Even in temperate areas, climate change is rapidly forcing us to recalibrate what we grow and how we grow it. For many of us who are dealing with endless heatwaves and drought, that means choosing resilient plants that don’t need cosseting or regular irrigation and can survive baking hot summers and low rainfall. (In many cases, these plants need to be able to cope with cold winters, too.)
We’ve rounded up some of our favorite tough, hot garden go-tos.
Photography by Clare Coulson unless otherwise noted.
Above: Most salvias are drought-tolerant and many are hardy, too. Salvia nemorosa varieties offer fantastic presence in borders with their spires of intensely colorful flowers. ‘Caradonna’ is a garden stalwart, with deep indigo flowers on strong stems that will associate well with roses, grasses, and most other perennials. If cut back it will also re-flower later in the season.
Above: If you need vertical structure, it’s hard to beat Calamagrostis x acutiflora (feather reed grass), which flowers earlier than many other grasses and will maintain its structure through winter, making it an incredibly useful plant to design with. Here, A wall of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ acts as a buffer around a swimming pool in a London garden. Photograph by Clare Coulson, from Garden Visit: At Home with Author Catherine Horwood in a Suffolk Village.
Above: Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’, at the foreground of this garden, makes a fantastic feature plant at the height of summer with its arching silvery stems smothered in the most beautiful, almost iridescent blue flowers. When mature it looks great as a clump of one or two plants through a border but can also be highly effective as a “river” against clipped evergreens. Old stems can be cut down to a permanent framework each spring. Photograph by Claire Takacs.
Peruvian Lily
Above: The Peruvian lily, alstroemeria, adds pops of color to the dry garden at Beth Chatto in Essex. Most commonly thought of as a cut flower plant as it’s an all too common addition in flower bouquets, alstroemeria can light up borders during the peak summer months. Tall stems are topped with veined flowers in delicious hues.
Above: Verbena bonariensis is one of the most used of the verbena family, providing tall stems punctuated with clusters of tiny purple flowers that are beloved by bees and especially by butterflies. It’s incredibly drought-tolerant—as are other popular and much shorter species such as V. hastata and V. rigida. It will also readily self-seed, providing lots of free plants.
