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Environmental Issues By Alan J Hartley |
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Plants for Dry Areas. |
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With our changing climate, that seems to be getting warmer and drier all the time here in the UK, planting your garden to fill it with flowers and bright green leaves in the Summer is not as straight forward as it used to be.
Some plants have the ability to store water in their leaves, such as Succulent type plants including Aloes, Agaves and Sedums. Alpine plants often have to grow in very harsh conditions that may also include a shortage of water at times. Sometimes this is due to low rainfall and sometimes due to the fact that many grow in the tiniest dusting of soil between the rocks that simply can’t hold on to much of the little water it gets. Other plants such as many Annuals will grow quickly in a short wet spell before flowering as the ground dries up again. This can easily be seen from pictures of “Deserts in bloom,” where a brief heavy rainfall causes the dormant seeds of Annual plants to germinate, grow and quickly flower.
Many plants cope with a lack of regular
rain by simply growing slowly and having tough leaves instead of the
soft leaves that we normally see on most native British plants. Bay
Trees are a good example of this, which, although they come from warmer
climes are still relatively hardy with our milder Winters. Coupled
with tougher leaves some plants change the colour of their foliage to a
silver hue to reflect the suns rays and others develop hairs to help
keep them cool. This can be seen in many herbaceous border type plants
such Stachys or Lambs Tails and Cineraria Maritima. (Do not confuse
plants with silver foliage with plants having golden foliage as they
need partial shade not sun.) |
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All
plants need water to grow, but in varying amounts and at different times
of the year. Bulbs are perhaps the most obvious plants to illustrate
this for instance as they are often dormant in the ground for several
months after flowering and if they get too wet during this period many
will rot.
Some plants make the most of limited water
supplies in other ways such as by sending down deep roots to tap into
water that is unreachable by many other plants. The Linseed Oil plant is
a good example of this, growing where no other plants can eke out a
living. It is
quite surprising how many trees and shrubs can tolerate dry and poor
conditions because of this. Buddleias are perhaps the best example,
because they can often be seen growing wild along railway tracks and
amongst the rubble on sites where old buildings have fallen down and
nothing much else will grow.