12 drought tolerant plants that will also be happy if it rains!

If you're planning to fill a gap in your border or even maybe redesigning the whole border, you may be like me thinking about looking for drought tolerant plants. Here in Kent in southeast England we had the hottest driest summer practically on record and many of our gardens were really fried and we've got gaps. It's Alexandra here from the Middlesized Garden YouTube channel and blog and I've come to Jane Beadle's garden because it didn't fry and it didn't get gaps. But of course even if we are predicted to have hotter drier summers in the future, we may well get odd wet summers, so we don't want to get lots of drought tolerant plants that then sit there and look miserable if we have a sudden wet summer. For example last summer we had twice the normal rainfall and Jane's garden looked fantastic during that summer too. So I've come to talk to Jane who's a former garden designer, she's a great British Bake Off finalist and she also does cookery tips on her Instagram feed, Jane B Bakes, but above all to find out what exactly she's planted in her garden that can look so good in this hot dry weather and yet survive also a summer that maybe has double the amount of rainfall. I'll put links to any resources we mention in the description below and if you're new here, the Middlesized Garden uploads weekly with tips, ideas and inspiration for your garden, so if you'd like to see the videos when you open up YouTube, tap subscribe. To give you an idea of what the weather is like here in Kent, south east England, we roughly equate to a USDA hardness zone of 9 because our winters are very mild. It would be rare for us to go below minus 6 Celsius, 21 Fahrenheit and most of the time in the winter we're not even freezing. But of course our summers are not usually as hot as a zone 9. This summer we went up to 40 Celsius, 104 Fahrenheit and it has been consistently very dry. We had a whole month with virtually no rain at all. So just to start with the planting debate that's going on in the gardening world at the moment is that what we all know is that in their first couple of years trees and shrubs and perennials are not as drought tolerant as they are once they've really got their roots down and settled into the soil, so there is some debate about how long you should water plants for after they've planted because the don't water them brigade say soak the roots thoroughly before you plant them, soak the planting hole with full of water, let it drain away and then give the plant a really good soaking once it's planted, but then after that no more water because it'll come to rely on it, whereas the other side say you do need to water trees, shrubs and perennials in their first year to give them a chance to get their roots down. So what's your view on that? Well I would say if you don't want to chuck your money straight down the toilet then you need to water them and if you go for a larger shrub, so say something in a 10 litre pot or a tree that you buy by girth size, so generally that's a much larger root ball, if you don't water them they're just going to die. I don't care how much you water that hole and water that root ball before you plant it, they will die and what you want to do is you want to encourage those roots to go down into the soil and the trick is to water them perhaps once a week really well so the soil gets very wet underneath the root ball and then roots will go down. The fatal thing for new planting is to just water on the surface a little bit, you know stand there and water for five minutes, if you dig down you'll find that the top perhaps a quarter of an inch, half an inch tops is actually wet, in which case the roots want to come up to the surface to get the water and of course if the roots are on the surface they're going to be more prone to drying out, so a good soaking once a week until that tree or large shrub is established. Obviously as a garden designer I think you'd advise people to put their trees in first and then design the rest of the garden around that, wouldn't you? So what would you say are the best good drought resistant trees here in this garden? So I have a wonderful silver birch in the garden and I bought it at quite a large size because I wanted instant effect, if you like, it took four men to carry it in and I watered it a lot for the first two years and the second year it did look a little tired at times and I needed to chuck big buckets of water on it but this year with having got its roots well down into the soil I have not watered it at all and it's looking magnificent. Other trees that are really good in drought of course are the olives and I have a couple of olives here in pots but that's because I wanted the height and I like them in pots. The problem with olives in a wet claggy clay soil is if you haven't incorporated lots of organic matter, if you have a particularly wet winter those roots could sit in a soggy soil which wouldn't be great, so improve the soil, maybe put some drainage in and your olives will certainly cope with any heat you want to chuck at it. And I think you've also got an amelanchia here that has done very well in this hot dry summer but will be fine if we have a wet one. Yes the amelanchia really surprised me because it can be prone to mildew when it gets dry, I mean they survive but they look fairly manky, but this year again it's been in as long as my birch has and was watered very well for the first couple of years and I keep it trimmed to a large shrub. And the wonderful thing about amelanchia is they cope with clay, they cope with wet, they cope with pollution and they give you blossom in the spring and I love their fresh foliage. Lovely and now let's look at the shrubs and perennials. You've got a very good color balance here because actually most of the drama is actually coming from foliage contrast and then you've got these bright pops of color and I think that's what makes a huge impact. What would you say are the three best shrubs in this garden? I think shrubs are incredibly important in a garden, be the garden large or small, because they give you structure throughout the year and you very much appreciate them in the winter. So I have quite a lot of evergreen shrubs and I love pittosporum. Pittosporum are marvellous and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes really, so I'll use a pittosporum golf ball instead of box balls because they're much more disease and bug resistant. Another one I love is nandina which gives you berries in the winter, it can give you different color foliage. There's lemon and lime which I have which is a bright yellowy green foliage. I have now I never know whether it's obsessed or obsession but I have nandina obsession that has red leaves in the spring and goes through looking gorgeous all year, and then panicles of white flowers and red berries that will persist through to spring, so that's marvellous. So any of the nandinas are incredibly drought tolerant. I also see you've got sage and I think most of us don't even think of sage as a shrub, but I gather the RHS as it is a shrub and of course it gives you a lovely sort of gray green color throughout the year and that's of course fantastic in drought and it doesn't worry at all about the odd wet summer either does it? No in fact my sage has been incredible, I don't use a huge amount of it in cooking but I love this silvery mound. I do keep it very well pruned back so it doesn't get too leggy but it keeps this lovely sort of rounded shape and beautiful leaves that haven't suffered at all and of course you can get the purple leaf sage which looks so pretty in a border, you almost think it's an ornamental and not a culinary plant, so yes sage is fantastic, I love it. And speaking of sage, of course there are two members of the sage family which are doing some wonderful flowers for you as well, aren't they? Which is the Perovskia blue spire which is now apparently called salvia blue spire and indeed the salvias and you've got salvia greggii I think, so just talk me through the flower color that's done so well in this hot summer but also did well last year in the wet. Salvia greggii I absolutely love, it gives you that pop of red and for all those people who like the pastels and the pinks and the this and that, you need a little bit of pop as contrast and the salvia greggii catches me out every year because I prune it back in late spring, don't prune them too early because otherwise they could get damaged by the frost, but I prune it back in late spring and it goes back into this tiny sort of little space and then I frantically plant around it forgetting completely that it grows into this massive bush and you would think I would learn wouldn't you, but it just keeps flowering from the moment it gets going which is June, end of May, June it gets going and it flowers and flowers and flowers and flowers right the way through until the autumn and first frost really, so it's a fantastic doer the greggii and there are plenty of salvias in that same part of the family that will give you the most glorious pops of color if you would prefer an orangey one or a purpley one and of course the bees love it and in the dry conditions we're also looking for lots of things that will keep our insects happy. Yes that is an important point because I think our pollinators had a really tough time this last summer. Other plants I can see here are verbena bonariensis. In my garden verbena bonariensis has been absolutely fine in rain, sun, drought, it's been completely untroubled by this last summer we've just had and I've also noticed you've got a climber here, star jasmine or trachealospermum jasminoides and that's been a good one for you in the drought hasn't it? Yes as climbers go it's fantastic, it seems to have survived. Again I haven't watered it this year at all, in fact watered it very little since it's been in. It can be slow to get going but now it's roaring up the fences and of course it has jasmine like flowers which again is great for pollinators, lovely for us and it's evergreen so it's there as a good structural plant all through the winter and actually I have it on the sunny side of my garden which gets full sun virtually all day and I've also got it on the shady side of my garden which you wouldn't think it would thrive in at all and it seems to be scampering up the wall and the fences perfectly right so I would always say go for one of those instead of maybe a clematis. I know I love clematis but the clematis they're all looking a bit sad now where I'm expecting some of them to still be flowering but the the jasmine is still throwing out the odd flower even though it's a great climber I think. And of course there's wonderful drought resistant plants for pots now of course pots you will always have to water because they only get their water from you really rain doesn't get into pots but on the other hand having drought resistant plants in there is quite a help because if you've got really hot dry temperatures the plant pots will dry out even faster and I think you've got a complete classic here which is pelargonium and you've also got a bulb I haven't seen anywhere which is what tulbagia violacea I believe so please don't don't quote me on that but it's a marvelous little plant I think it's in the garlic family and it's just flowers and flowers and flowers and flowers a little bit later in the summer probably end of June beginning of July but unlike most agapanthus and it has almost it looks like a mini agapanthus unlike that it just carries on throwing out new flower spikes and although I have got it in a pot I've also got it in the ground and where I've got it in the ground I haven't watered it at all and these wonderful little violet-y pale violet lilac-y flowers pop out and just shine in amongst the strap-like foliage so I absolutely love it and people came around the other day and saw it in the garden and I think everybody was completely captivated by it I think it's mediterranean and so just in the fact that it is from the mediterranean means it will grow in a dry condition but again it survived all the wet summer of last year what other flowers have really done well in this summer echinacea and I just have this common garden echinacea purpurea which has been amazing and the bees are still really enjoying it and they seem to have done incredibly well now I know this has changed its name and I haven't got a clue what the new name is but I have sedum I think it's autumn joy I can't exactly remember which one it and the sedums of course will survive almost anything and they do very well in drought conditions as well so they are two really good doers phlox you need to water like mad because it'll go mildewy so if you're looking for a drought tolerant don't look at phlox another wonderful little plant that seems to grow incredibly well around here is erigeron carvinskianus which just will settle in any crevice and and just grow away I first saw it at Great Dixter I think many moons ago and of course what would a border bee without some good grasses and I think the one here that you've got is annum and oh dear we're going to have to struggle with this aren't we and it's all known as pheasant tail grass but that's done really well in both your hot dry summer and last year's wet summer hasn't it yes it's a brilliant one it used to be called stiper arundinaceae until they changed it to something that we couldn't pronounce yes I'm not even going to go there probably I think they just try and trip us up don't they with these wonderful words but it's fantastic it is fantastic and it grows into this really fountain of grass with wonderful seed heads it does self-seed a little bit but not not too badly but because my garden is small I like to sort of knock it back into shape now most of the advice is you you just rake out the dead grass and great dead bits and and leave that the shape there but frankly don't tell the experts but I cut mine down every year and it comes back into a very manageable shape but I have it on the shady side of my garden and I have it on the sunny side of my garden it copes in drought and it copes in in wet conditions so again lovely and you have this slightly um ready pinky tinge to it as it gets older which also just gives you a little bit more glowing interest in the garden I have to admit that all my dahlias except one completely fried and the daily that I've got that did very well is the same one that's just behind you now which is and of course one would love to recommend this to people as a you know really good drought resistant dahlia but unfortunately it's only available at Stephen Ryan's own nursery which is called Dicksonia Rare Plants and is in Mount Macedon just outside Melbourne Australia which may not be convenient for many people trying to get this daily but that is that's done really well hasn't it it's done pretty well and I have to say I didn't get mine from Melbourne Australia I got it from you which from which I'm incredibly grateful and it has done very well just keeps on flowering really and when it was particularly dry um the flowers seemed to be much smaller but we've had a couple of downpours over the last couple of weeks and it perked up no end and you can see that it's flowering away like mad the problem with dahlias is they they do need an awful lot of care and water I think but I don't we were talking about this the other day I had this theory so they tell you to mulch your garden either with gravel or or a good mulch of organic matter which will always improve your soil anyway to stop the soil underneath drying out well my garden as you can probably see is completely packed with plants you can barely see a little bit of soil and I think that's why the dahlias have survived because the leaf coverage from all evergreens and other things stops the wind and the sun going directly onto the soil and maybe that has acted as you know a green mulch if you like and stop them drying out quite as much as they might if you've got a plant soil a plant soil then the sun is going to get at that soil and dry it out even faster so I would always say if you don't want to weed and you don't want to water too much pack your garden with as many plants as you can let me know if you've got any good recommendations for drought-tolerant plants that won't mind some rain and thank you for watching goodbye