6 tough plants for a tough summer
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. — Maya Angelou
There are many life lessons in gardening, and one of them is about encountering the defeats! Perhaps this summer more than ever we are having to question what we do and how we move forwards in the face of what only the deluded will deny, the fact that our climate is changing! So us gardeners are having to change too, to adapt, encounter our defeats and find a way through!
So who is strong enough to survive a summer without rain? And most importantly, who is also strong enough to survive a wet winter?
Here are a few plants that I find are up to the challenge:
1 Oregano – Oreganum vulgare
The Mediterranean herbs are a great go-to when it comes to drought tolerance, but not all of them like to sit in wet, soggy soil though winter (thyme and lavender can struggle in a Belgian winter).
But oregano is a real hero, coping well with both extremes and being an amazing plant all round! If you can, grow it near your kitchen so you can pop out to snip its aromatic leaves and add them to almost anything (pasta sauce, omelettes, cheese with toast, soups and stews…). It’s superb for the bees and butterflies too. Cut it back in winter and it will bounce back in spring.
2 Hardy Fuchsia – Fuchsia magellanica
This unfussy flowering shrub comes from a tough climate: the Magellan Strait, a navigable sea route in southern Chile connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Known for its “dramatic and unpredictable weather. Expect strong winds, cool temperatures year-round, and frequent precipitation, with rapid shifts between sun, rain, and even snow”, says a local travel site.
In my own garden, this Fuchsia has sprouted from below the decking on our terrace and never gets watered by me. It’s totally unbothered! It has a pretty cascading habit and colourful yet subtle flowers in great numbers for weeks on end through summer and into autumn.
3 Mexican daisy – Erigeron karvinskianus
Couldn’t exclude this from a list of drought tolerant plants that will also take a Belgian winter! I find it’s great in pots as it spills over the edge so nicely and is very very long flowering. I did a wee reel on Instagram about it.
Also seen it looking very lovely growing out of cracks in walls in Brittany:
4 Verbena bonariensis
I find this plant so adaptable. Its thin wirey stems mean that it doesn’t ever get in the way of other plants, just pops up agreeably between them and self seeds gently around the garden (I am on clay and it’s one of the few plants that manages to self seed). It can unite planting schemes with its cute little purple flowers.
5 Hardy Geraniums – Geranium ‘Rozanne’ et al.
With the caveat that these benefit from a bit of shade during the hottest part of the day. They cope fine with tough clay soils that get waterlogged in winter and tend to dry out in summer. I love to use G. Rozanne tumbling down a slope or along steps as seen here in one of my recent planting schemes:
Famously ‘Rozanne’ is a workaholic! She flowers non-stop from May to October. She takes a rest in winter and retreats underground.
6 Sage – Salvia sp.
Sage is of course a herb, a really great one! I love using culinary sage in borders, its silvery foliage looks fabulous all year and it is nice and bushy. It is also very pretty in flower.
The ornamental sages are great too. For pops of fun colour all summer there is Salvia ‘Hot Lips’, or the more demure deep purple and white ‘Amethyst Lips’. Great in a dry, sunny spot. Here it is growing just outside a sauna:
Who are your survivors this summer? And how are you coping with any defeats? Let me know in the comments!
Yes, all plants I grow and love here and in France. I would add cistus, lavender, artemesia and sedums. (Sorry, Hylotelephium.)
I found lavender hates my wet soil in winter.
We have some in the hottest driest section right by the front gate and it’s actually doing ok, though the older ones my neighbours have look quite ugly and leggy.
Great choices too, am testing Artemesia this year to see if it copes with our winters, would love it to!
Like you I have oregano, fleabane, hardy geraniums and verbena flowering well. In fact the fleabane has become somewhat of a thug and I have to pull up loads of seedlings. Most of the geraniums have come to an end now except for Rozanne, which is sterile so keeps on flowering. My Fuchsia magellanica (I think) was a beauty a couple of months ago, but I have now discovered it has fuchsia gall mite and I have had to cut off a lot of the affected stems. I will cut it back hard in September, but this is not the first year I have found it, I would hate to have to lose the plant altogether as it looks great when in flower.
Crocosmia / Montbretia are doing well, my Phlox isn’t too bad considering it is in full sun and so far my grasses have survived. Except for the Carex which rotted over this winter.
It’s quite a dilemma knowing what to grow. Some clematis are flowering well (though later than usual) others haven’t even grown.
It is difficult isn’t it, and I have to be especially careful when choosing plants for clients. I would have thought Carex is a dead cert for making it through winter but clearly not! And gosh I hope that gall mite doesn’t come anywhere near my fuchsias, how annoying!
To be fair the Carex was one of the first things I planted around the rock so two of them survived 6 or 7 years. I guess I just expect thing to last forever! I wonder if the continuous heavy rain we had meant water ran off the flat rock more.
Yes maybe, and I guess the rock impedes drainage a bit? I have Carex Everest sitting in clay, been going a few years now. They look really good in winter I find, sort of luminous in winter light.
Sage, lantana and verbena are tough plants for heat and drought in my garden.
Great choices! I love Lantana, it grew everywhere around my childhood home in Jordan, unfortunately I struggle to get them through winter here, even with protection.
My summer-surviving is the coreopsis! A real success, and full of flowers.
That photo you shared of the Verbena bonariensis looks very nice with that shed in the background. It looks like the Alps, but I assume it’s in your garden?
Coreopsis, adding that to my list! The photo is of a client’s garden where I did the planting, and the shed is actually a sauna (she has a natural pool next to it!)
Ooh ! What a good idea to built