Plants for drought (or not)
Sep. 5th, 2022 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callmemadamStill no rain …
Here follows a totally unscientific survey, based only on how plants have fared in my own garden, which is on clay soil. No photos because it’s too windy.
Revelling in drought. Verbena bonariensis. Erigeron karvinskianus. Gaura lindheimerei. Eryngium self-seeded from a plant which died; not only a beautiful silver but covered in bees every day. Cistus. Sisyrinchium striatum; you’ll never lose this plant because it’s so keen on seeding itself around. Stachys. Sanguisorba (Burnet). I love its odd, dark red flowers. Sedums.
Managing well. An aster I’ve forgotten the name of, which is covered in buds. Good old Penstemon ‘Garnet’ but not another, nameless one. Rose on the house wall which apparently grows in no soil at all and has never been fed or watered. Euphorbia, tall varieties but not small ones, except for one growing in a paving crack. Ceratostigma wilmottianum (has small but astonishingly blue flowers). All hardy geraniums except the much cried-up variety ‘Rozanne’, which was voted plant of the centenary at the 100th Chelsea Flower Show. It is normally a good plant, flowering all summer. Mine was reduced to a brown and shrivelled little heap until I pulled out the brown parts and started chucking bowls of washing up water over it. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t go dishing out awards to plants which haven’t been trialled for years. In contrast ‘Brookside’, a geranium I like so much I brought some with me when I moved house, has leaves as fresh and green as if they’d just opened in spring, although it’s never been watered.
Sad. Hardy fuchsias, which are half the size they should be, with very few flowers. Hydrangeas.
Dead. Half a hydrangea. Penstemon, see above. London Pride, which I thought was indestructible. Other plants which simply failed to emerge this year.
Here follows a totally unscientific survey, based only on how plants have fared in my own garden, which is on clay soil. No photos because it’s too windy.
Revelling in drought. Verbena bonariensis. Erigeron karvinskianus. Gaura lindheimerei. Eryngium self-seeded from a plant which died; not only a beautiful silver but covered in bees every day. Cistus. Sisyrinchium striatum; you’ll never lose this plant because it’s so keen on seeding itself around. Stachys. Sanguisorba (Burnet). I love its odd, dark red flowers. Sedums.
Managing well. An aster I’ve forgotten the name of, which is covered in buds. Good old Penstemon ‘Garnet’ but not another, nameless one. Rose on the house wall which apparently grows in no soil at all and has never been fed or watered. Euphorbia, tall varieties but not small ones, except for one growing in a paving crack. Ceratostigma wilmottianum (has small but astonishingly blue flowers). All hardy geraniums except the much cried-up variety ‘Rozanne’, which was voted plant of the centenary at the 100th Chelsea Flower Show. It is normally a good plant, flowering all summer. Mine was reduced to a brown and shrivelled little heap until I pulled out the brown parts and started chucking bowls of washing up water over it. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t go dishing out awards to plants which haven’t been trialled for years. In contrast ‘Brookside’, a geranium I like so much I brought some with me when I moved house, has leaves as fresh and green as if they’d just opened in spring, although it’s never been watered.
Sad. Hardy fuchsias, which are half the size they should be, with very few flowers. Hydrangeas.
Dead. Half a hydrangea. Penstemon, see above. London Pride, which I thought was indestructible. Other plants which simply failed to emerge this year.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-05 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-06 07:46 am (UTC)It poured yesterday evening, although we had no thunder. Obviously, if I want it to rain I just have to moan about the lack of it!