The dry and mighty garden

As we adapt our gardens to a more volatile climate, Alan Titchmarsh reveals how to create a drought-tolerant plot and picks his top plant performers

- Alan Titchmarsh

Most of us have a patch of dusty earth - even those of us who garden on what is diplomatically called 'stiff' soil. It may be open to drying winds and baking sunshine and, as a result, it will be capable of being transformed into a dustbowl with remarkable rapidity once the endless spring rains are nothing but a memory.

Alternatively, the patch of earth may be shaded but sucked dry of moisture by a dense network of tree roots. Either way, all is not lost. The secret (which is obvious when you come to think of it) is to grow plants that are naturally suited to dry soils and limited supplies of moisture. They do exist and they are not all natives of the Sahara Desert.

Since Beth Chatto wrote her definitive book The Dry Garden back in 1978, our climate has continued to be volatile. We have endured wetter springs and milder winters, which has necessitated a reappraisal of those plants that are deemed suitable for periodically dry soils. Not only must they be tolerant of a lack of moisture in summer, but they must also be able to withstand greater extremes of moisture content in terms of winter wet.

Overseas influences

Plants from arid countries can often cope with low temperatures in winter, as long as they are not subjected to waterlogging at the roots or excessively damp atmospheric conditions that are amenable to fungus diseases that can lead to rotting foliage. From this you will see that a free-draining soil, coupled with freely moving rather than stagnant air, will do much to ameliorate things and give drought-tolerant plants a better chance of survival.