Can drought tolerant plants also tolerate winter wet?
Which plants in your garden are coping with heat and drought? Please fill in this short survey
It’s long been said the only thing we can predict about British weather is that you cannot predict it. Something that has ramped up as global warming continues to rise.
Two things we do know is that according to the MetOffice, summers are more likely to be hot and dry, especially in the south east of the UK, and winters will become milder and wetter everywhere.
British gardens - and I suspect most other temperate regions - now need a set of plants that can tolerate both extremes. Very dry summers and reasonably wet winters. Otherwise, we need to just live with gardens that dieback in summer, the subject of my column in Gardens Illustrated this month. It’s an option.
The point about wetter winters has led many gardeners to proclaim that Mediterranean and other drought tolerant plants will rot in winter wet. While there is some truth to this, it’s a bit of an exaggeration.
We live on an exposed but free-draining south facing hillside in West Yorkshire. In hot weather the clay-loam ground does dry out, perhaps not for as long as down south but almost as much.
However the interesting thing I’ve noticed from our location is not what survives summer but what survives winter.
Living above Hebden Bridge, there are a number of things the area is famous for: being the lesbian capital of the UK, a Bohemian hippy and artist hotspot, lots of small farms and flooding. Yes, it rains a lot in our garden, especially in winter.
Our garden has extremely high winter rainfall and in mild winters the heavy soil can be exceptionally wet. Parts of our meadow become fully waterlogged with underground springs bubbling up directly next to our garden.
Winters here are generally growing warmer with less freezes, making them wetter, made worse by increased rainfall. Two winters ago we lost all but one of our Monarda to that combination of wet and cold. And certainly there are some plants I could grow down south that aren’t hardy enough to survive in Yorkshire.
But the Monarda have been one of very few plant losses to winter wet, despite the fact I have planted predominantly drought tolerant species for summer directly in our heavy wet soil. When we moved here 6 years ago we came from twenty years of gardening across London - I knew what dry summers could be like.
So, while our garden may not be as dry and hot as down south, I am growing a lot of drought tolerant plant species that thrive in the south. And these plants are also surviving the extreme winter wet and cold of a West Yorkshire garden sitting next to the Wuthering Heights moor. Far wetter than southern winters are.
I chose plants with the knowledge they could survive drought and winter wet but I was surprised how many plants I’d been told couldn’t survive that actually did. I began to notice drought tolerant plants were better able to survive soggy winter soil when Dahlias, Verbena bonariensis and herb fennel emerged from winter unscathed on our allotment. I didn’t plant them.
Others include all the herbs lavender, rosemary, thyme, bay. Plus the likes of Echinops, Jarava, Centranthus, Althaea cannabina. Hylotelephium and true hardy shrub salvias thrive! Some shrub salvias are said to be hardy but aren’t, so you have to choose wisely.
Plus every wildflower I’ve ever thrown at it: ox-eye daisies, knapweed, Knautia arvensis, Verbascum, musk mallow, lady’s bedstraws. You name it. Achillea millefolium and Jacobaea vulgaris are indestructible - they look better now everything is drying around them than before. Something I’ve observed countless times around Surrey, Kent and London.
Of course, there will be gardens that genuinely flood and that’s a separate issue for a specific minority of gardens. Most gardens have high rainfall and soggy very wet soil, and as our garden shows, there is plenty of hope for a set of garden plants that work in all extremes while growing in regular soil.
When most of our gardens start to wilt and show drought stress, it’s an excellent chance to spot the plants that relish dry and heat. Which is why I’ve started a survey asking what plants are thriving in your garden during the hot spell right now?
Complete survey
Please take a few minutes to look at your garden and fill in the survey to help inform gardeners for the future. I will share the results with you here on the Wild Way.
Isn’t this about drainage? And very long roots. You are on slopes we are on thick flat London Clay , and yes normal summer tolerance is one thing but even the Med suffers under prolonged temperatures in the 30 s.
I’ve not done the survey because I have watered my fairly new and not yet established garden. But I’m on a north facing slope quite high on a hill in North Wales. My garden gets a lot of water in winter and we catch some of it. But plants that can’t handle wet feet for an extended period aren’t doing well. Bulbs have struggled. Yellow raspberries have unanimously died while autumn fruiters are taking over the plot. Verbena bonariensis has self seeded everywhere and is clearly loving it. Dahlias have died, fuchsias are thriving. It’s fascinating seeing what will thrive in fairly challenging conditions and what won’t.