After three years of drought here in California, combined with my efforts to conserve water (both because it's an important civic responsibility and because I can't face another $400 water bill). I've learned some lessons.
1. Camellias are my new best friends. I have a couple of dozen camellias, mostly unidentified. A few came with the house when I bought it, others were given to me by neighbors thinning out their own gardens, and some were purchased by me. Most of them are planted in the shade, but some are in full sun. All of them, without exception, look as good after three years of drought as they did before. This applies to every single camellia in my garden, whether they're in full shade, dappled shade, or full sun. They're watered only once a week, and they are the only plants that still show no ill traces of these years of drought and my extremely stingy watering practices.
2. I should never buy another own-root rose. My roses displayed mixed reactions to the drought. The established grafted roses look the best, but then they always did. The grafted roses I bought last year and the year before show some signs of stress, but they'll recover when the rains start in winter. The own-root roses that always took extra loving care have almost disappeared. I've dug some of them up, reassigning the valuable real estate they were occupying, and I'll probably dig more of them up. As long as some nurseries are still carrying grafted roses, there's no point in trying to coax an own-root hybrid tea or grandiflora to produce more than a few isolated blooms each year. Each year I tell myself: "No more own-root roses!" Then I'm charmed by the beautiful blooms on some own-root nursery's website, and I relent. This year I think I finally will follow my own advice.
3. Some supposedly drought-tolerant plants obviously aren't. Last year I invested heavily in salvias, for instance, but more than half of them melted away as soon as I stopped watering them daily and switched to a twice-weekly regimen. The dozens of heucheras I bought last year are almost gone, and so are the ones that had been growing happily in the shade for years. I don't have a single "drought-tolerant" coreopsis left either. I won't be buying any more of these plants..
4. I have to change my buying habits. Even if this winter ends the current drought, there will be more. California is never going to get as much precipitation as some plants need. My rhododendrons and azaleas, many of which I've had for 25-30 years, have suffered irreversible damage from the drought. I'll be replacing many of them and the heucheras in the shady parts of my garden with camellias, hydrangeas, and epimediums, all of which require less water. The salvias and other water hogs in the sunny spots will be replaced by pelargoniums, euphorbias, and various wildflowers.
5. Drought reduces the insect population dramatically. I didn't see a single aphid this year, and I saw very few sowbugs and earwigs. This was great news for the roses and clematises. Other pests were also less evident. There weren't many slugs or snails, so the irises and primroses were happy. Oddly, although there were hardly any wasps this year, there seemed to be more honeybees than ever. My garden is usually full of orb spiders and other garden spiders in late summer and fall, but I haven't seen a single spider this year. I know that the sudden absence of any species is not a good sign, but it's such a pleasure to stride fearlessly into any part of the garden with no fear of walking face-first into a big cobweb.
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| Mine is a different story by Calif_Sue | Dec 4, 2015 10:11 PM | 13 |
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