How to Grow a Drought-Tolerant Garden

The garden path leading to our back verandah

Good afternoon, and welcome to the trembling, shimmering heat haze of midsummer.

The sky is clear - and blue - and the sunshine is so strong it feels almost acidic. The soil has made its yearly pilgrimage back to sand. The earthworms are in hiding, the spinach has wilted and the mustard greens, covered in crisp brown pods, rattle like maracas in the afternoon’s hot breath.

Summer in an Australian garden can be beautiful, or it can be deadly. Usually it’s a bit of both.

Let’s try to address the deadly part.

How hot is too hot for a garden?

At 30˚C, plants’ rate of photosynthesis starts to drop. At 40˚C, photosynthesis takes a nosedive and plants effectively shut down, entering a state of temporary heat-induced dormancy. I know ‘heat-induced dormancy’ sounds scary, but it doesn’t mean your plants are definitely going to die. It’s a protective mechanism and many plants will recover once the weather cools. But there’s no denying these are tricky growing conditions.

Just like us, most plants struggle in extreme temperatures. And the truth is, once the temperature goes above a certain threshold there’s not a lot you can do for your plants, no matter how good you are at gardening. We can’t change plants’ cellular processes and we can’t change the weather (although, you know, we definitely COULD curb our CO2 emissions, demand a carbon tax and generally heed the warning cries of thousands of climate scientists). And yet, so often heatwaves leave us feeling like we’ve failed in some way. That we’ve let our plants down, that we aren't diligent enough, that we’ve somehow screwed up.

The frustrating reality is that gardening through summer in Australia can be a very dispiriting experience. I admit I have no actual data on this (I have not conducted any tests or surveys) but I’d bet good money that summer is the season when the most people throw their arms up in despair, turn off the hose, flick on the aircon and generally give up on their gardens.

It’s totally understandable. But it doesn’t mean you’re a bad gardener and it certainly doesn’t mean you should give up on your garden.

So first things’s first - if the last week of sweltering days has killed your plants, don’t worry and don’t blame yourself. Remember that there are only 35 days left of summer, that autumn rains and thunderstorms are coming, and that you’ll soon get the chance to start again.

And when you do start again, I suggest you employ a different strategy.

Gardening should be fun. And when it’s not, that’s a sign something needs to change. So, if you’re sick to death of racing outside to hand water at 6am every morning though summer, if you’re done with plants withering to a crisp before your eyes and a garden that enters autumn looking like a brittle martian landscape, you might just need to skew the odds a little further in your favour. You might need to grow yourself a drought tolerant garden.

Flowers and shrubs under the mulberry tree

What is a drought tolerant garden?

As the name implies, drought tolerant gardens (or ‘dry gardens’) need little or no water to survive. They’re often filled with succulents, stone and hard landscaping, or native grasses, trees and wood chips. There’s no denying that they’re water-wise, but unless you’re super into that exact style you might find it hard to get excited about converting you garden. I certainly did. My main issue with dry gardens is that the just feel so damn…dry. Like the way the roof of your mouth feels when you wake up after a few too many drinks. Like sand in your eyes or dust in your throat. Not my jam.

And in fact, I’m not entirely sure I should even be calling what I’m proposing a ‘drought tolerant garden’ as that suggests you might never have to water your garden again.

What I’m suggesting lies somewhere in the middle. It’s not low maintenance, it’s not high maintenance its just… unfussy. It’s chilled. It’s casual. It’s easy-going. Let’s call it a semi-parched paradise. It still needs a little water, but in return for your efforts you get a garden that feels lush, cool and leafy. After all, if you’re anything like me you don’t want to stop gardening entirely (where’s the fun in that?) so you don’t need a garden that requires absolutely zero effort on your part. You’d just like to ease the burden a little from December through February.

For the record, I harbour no ill-will towards Waterwise gardens. In fact, I think they are a very sensible option for many people and a hell of a lot better than water guzzling lawns. But it’s a common misconception I hear all the time from Perth gardeners that if you live in WA (or any other hot, dry part of our continent) that the ‘Waterwise style’ of garden is your only option. That you can’t grow a cottage garden, or have a veggie garden that makes it through summer.

The problem with thinking this way is that if you’re not passionate about growing an all-native or all-succulent garden you may never get excited enough about your garden to really invest time, money or effort in it in the first place. If the goal is to rebuild insect populations, to get excited about eating seasonal produce or encourage more people to get outside in the fresh air with their hands in the soil, then I believe we need to make the love of gardening our first priority.

So if you’ve always wanted a cottage-style garden, if you want to be surrounded by flowers (not just cacti) and if you want to eat fresh produce out of your own backyard, this post is for you.

Here are my favourite unfussy plants for your (partially) parched patch.

Planting for a (partially) parched patch

The first rule of thumb for growing a garden that is well adapted to our climate is to look at what grows in locations around the world with similar climates. Think Spain, Italy, Morocco, South Africa and California. These regions have hot, dry summers and mild winters (like Perth) so their native plants are reasonably well adapted to the conditions we have here.

Avoid plants that prefer to grow in places with cooler or wetter weather (you don’t need English plants to create an English cottage garden; you can get away just fine with plants from other regions - the trick to creating a cottage style garden is to plant a garden that rambles, is filled with flowers and overflowing borders).

The next trick is to make sure - before you do any planting at all - that you have thoroughly enriched your soil and improved its ability to retain moisture. The plants I’m about to recommend will tolerate soil that is a little on the sandy side, but taking good care of your soil will always make gardening easier in summer time. Check out this blog post to learn everything you need to know about getting your soil healthy. Healthy soil holds onto water longer (especially when it’s well mulched), meaning you have a little extra wiggle room on hot days before your garden turns into a desert.

Third, if you want to give your garden a better chance of surviving hot, dry periods, you’ll need trees. Trees planted in the right location can provide much-needed afternoon shade and help cool your garden environment generally. And, once established they don’t need water, making them perfect for a partially parched patch.

Last (before we get onto the plants themselves), no matter what you plant, plant densely. Plants haven’t evolved to grow as solitary islands in a sea of empty soil and they do best when grown near other plants. Having a (reasonably) densely planted garden helps to attract a wider variety of insects and other wildlife to your patch (which can help with ‘pest’ control) and it also shields your soil from the hot summer sunshine, helping keep the soil (and the beneficial microbes that live within it) moist, shady and healthy for longer.

One caveat here is that if you are planting seedlings for veggies that will eventually grow quite large (e.g., zucchinis, broccoli, tomatoes) you want to give them room to spread out. But generally I like to avoid leaving patches of my garden empty as much as possible, and when there are empty patches of soil I cover them with lupin mulch.

Densely planted beds like this one help to protect the soil underneath

Unfussy trees for a dry(ish) garden

A lot of trees are quite drought tolerant once established, but here are a few that are especially tough:

• Olive trees

• Citrus trees

• Bay trees

• Pomegranates

• Argan trees

• Fig trees

• Macadamia trees

• Mulberry trees

• Curry leaf trees (these don’t like cold winters but Perth doesn’t get too chilly and mine is very hardy and leafy!)

Unfussy shrubs and perennials (aka plants that like hot weather)

If you’re looking for a cottage style garden, add these tough shrubs. Most of them wouldn’t be included on a list of quintessentially English cottage plants, but they are very beautiful, will attract plenty of insects and bring a rambling/floral cottage feel to any garden.

• Echium (gorgeous towering spikes of purple flowers)

• Roses (surprisingly hardy, although they will need a drink from time to time)

• Bougainvillea

• Ribbon bush (hails from South Africa and, though it does wilt a little on hot days, it’s pretty bloody tough)

• Cistus (a gorgeous overflowing flowering perennial with papery-fine flowers that open to greet the morning sun and close at dusk)

• Lavender and rosemary (no surprises here, but make sure to check out the range of lavender and rosemary plants available because there are some gorgeous and less common varieties to choose from)

• Pelargoniums (often called geraniums, these are easy to propagate and produce gorgeous flowers)

• Salvia (sage is a member of the salvia family, and it tolerates dry periods quite well - check out the other ornamental salvias too - so many beautiful colours and bees love them)

Delicate pink flowers on a cistus shrub

Unfussy flowers (aka heat tolerant flowers)

• Vincas (a short-lived flowering perennial that doesn’t love totally dry soil but fares surprisingly well under circumstances of relative neglect)

• Alyssum (I never plant this - it just pops up, like happy garden snow overflowing in garden beds where ever stray seeds have landed)

• Hollyhocks (these often get a moisture-induced fungal disease called ‘rust’ in summer, and surprisingly I’ve found that those I grow in sandy, dry and semi-neglected areas actually do best)

• Dogbane (of everything I grow, dogbane is by far the hardiest - you can rip piece of it off, ram them in the ground, and after a few months of near-total neglect they will reward you with purple lavender-esque flowers - a real winner!)

• Tansy (this pungent inedible ‘herb’ is covered with yellow bauble flowers in late-summer and self-seeds like a friendly happy weed)

• Artemisia (gorgeous silver feathery foliage and a very resilient constitution make this plant one of the best to dot around an overflowing cottage garden bed)

• Curry plant (aka Helichrysum italicum - this is different to the curry tree, it has silvery foliage and beautiful yellow flowers - it loves dry, sandy soil so it’s a perfect pick for Perth!)

• Dusty Miller (aka Silver ragwort, like the curry plant, Silver ragwort has silvery foliage and yellow flowers - the two plants belong to the Asteraceae - or daisy - family so it’s unsurprising they look similar)

• Flanders poppies and Californian poppies (these fare surprisingly well in a dry-ish garden, sow seeds once the weather cools down in autumn for spring flowers)

A garden bed filled with hardy plants including a bay tree, tansy, echium, artemisia, roses and flowering parsley

Unfussy edibles (aka best vegetables for dry soils)

Wondering what food grows well in dry soil? Try these - they are tough as old boots (but taste comparatively better, I imagine)

• Artichokes (their silver foliage looks beautiful and structural towards the back of a garden bed, and the bees LOVE their pollen-covered purple flowers. Plus, you can eat them)

• Fennel (so hardy in Perth that it grows wild in vacant housing lots - harvest some bulbs then let the flower in springtime; the flowers taste like liquorice and the bees love them!)

• Kale (nurse it through its seedling phase and it will become surprisingly drought-tolerant - the thick leaves make it less needy or delicate than lettuce)

• Rocket (it will produce gorgeous yellow flowers in spring and proceed to self-seed through your garden!)

• Parsley (sow seeds in early autumn and your parsley will establish itself in your garden beds over winter. Once established it’s reliably hardy through a hot, dry summer)

• Lemongrass (can be almost entirely neglected and will still grow giant, so make sure to pop it in a pot unless you want it to explode in your garden)

Alrighty! I hope that is enough to get you started and inspired! For more suggestions of plants that are well suited to a Perth climate - stay tuned! I have a few plans in the works for you…

In the meantime, I’m off to water the garden (just a little). Toodle-oo!

P.S.

Would you like a bit more help getting your garden designed, planted and thriving?

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Send me a message below to let me know what you’re struggling with (design, plant suggestions, layout etc) and i’ll let you know if there’s a consult package that will work for you!

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