Three Drought-Tolerant Plants For Your Summer Garden

A mixed border with Green Jewel echinaceas, the dark foliage from Bishop of Llandaff dahlias, tall verbena and white cosmos.

Like me, you probably dread the first week in July when soaring temperatures decimate our plants and overwhelm our gardens. That dread continues for weeks. What’s a gardener to do? Panic? Throw in the trowel? No need for either. There’s hope.

I’d like to share with you a wonderful combination of drought-tolerant annuals and perennials that give the garden a fighting chance against the dark forces of heat and humidity. They add structure, texture and color to an otherwise lifeless and exhausted summer border.

For the past five summers, cone flowers, cosmos and verbena have become my midsummer mantra — this deer-resistant, tolerant trio effortlessly carries the weight of the garden display through the end of September. 

I find these plants not only add color to the borders but texture and vitality in a stifling season that offers little in the way of either.

These wonderfully tolerant plants did not come to me in a midsummer night’s dream. They were recommended by the late Victoria Preston, a garden designer I interviewed for the May/June 2010 issue of Stamford magazine. She had a knack for solving for any garden problem with creativity and pizzazz.

You’ll want cone flowers (echinaceas) of varying heights and colors of course, so don’t restrict yourself to a single variety. I began with the sturdy 24" Echinacea purpurea ‘Fatal Attraction’ developed by Piet Oudolf the Dutch garden designer known for using bold drifts of perennial plants and grasses. A favorite of hummingbirds, it’s unique sturdy wine-black stems hold intense pink blooms around a golden brown central core, which flowers in late June.

In 2012, I added the breathtaking Echinacea purpurea ‘Green Jewel’ along with the darker pink and slightly taller Echinacea purpurea ‘Vintage Wine’. What’s more, these coneflowers propagate by themselves year after year making borders even more bountiful.

You will want to add Cosmos ‘Sonata White’ for non-stop summer blooming. Being an annual, it requires replanting each year. The same holds true for Verbena Bonariensis or tall verbena (also known as verbane) as its 3-4 foot sheer purple veil hovers above the border, making it an ideal summer staple.  

Finally, I dotted the borders with bright red blooms of the dahlia "Bishop of Llandaf." Its dark foliage serves as a dramatic foil for green foliage and chartreuse petals of ‘Green Jewel’ for a colorful combination of plants that will not only survive the heat but will bring a needed boost to the summer border. Think of this combination as a refreshing, midsummer elixir for the garden.


Gerard Pampalone

I am not a professional garden designer, landscape architect or horticulturalist. I am, for the most part, self-taught.

I don’t garden for a living, I live for gardening.

I came to gardening late in life, so I am making up for lost time.

I hope to share my insights, resources, and gardening experiences. My aim is to educate, enlighten and inspire gardeners to take chances, break new ground, dig deeper and stretch themselves.

As seen in:

Westport Magazine, July 2007
athome Magazine, March/April 2008

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