Hit the Dirt; Surviving Draught

Well this is Dave Weigel for hit the dirt. Today I want to talk about plants that will survive the drought conditions that we've seen to get into every summer here on the coast of Maine. The recent period of rain we've had sort of broken almost a month long drought and many of the plants you'll see in gardens are just shriveling and curling and dying from the heat and the lack of water but if you select your plants carefully and work with things that are willing to put up with dry soil conditions you can still get through the summer heat ways with a minimum of watering and and maintenance except for new plantings of course any time you put a new plant in the ground you can expect to just sink it go away and leave it and think it's not going to die. So the first plant that will do real well without a lot of attention is a juniper. There are many different types of junipers ranging from native Juniper's like Bar Harbor and common Juniper's to some of the more exotic Juniper's that can be pruned or to mentally like the head sea Juniper. They all grow well and seeing the soil conditions which are quite prevalent in

Maine. None of them are like heavy clay don't play them in heavy soils and and once you get a juniper established it's going to be there pretty much for the rest of your life. So and many do nippers are quite aggressive So if you plant them give them plenty of room to grow and spread Don't enter plant. Other things in between them that the juniper are going to creep into and swallow up. Another plant that does a real well in dry conditions as Potentilla is basically a desert plant. That's very common in the southwest and they're very effective in masses the white ones and some of the orange ish ones are very beautiful and the yellow ones are certainly more common and very popular Barberries are another plant that will take dry soil conditions and do well in. On weather without much rain they readily Barberries are great contrast and glance they look really good. Planted with Juniper's Hawthorne's are one of my favorite trees that there is a native type Paul Thorn and many of the cultivated varieties of beautiful flowers and most of them have thorns hence the

name but they have glossy leaves that seem to really do well in hot summers I planted several for some of my clients last year that seem to fare much better than all the birches and mountain ash and other trees in the saying dry site. Another plant that is beautiful that always does well in dry conditions are honeysuckle Vining or the Shrub type honeysuckle. The Vining honeysuckles are particularly beautiful because they bloom for a long period of time in the summer in the pink or the orange type are both very ornamental they grow fast. They take a little care and they do real well on the coast to me baby areas another plant that will grow when in dry soil conditions you find them growing in the wild on a rocky ledge isn't within an inch or two inches of soil very little to hold onto clinging to top of rock so you would expect that they would do well in conditions where the weather is a real cooperative. And of course one of my favorite plants of the Rigaud Soros

those of the recently planted all a big mass on a bank near the shore that I just put in in late May and I haven't bothered to take the host to him yet this year and a few of them are struggling but overall they've done really well with a very minimum amount of attention. Another failsafe plant is the viburnum. They're very shade tolerant. And of course if you want to garden to do well with without a lot of watering it helps if it gets a little bit a shade to begin with and that most of the types of Viburnum have white flowers many of them have ornamental berries. Several of them the viburnum dentate I'm one of my favorite native shrubs is very attractive to birds. And they are virtually a fail safe play and if you want a garden that's going to grow well without a lot of attention. There again start with Viburnums. And there are certain perennials that are also very good in dry soil conditions as you arrows which are. Related to the common roadside year all the white ones we see where there are many newer ones the

red ones and yellow ones and the red ones are very interesting because as the flowers age they turn to lighter shade so they'll start with like a paprika colored flower and then as they age to a softer pink you get two three four different tones of collar within the same grouping of plant and it's a very beautiful. Asters will do well without a whole lot of water. So RAS DMR snow and Summers a plant that will grow in the straight saying in economics or thistles or another plant that don't need very much attention in their era. There are many types that aren't we. People think of thistles as like the prickers that you step on in the grass where there are many ornamental types that are very beautiful have purple globe flowers. And then the last plant will talk about our day lilies which are pretty much a failsafe Stayner plant the size the orange wild ones that we see grow everywhere there are just literally hundreds and thousands of varieties that have been bred throughout the United States and foreign countries that are available

through the mail or your local nursery. So think about these hot days of summer and as you play in your garden do a little research and if you don't have a lot of water in your well to your plants very carefully. This is Dave Weigel here at the desert. Talk to you later.