To continue our Earth Day/Week “cross-pollination” celebration, here’s guest blogger Jodi Torpey, from over at Western Gardeners. Yesterday, we tackled water gardens. Today, Jodi’s got the scoop on how to make a water-free garden. Thanks, Jodi!
I grew up in part of Colorado that’s known for its prairie plants like cacti and yucca. But when it came time to plant my own drought-hardy garden, I ignored my prickly friends and chose an assortment of other kinds of no-water plants.
Because rainfall is sometimes scarce here, planting a no-water garden helped me balance my need for colorful blooms with the need to conserve water in my landscape. Here are just a few of the plants able to survive on meager amounts of precipitation, but still produce beautiful blooms throughout the growing season.
Moonshine yarrow (Achillea x taygenta) was my first choice for the garden. I knew this hardy perennial wouldn’t let me down with its silver-grey leaves topped by bright yellow flowers in spring.
I also planted two horned poppies (Glaucium corniculatum) because even though the brilliant scarlet-orange flowers look delicate, this is one tough plant. The poppies bloom in early summer and eventually form long horn-shaped seed pods. Even when these aren’t in bloom, I enjoy their large mounds of fringed foliage.
A variety of Veronicas makes a blooming ground cover with grey-to-green foliage and tiny blue flowers. Speedwell (Veronica armena), Turkish Veronica, (Veronica liwanensis) and Wooly Veronica (Veronic pectinata) have grown together to form one dense mat.
A no-water garden wouldn’t be complete without several varieties of salvia. Salvia cyanescens is my favorite with its fuzzy silvery-green foliage and small lavender-blue flowers that sway on tall stems. This salvia blooms in early summer and bees and butterflies flock to it.
I watered the plants thoroughly before planting and then again once they were in the ground. I also placed large rocks close to the plants to help conserve moisture in the soil and covered the bed with a layer of mulch.
Now, even when Mother Nature decides to be stingy with the precipitation, my no-water garden continues to grow, bloom and thrive at a mile high.
Jodi Torpey is a Denver-based garden writer, master gardener and nonfiction author. Read more of Jodi’s writing at www.WesternGardeners.com or follow her on Twitter (@WesternGardener).
Trust me if you don’t read it but only read the title it sounds very very weird.