Plants from Dry Places

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Plants from Dry Places

All plants need water to live, but some have adapted to survive extreme water shortages.

These survival strategies are reflected in their shape, feel & smell. Look for these features to fine good plants for a water-wise garden.

Losing less: leaf adaptations

All plants lose water through their leaves. Lots of water can escape from the large, floppy leaves of a “normal” plant. In most drought-tolerant plants though, the size, shape or texture of leaves are modified to reduce water loss.

Small, tough leaves lose much less water than large, floppy leaves.

Narrow, feathery or needle-like leaves have less surface area through which water can evaporate.

Hairy leaves

Many plants reflect strong sunlight and protect the leaves from drying winds.

Waxy leaves help to stop water loss.

No leaves! Some plants have tiny or even no leaves and just have green stems.

Avoidance tactics

Some plants have life cycles that avoid summer drought. One solution is to die down and survive as underground storage organs such as bulbs.

Other plants (the annuals) grow, flower, set seed & die in just a few months. Only their seeds survive to ensure the next generation of plants.

Storage solutions

Succulent (fleshy) plants store water in leaves and stems so they can survive long droughts.

Defence strategies

Many plants that live in dry places have strongly-scented leaves to discourage grazing. We use many of these plants, for example Thyme and Rosemary, to flavour food.

An urn with a selection of plants for a hot, dry location.

This purple vine was growing near the entrance to the Dry Garden. Unfortunately, as we all know, plants are subject to Powdery Mildew when they grow in hot dry places!

Although it looks unsightly, it doesn’t seem to do much damage to the vine, as you can see in the last photo below:

Well, this then is the end of this blog. I’ve tried to include a few photos of the different means plants use to survive in unfavourable climes. Not all the plants pictured here actually live in hot, dry places, yet they have adapted to them or, at least, can survive in them if not thrive.

Although all the photos I’ve used here are from my two visits to the Cambridge Botanical Gardens in September 2010, from the Dry Garden, not all the methods used by plants are represented here.

I searched through all my photos from there but couldn’t find any for bulbs or hairy leaved plants. Perhaps there weren’t any or, more likely, I passed them unnoticed!

Hope you have found this blog to be interesting & useful. We may have to search out in the coming decade more plants for our gardens from countries that have a hotter, drier climate than we are accustomed to in the UK. The summers are forecast to become hotter & drier – if the scientists involved in predicting our future weather are right. Water will become scarcer & restrictions on its use will become more widespread. So the use of plants that require a lot less water will help to keep our gardens colourful.

Happy gardening!

• 4 Dec, 2010
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