Established penstemons, snow in summer, euphorbia Established cosmos will tolerate reasonable drought but won't do much, rock roses, erysmium, lavender The above are doing in in dry baked clay at the moment
Everything I plant has to be drought tolerant, or be able to cope with blazing sun so long as it gets sufficient water. Top drought performers for me are basically anything from the Laminaceae family, especially Salvia Greggi. But Perovskia and Rosemary can go the longest without water. The lavender called Dutch Lavender here, L x Intermedia, I think, is planted in roundabouts and left to its own devices. There is a very pretty pale lemon helianthemum that grows wild in the more untamed parts of my patch so that must be pretty tough too.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
The nepetas all do Ok for me, but one of my favourites in my dry, sandy Norfolk garden is lupin chamisonnis ('silver fleece or silver cloak' I think), a small tree lupin with lilac and white flowers, which forms quite a large lowish mound of small grey/blue lupin type leaves, flowers abundantly and seems to be able to tolerate any amount of drought. A friend has just rung me to say it's doing Ok in a dry spot in her sussex clay, but that the young plant needed protection from her voracious slugs and snails. Here's a pic of it doing its thing last year in the gravel garden.
Wow!... think I might need a new border lol! Some great suggestions, thank you! Josusa47 that is so kind- I would love some it’s lovely, thanks so much!
Send me your address in a PM and I'll pop a few sprigs in the post.
It's escholzia (that might not be how to spell it) or Californian poppy 'ivory castle'. Annual, also drought tolerant, and will seed itself profusely if it likes you. The orange version is more common but I don't like the colour.
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Established cosmos will tolerate reasonable drought but won't do much, rock roses, erysmium, lavender
The above are doing in in dry baked clay at the moment