Drought – Survivors & Sacrifices

We may have had some welcome rain over the past week but the drought conditions continue in my garden. The soil is still bone dry just a few inches below the surface and it’s going to take weeks to get water levels back to where they should be. It’s been a challenging summer for gardeners and I’m probably not the only one who had to make difficult decisions about what to save and what to sacrifice.

We are lucky not to have a hosepipe ban in our part of the Cotswolds but I don’t like using mains water on plants unless absolutely necessary. However, the water butts – I have several – ran out some weeks ago. We did save some grey water but nowhere near enough. Also, it’s a big garden and there’s only so much watering by hand you can do each evening.

So, decisions had to be made about which plants to save and which to sacrifice.

Drought – the Survivors

It was far easier than I feared. Top of the survivors list were the newly planted trees and shrubs. Yet, as the weeks of heat went on, I had to add mature trees and shrubs to the watering rota as things that coped fine with last year’s dry summer, such as berberis and contoneaster, started to show signs of stress. Many of these have taken years to make any real size and their structure would be a big loss to the garden.

Next on the list were fruit and vegetable plants – this took up a lot of our time. Despite mulching the beds with manure early in the year to improve the soil, extra water was needed to get things through. Even then, it’s been a poor year for beans not because the plants have shrivelled but due to the fact temperatures were too high for runners to set fruit. Tomatoes have also been slow to develop and are only just fruiting albeit still very slow to ripen. Surprisingly, it’s been a bumper year for beetroot.

As for the rest of the flower beds, I prioritised anything newly planted – there wasn’t much – and anything with a sentimental value. I’d put in a couple of Geranium ‘Patricia’, my Mum’s name, and had a few plants from her garden. They got the water.

Of course, there have been things that have thrived without any extra attention. The usual suspects revelled in the heat even on my sandy soil. Perovskia (I still can’t think of it as salvia), echinops, campsis, achillea, catanache and eryngium have been adding some welcome colour. The canna was always going to be ok as it’s in a pot but we’ve never had as many blooms. (You can read about plants that cope with drought here.)

There have been some surprises though. Hylotelephium, or sedum, has sailed through, Geranium ‘Rozanne’ has lived up to her bullet-proof reputation and what a year for roses! I always thought they were a mistake on my dry soil, prone to blackspot and not really doing their best. This year, they have been full of bloom with ‘Peach Melba’ on its third flush. Admittedly, we did water them but not as much as other things.

Drought – the Sacrifices

Letting plants die before your eyes is never easy but sacrifices had to be made. Self-sown violets, ajuga that provided ground cover in one border, hemerocallis – though not the special ‘Go, Jenna, Go’, which was a gift – some of the more common geraniums have all been abandoned.

What I hadn’t expected was to be letting golden marjoram go. This surrounds a container in the veg garden and I have never, ever watered it not even in last year’s dry summer. For the first time, it started to go brown, crispy and die back. I am hoping that now we are getting rain, cutting it back will encourage new growth from the bottom. We shall see.

Generally, things that were sacrificed were those plants that can be easily replaced either because they aren’t expensive or are readily available. It simply wasn’t worth using time and water on them.

What it has done is leave large gaps in the borders and question marks over some of the plants. Penstemon, something I love, have not coped well and are still alive only thanks to the occassional can of water. Are they worth persevering with? I’m not sure.

Likewise, phlox has really struggled in the borders but not in the shadier cutting bed. It was a plant – name unknown – that came from my parents’ garden as a piece Dad divided. I think it will be cosseted in the cutting bed but I think its days in the borders are over.

Japanese anemones have all but disappeared and I’m not sure about replanting.

Of course, as we get rain, so some things may reappear if they’ve merely retreated underground to wait out the drought. There is hope.

Naturally, among the things that look happiest are bindweed and horsetail. Nothing seems to get those two down.

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