My perennial bushes are so stressed due to this current drought. For example: Verbena snowflake in summer, Panniculata unique, lilacs, little lamby, and azaleas.

I seem to be losing the battle against the heat this summer. I am starting to see dead leaves, and branches and some of my perennials. Should I cut off the dead limbs and some of the green growth on top to help the bush conserve strength during the heat? Or will that stress it more?

If the "dead" parts are dry and crispy, you can cut them off, but the plant doesn't care because they really are dead to them. Sometimes branches will drop leaves, but the twigs stay supple (and therefore alive). These will likely leaf out again with rains or next year.

When leaves die naturally, they turn yellow (or whatever their natural fall color is) before they turn brown, as opposed to immediate brown. As they naturally go the plant will extract certain nutrients for use in the rest of the plant. It's not a big deal, and that would stop me from trimming for other reasons, but to compensate for drought, after the drought has taken a tole, that doesn't work.

I have a similar concern, but about perennial flowers instead of bushes. In a typical growing season, I leave my sunflowers mostly untouched to provide seeds for goldfinch and other small birds. This year, of course, that seems very unlikely -- my community is in severe drought and all outdoor watering has been banned for months. My small front yard looks completely untended and although I am definitely not a fussy gardener, it's really ugly. If I cut back the dried stalks, do you think there might be flowers next year? Thanks.

It's the same. Dried stalks that are dry and crispy are dead, and they are dead to the plant, too. It's like your hair. Inside your skin, it was alive in the hair follicles, but now it is dead. Do you (or your body) physically care if it is cut off or not? No. We do it because of aesthetics: it looks better.

During droughts, especially, the soil heats up. This is not just because of the excessive heat, but even more because there is less foliage to shade the soil and keep the temps from baking. Anything that will shade the soil and/or slow evaporation of moisture, mulch, for instance, will be extremely beneficial.