A few weeks ago I asked for your input on the plants in your garden that best weathered our hot and dry summer, your watering routine and your approach to gardening in those weather extremes. Here's a brief summary of your input:
1. Mulch, mulch mulch-was a big factor in most gardens keeping the soil cooler and helping to retain moisture.
2. Drip irrigation was the water wise way to go in both ornamental and vegetable gardens.
3. Perennial plants: No surprise that most herbs did well (sage, thyme, oregano) and even basil prospered, in light shade, with minimal watering.
Echinacea, day lilies, phlox, russian sage, caryopteris, scabiosa, rudbeckia, shasta daisies and hollyhocks looked best. Ornamental grasses, usually very drought tolerant, expressed their heat/water stress with brown tips on the blades.
Hostas and astilbes became brown and crispy and many opted to cut the unsightly plants to the ground.
3. Annuals: Blue salvia, gomphrena, geraniums, snapdragons, fuschia, petunias and, surprisingly, wax begonias did well.
4. Shrubs: Weigelia, purple smoke bush, golden privet, red and yellow twig dogwoods and needle evergreens looked fine but the stars, in my garden, were the 'Knockout Roses' which bloomed, non-stop, with no, and I do mean 'no', supplemental water!
Hydrangeas were impacted most in spite of growing in shade and the leaves of Viburnums drooped in the heat of the day.
This list is by no means complete but merely a sampling of your response to my request. The true test of the resilience of our garden plants will be next Spring when we find out which ones really survived the additional stress of a New England winter.
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