rohdea japonica may not look amazing, but they don’t look parched. And that’s the point.
Sedum. [long pause] Ditto.
The lovely ‘Pillow Talk’ sedum – a little crowded, but doing well.
Ligustrum ‘Sunshine’ [another long pause, words were obviously beginning to fail me]. Remarkably untouched by this hellscape.
Ligustrum ‘Sunshine’ is a beast, but it’s a drought tolerant beast.
Wow that is one incredibly useful bit of research you are doing for us all. Thank you for the staggering (I imagine you were) effort.
But so much more than that – I am so very sorry you are suffering this. Awful. I remember your flood and I bet you do – wishing you could have just put that water conveniently aside somewhere for this occasion.
I wish you rain, tonight.
Thanks Anne. Once you get it into your brain that things aren’t going to look they way you wanted them to in May, it’s incredibly freeing. My biggest concern is for the juvenile trees that will be set back hard or killed. Taxodium are not pleased. No rain ’til Saturday if the weather gods are correct. – MW
Anne you obviously have connections. Out of the absolute blue a storm came in an hour after I posted, took out the internet for a little while, and gave us a blessed 1/2 an inch. Rain barrels back to 3/4 of capacity. Many thanks! – MW
I won’t roll my eyes, despite living in California where ZERO summer rain is the norm. I’ll just say, if drought conditions are becoming more normal for Virginia, maybe this is an opportunity to grow things that would otherwise hate your usual amounts of rainfall. Monty Don has been talking about this in his own garden as England gets a bit drier. Are there any South African/Chilean/Californian/Australian beauties you’ve wanted to grow? Ceanothus and Phormium are calling!
Also, while it wouldn’t help with the things far from your house, but have you looked into graywater systems for the trees/shrubs nearby? Here in the Bay Area, lots of folks are using washing machine-connected systems to water their fruit trees.
Whatever you do, thanks for sharing the realities of drought. It means a lot to us mortals to see the pros struggle with stuff, too. Also, what a great example of why Hugelkulture works! I’ve heard that folks in drier climates like mine should consider “sunken” Hugelkulture, and I might try that for my own tropicals.
But I live in south-eastern Va, probably less than 200 miles away, and everything has been green all Summer. We have had delightful rains almost every week throughout the entire summer, sometimes over an inch or two spread out over several days. Almost no watering except for containers. I don’t think it is getting drier, just the weather patterns this year. I’ve seen some summers here where everything just dried up and I eventually gave up trying to water.
We have 30% to 40% chance of rain for the next 6 days. I’ll see if I can blow some of it north to you, Marianne.
Greg I was down in Carrolton and a little further south a few weeks ago, and amazed that they were beetling along with plenty of rain, generously spaced. We really are in a weird spot this year – as they are getting plenty (almost too much rain) north in Pennsylvania, NJ, NY etc…. As you can see in the above map, it’s pretty localized. – MW
I live just over the James River Bridge from Carrolton.
Thanks for your thoughts Sarah. My challenge – and that of many others – is figuring out how to play the new game. Many of the plants you can use, like phormium and ceanothus (both of which I adore), are not hardy to my cold, often wet winters, and not thrilled with the seven hours of sun I can offer in summer. It’s finding the plants that can cope with my precipitation base line, and roll with the punches of too much or too little – all within the framework of my sandy loam soils and mostly shady stream valley. We’re asking a lot – Mother Nature is not interested in whether the ‘garden looks good’ at the end of the season, but whether plants survive or seed for next year.
I don’t know anything about sunken hugelkultur, but would be worried about inadvertently creating a boggy situation if digging a large hole into some of the decomposed granite soils I grew up with as a child in California. – MW
Ah, my apologies for suggesting plants that are too tender. I thought they were hardy enough for Virginia, but looking them up shows my folly. You make a great point about the precipitation base line. It’s much easier to plan around *consistency* – and one of the global trends is more erratic weather. Perhaps it’s another dimension to our challenges – finding plants that do not require as much consistency in order to thrive. You have a very reasonable view about Mother Nature’s priorities!
Good good good information, delightfully delivered! The foliage combo photos were stunning, Marianne.
Ditto here in southcentral PA. I started dumping containers I’d been nursing along a few weeks ago, keeping only the better-looking, less-needy ones. As of yesterday, we are under a “voluntary” water restriction advisory, which makes it a lot easier to say, “Oh, well!” We’ve certainly had dry spells before — where the water restrictions were not voluntary — but we didn’t have the 90-degrees-plus heat along with it. And that, I think, has made all the difference in how the garden looks and how I feel!
Beautiful foliage combos!
Thanks for taking us along on your walk through your garden. I got kind of thirsty after a bit so glad I have a big iced tea right here to stay hydrated. And I know what you mean about having permission to just stop watering. I’ll get that soon as it frosts!
Two weeks with no rain. Doesn’t seem to fase the damn beans. I’ve eaten, frozen, and alienated all the neighbors with presents of them. Today we drove about 80 miles away. Kept passing through rain and dry.
We got .24″, just enough to piss off the flowers and make the weeds grow.
It’s hard to believe your subtropical foliage combos are as drought tolerant as you infer, I have all those in my Berkeley, California garden as year-round plants and they absolutely would not remain alive here without at least weekly irrigation. Even the Tetrapanax and the Hydrangea paniculata wouldn’t survive a summer here without periodic irrigation. So it would seem your impressions might need to be taken with a grain of salt for other gardeners not based in your corner of the world.
I like to look at old abandoned gardens or those that obviously get no care for cues to drought survivors here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some stand outs locally include Camellia japonica, Aspidistra, Amaryllis belladonna, Centranthus ruber, Crassula ovata, Toyon, Philodendron selloum, Calliandra californica, Nandina domestica, Zauschnerias to name but a few.
I’m thankful to be in a mild zone 10a setting and can grow all the drought resistant succulents like Aloes, Agaves, Dasylirions, Dudleyas, Mangaves, etc that take dry summers without complaint.
I grew up in California — most of my family still lives there — and early on in my time in the Mid-Atlantic got tired of hearing the word ‘drought’ thrown around, when overall, there were still green hillsides (not brown or green-grey), and creeks that still ran with water – even if it was just a trickle. But over time I became less California-sensitive, and recognized that a drought here is not the same as a drought in Fresno, or indeed one in the UK. But it hurts the farmers, ranchers, nurserypeople, and the gardeners badly as they plant for the conditions they expect, much as you do.
Our average precipitation is approx 43 inches a year – and much of that falls in spring and summer. Last week my area and many others in this odd rainshadow were below normal precipitation by 6-7 inches – which is a lot back here. California is bone dry in summer — completely and utterly a different climate. So where a California gardener might be able to infer something as simple as “relatively speaking, a tetrapanax will last longer without watering than an ensete” from my observations here, they certainly wouldn’t be able to infer that tetrapanax is a xeriphytic choice for the dry conditions of California. And, as I said in the post, my tetrapanax are planted in a deep hugelkultur mound which is ‘charged’ by winter and spring rains – even in a drier year.
When it comes to gardening advice – regional is always the gold standard; but we can learn from each other all the same if we take those observations with, as you say “a grain of salt.” I think your practice of examining abandoned gardens for survivors is an excellent one – it’s been my experience that we can never know how much drip irrigation is going on below the surface of gardens that simply look drought-tolerant. Centranthus ruber is one on my list of seeds to throw here as I think it will do well, but sadly, no mangave, aloe, or agave in my wet winters. (DC area heat sink 60 miles away can pull off a few). Yucca is as close as I get. Thanks for your comment and observations. – MW
Wow and I thought we were in bad shape! ( north georgia) but I do have a dumb question ( mostly because I have a hugelkulture bed ( appros 13x 13 feet with rows) as well but nothing in it… you are not saying that you can overwinter tropicals in zone 6a (6b?) are you?
Not a dumb question at all – glad you asked Anne. No, I cannot overwinter my tropicals in 6b in the ground, though there are some tropical looking plants like tetrapanax and hardy tropicals like Musa basjoo, that do just fine. – MW
The worst is when every single day there is a 30% chance of rain, and every single afternoon the sky gets all dark and stormy and you get all excited and decide not to water, but then that lovely little storm passes one mile north or south of you every stinkin’ time.
Yup, same here.
Lots of rain up in your area tonight. Did you get any?
Bizarrely and wonderfully, yes – 1/2 inch out of the blue not too long after I posted! -MW
Texas is indeed super crispy right now, much crispier than usual. We are too parched to roll our eyes. The usually stalwart Sunshine Ligustrum are begging for mercy. Aucubas are wearing burnt black fringe in mourning for all their lost companions. Last week we had a tease of rain for the first time since I can’t remember when, but it didn’t amount anything, just vaporized when it hit the ground. Like you, I have hope. If we look around for the bright spots, they are there. Lantana urticoides, Verbena b. Asclepias tuberosa, Panicum ‘Northwind’ and many more beauties to help us keep calm and keep tweaking. Great article you had on trial gardens recently in The American Gardener!
Thanks Jenny – Lantana and Pentas looking great here – as is my Panicum ‘Totem Pole’ – Northwind not great for me, but has more to do with the amount of sun I can give it. It always looks virused at the end of the season, rain or no rain. – MW
I live in Winchester VA. At this point I long for frost to put this summer to an end. I was worried when I got only 2.5 inches of rain in April and May (combined). thanks for identifying draught survivors. If I don’t through in the trowel, there will be lots of plant replacing next spring.
I just had a wonderful day in Winchester – what a gem of a town you live in! But yes, it was crazy dry – I think even a little drier than here. I hope you got a little of the surprise rain that showed up here mid-day yesterday. – MW
0.2 inches so far
“Stoic”. That’s the word that springs to mind when reading this hugely(as ever) entertaining post M. Its really generous of you to offer such a good range of plants that have been doing well under stress. I do hope rain comes soon. Gently, persistently, filling your tubs and saturating your soil. As for the decking this really must be repaired – what’s a husband for if not this? You need somewhere to drink after all. That’s essential.
Many thanks Charles – I can’t complain bitterly because Michael’s been working ‘stoically’ himself all summer on the raised beds and platform deck in the kitchen garden. The deck rebuild is not going to be fun – as it will just be a simple rebuild and not a new design. A new design or something cool that you didn’t have before somehow makes it easier to spend money. Large chunks of cash to preserve what you already had….ugh. Entropy is such a downer. 🙂 -MW
I will just say ditto to Charles Hawes comment! I do love your wonderfully sardonic perspective on this dismal drought.
Last summer we had 8 wks. of drought, this summer we’ve had rain up the wazoo…until this week. This week we had record temps., humidity and no rain. There’s a saying here, “if you don’t like the weather in Maine, wait a minute.” Some days it’s too close to the truth. But we garden on even if the tomatoes taste like store bought and the New Eng. asters bloomed a month early. There’s always next year. I hope your young trees survive out of spite for the weather.
and I meant out of spite not in spite of!