How to grow a drought-tolerant garden
Four quick tips for a garden that isn't shrivelled and dead by February
Good afternoon, and welcome to the trembling, shimmering heat haze of summer.
Well, ok, technically we have one week left of spring, but the weather seems to have decided in the last two days that spring is already so last season.
The sky is clear and blue, and the sunshine is so strong it feels almost acidic. The soil is making its yearly pilgrimage back to sand. The earthworms are in hiding, the spinach has wilted and the mustard greens, covered in crisp brown pods, rattle like maracas in the afternoon’s hot breath.
Summer in an Australian garden can be beautiful, or it can be deadly. Usually it’s a bit of both.
Let’s try to address the deadly part.
How hot is too hot for a garden?
At 30˚C, plants’ rate of photosynthesis starts to drop. At 40˚C, photosynthesis takes a nosedive and plants effectively shut down, entering a state of temporary heat-induced dormancy. I know ‘heat-induced dormancy’ sounds scary, but it doesn’t mean your plants are definitely going to die. It’s a protective mechanism and many plants will recover once the weather cools. But there’s no denying these are tricky growing conditions.
Just like us, most plants struggle in extreme temperatures. And once the temperature goes above a certain threshold there’s not a lot you can do for your plants, no matter how good you are at gardening. We can’t change plants’ cellular processes and we can’t change the weather (although, you know, we definitely COULD curb our CO2 emissions, demand a carbon tax and generally heed the warning cries of thousands of climate scientists). And yet, so often heatwaves leave us feeling like we’ve failed in some way. That we’ve let our plants down, that we aren't diligent enough, that we’ve somehow screwed up.
The frustrating reality is that gardening through summer in Australia can be a very dispiriting experience, and it’s the time when the most people throw their arms up in despair, turn off the hose, flick on the aircon and generally give up on their gardens. It’s totally understandable. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
First things’s first - if the plants in your garden are already starting to wilt in the midday sun, don’t worry and don’t blame yourself. Perth is a ridiculous place to try to grow a garden. I have heard from countless people who move from Perth to other regions, and everything the throw in their new gardens thrives. I’ve also heard from stressed and scandalised people who have recently arrived on our sandy shores and are struggling to keep anything alive. Sure, it’s hot in other parts of the world. Sure, there are dry places, sandy places and places with long summers and nutrient-depleted soils…but we have ALL OF THOSE THINGS ALL AT ONCE! Plus water bans, shot hole borers and a government that is seemingly allergic to adding trees to new suburbs. It’s a lot.
If the next three months of heat and drought get you down, please remember this: no matter what happens, autumn rains and thunderstorms are coming. The worst mistake we make as Perth gardeners is putting in all our time and emotional energy into gardening at the hardest time of the year, and abandoning our gardens for the other (mils, wet, cool, sunny, glorious) nine months of the year.
For this, I blame England! We keep acting as though the English seasons are our seasons, and they’re just not. There’s a reason Gardeners’ World breaks over winter - the can’t grow anything! They have inches of snow and days that last five minutes. Our winters are sunny, with (usually) enough rain that seeds readily germinate in our soils. There is so, so much we can grow all year round, and it is a terrible wasted opportunity to forget to enjoy your garden over winter. What’s more, when you know that you have been enjoying your garden all year, it takes a lot of the pressure off keeping it perfect and happy through summer. You can afford to drop your standards, knowing that you’ll pick it all back up again once the weather decides to play nice.
So, no matter what the next few months bring, do not despair, and do not give up! Or if you do give up, please only give up very briefly. Until, say, March or early April. It’s hot now, but before you know it the late-summer storms will be rolling in over the ocean, the heavens will open and you’ll get the chance to start again.
And when you do start again, I suggest you employ a different strategy.
Gardening should be fun. And when it’s not, that’s a sign something needs to change. So, if you’re sick to death of racing outside to hand water at 6am every morning though summer, if you’re done with plants withering to a crisp before your eyes and a garden that enters autumn looking like a brittle martian landscape, you might just need to skew the odds a little further in your favour.
You might just need to grow a dry-ish garden.
What is a dry-ish garden?
A dry-ish garden is my version of a drought tolerant or ‘dry’ garden, because, basically, proper ‘dry gardens’ are no fun and they bum me out.
Ok, that’s not really true.
There are plenty of lovely drought tolerant, ‘dry’ gardens - gardens that need little or no water to survive and are typically filled with succulents, stone and hard landscaping, or native grasses, trees and wood chips. They can be well designed, interesting and beautiful spaces, and it’s a good thing - a great thing - that people are increasingly adopting garden styles that prioritise water conservation. But unless you’re super into that exact style, you might find it hard to get excited about growing a 100% dry garden. I certainly did.
My main issue with dry gardens is that they just feel so damn…dry. Like the way the roof of your mouth feels when you wake up hungover. Like sand in your eyes or dust in your throat. Not my jam.
Where I’ve settled is somewhere in the middle.
It’s not low maintenance, it’s not high maintenance its just… unfussy. It’s chilled. It’s casual. It’s easy-going. Let’s call it a dry-ish garden; a semi-parched paradise. It still needs to be irrigated, but it’s no delicate little snowflake. You water it - a bit - and you double down on soil improvement. You fill it with tough, drought tolerant plants and, in return for your efforts, you get a garden that feels lush, cool and leafy. After all, if you’re anything like me you don’t want to stop gardening entirely (where’s the fun in that?) so you don’t need a garden that requires absolutely zero effort on your part. You’d just like to ease the burden a little from December through February.
For the record, I harbour no ill-will towards ‘Waterwise’ gardens. In fact, I think they are a very sensible option for many people and a hell of a lot better than water guzzling lawns. But it’s a common misconception I hear all the time from Perth gardeners that if you live in WA (or any other hot, dry part of our continent) that the ‘Waterwise style’ of garden is your only option. That you can’t grow a cottage garden, or have a veggie garden that makes it through summer.
The problem with thinking this way is that if you’re not passionate about growing an all-native or all-succulent garden you may never get excited enough about your garden to really invest time, money or effort in it in the first place. If the goal is to rebuild insect populations, to get excited about eating seasonal produce or encourage more people to get outside in the fresh air with their hands in the soil, then I believe we need to make the love of gardening our first priority.
So, if you’ve always wanted a cottage-style garden, if you want to be surrounded by flowers (not just cacti) and if you want to eat fresh produce out of your own backyard, here are four tips for growing a dry…ish garden.
How to grow a dry-ish garden
Choose the right plants
The first rule of thumb for growing a dry-ish garden that is well adapted to our climate is to look at what grows in locations around the world with similar climates. Think Spain, Italy, Morocco, South Africa and California. These regions have hot, dry summers and mild winters (like Perth) so their native plants are reasonably well adapted to the conditions we have here.
Avoid plants that prefer to grow in places with cooler or wetter weather (you don’t need English plants to create an English cottage garden; you can get away just fine with plants from other regions - the trick to creating a cottage style garden is to plant a garden that rambles, is filled with flowers and overflowing borders).
Improve your soil
The next trick is to make sure - before you do any planting at all - that you have thoroughly enriched your soil and improved its ability to retain moisture. Healthy soil holds onto water longer (especially when it’s well mulched), meaning you have a little extra wiggle room on hot days before your garden turns into a desert. If you need some help getting your soil into a better state, check out this blog post for my easy guide to soil improvement.
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Plant trees
Next, if you want to give your garden a better chance of surviving hot, dry periods, you’ll need trees. Trees planted in the right location can provide much-needed afternoon shade and help cool your garden environment generally. And, once established, many can go long spells without water, making them perfect for a partially parched patch. You can check out a list of every tree I’m growing in our garden here.
Plant densely
Finally, no matter what you plant, plant densely.
Plants haven’t evolved to grow as solitary islands in a sea of empty soil and they do best when grown near other plants. Having a (reasonably) densely planted garden helps to attract a wider variety of insects and other wildlife to your patch (which can help with ‘pest’ control), it reduces weeds, and it also shields your soil from the hot summer sunshine, helping keep the soil (and the beneficial microbes that live within it) moist, shady and healthy for longer.
One caveat here is that if you are planting seedlings for veggies that will eventually grow quite large (e.g., zucchinis, broccoli, tomatoes) you want to give them room to spread out. In this case, I help protect the soil and lock in moisture with a thick layer of lupin mulch.
Thank you for reading! See you next time for more Lo fi life!
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Let’s hope this summer doesn’t last until winter, like last year! 😂ðŸ˜
Ah I hadn't thought about plant density to cope with heat before!