What makes a plant drought tolerant?
Drought-tolerant plants often hail from Mediterranean climate zones around the world - around the Mediterranean sea, the western cape of South Africa, coastal California, central Chile and southern and southwestern Australia. They have evolved to thrive in habitats that have a very long, extremely hot and dry season - as much as six months with no rain - and poor soil.
Leaves may be small or thin, grey or glaucous, hairy, succulent or fleshy. Many have very deep or wide root systems that seek out water, or underground storage organs (bulbs). Drought-tolerant plants are often low growing and form mounds - less likely to be dried by wind on a hot day. In their native habitats, they may go dormant or lose their leaves in summer.
Are Mediterranean plants suitable for the UK?
Garden designer James Basson, based in the South of France, points out: "The UK may increasingly have extremes of heat and wet through climate change, but its gardens have a depth of topsoil from our past temperate era, which makes conditions very different to the arid Mediterranean." The plants he uses tolerate five to six months' heat in Provence without rain in summer; droughts in the UK are more likely to last a few weeks.
"There's a well-established climatic divide between the east and west of the British Isles," says garden designer Matthew Wilson, who designed the famous Dry Garden at RHS Garden Hyde Hall. "This is more important than north/south in many ways. I've planted the same drought-tolerant plants that I have in my own garden in the east Midlands in gardens as far south as the Solent and as far north as Hexham in Northumberland, including Eryngium, Salvia, Stipa, Pennisetum and Artemisia. But I would probably think twice before trying them in a garden in Wales, Cornwall or the west coast of Scotland.
Esta historia es de la edición August 2023 de Gardens Illustrated.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August 2023 de Gardens Illustrated.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
LAZY DAYS
Alice Vincent has had a hectic 2023, but for next year she's come up with a cunning plan to give herself more time and reduce her carbon footprint
SCULPTING THE LANDSCAPE
Charlotte Rowe's elegant design for a country garden in Hampshire fuses modern and traditional styles and captures the Zeitgeist for naturalism with a contemporary edge
Flavour of the seasons
Smallholder and former chef Julius Roberts suggests three easy, warming recipes for a winter feast with seasonal produce
JOINT ENTERPRISE
In southwest Germany, a couple have combined structural grasses and perennials with good seedheads in their garden to great effect, especially when touched by winter frost
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
There is a biodiversity loss crisis, but research into the wildlife found in gardens has made it clear just how important these spaces are as habitat. Discover how much you can learn, and gain, by identifying and documenting what you find beyond your back door
MATTHEW BIGGS
Horticulture's nicest practitioner on his journey from sweeping playgrounds to Gardeners' Question Time via offering gardening advice to insomniacs
YOUNG AT HEART
The garden of the late, great landscape architect Jacques Wirtz, which is more than 50 years old, is now being renewed by his children
PITTOSPORUM
These evergreen shrubs come in a multitude of sizes and shapes with shiny, often variegated or colourful leaves and small scented flowers
Festive flourishes
Entertain in style this Christmas with ideas for natural decorations from Swallows & Damsons
LUKE SENIOR
A former Ruth Borun scholar at Great Dixter, Luke is now one of the garden's full time gardeners