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What has survived in your garden with minimal or no watering?

(102 Posts)
MaizieD Thu 30-Jul-26 10:57:52

I had a prowl round my garden this morning. I have done very little watering over the past few weeks, apart from concentrating on a very few newly planted items.

All the shrubs in soil are absolutely fine, buddleia, roses, box, lavender, rosemary, lonicera and cornus.

Herbaceous plants which are thriving are peony, sedum spectabile, verbena bonariensis, lychnis, geraniums, hollyhocks, stachys (lambs ears) thymes. crocosmia and the dreaded japanese anemones (wish I could kill them grin) there are a few more but I won't bore you with a massive list.

Dead and dying? Alstroemeria and aquilegia. I'm quite happy about these as the alstroemeria spreads too much and is hard to dig out and the aquilegia are rampant self seeders.

If we're going to have these (long predicted) hot and dry summers, along with hosepipe bans, more in the future it's good to know what is worth planting and what to avoid.

I do have plants in pots which I have watered because they've no chance of sending their roots to seek out deeper moist soil so I obviously haven't included them

AskAlice Thu 06-Aug-26 00:00:10

I'm definitely going to have a re-think about what I grow in my borders. Erigeron (is that the Mexican daisy-type flower?) is one on my to-buy list for ground cover. My poor geums are frazzled, the penstemons are looking very poorly. What has done well are the Gaura, no water for weeks and blooming like mad. Rosemary is also coping well, as are the roses (although the second flush of flowers has gone over very quickly.)

The other stars in the borders are the salvias. And the bees love them!