Felder's Weather-Proof Garden

This summer and fall have been garden-brutal weatherwise. I lost several plants I once touted as unkillable; you know it is unusual weather when even the nandina suffers.

Now, tiring of replanting what won't survive on its own with my hit-or-miss maintenance, I'm retooling for new weather realities. Instead of redoing the same things year after year, I am leaning into one of my main coping mottoes, "If you can't fix it, flee it, or fight it, flow with it."

I am looking for plants that can take our unusual combination of heat, all-night humidity, heavy rains followed by weeks and months without rain, and sudden hard freezes. It's daunting.

Case in point: The garden I have had in the back of my truck for nearly forty years. It normally brims with small shrubs, perennials, and seasonal annuals, all which can normally take the harsh conditions in a large pot with little or no care. I prided myself on having winnowed out all but the toughest. But this summer, most of it gave up its ghost - the combination of intense heat and months with no rain pushed it over the edge.

So, I am refitting it for what I expect to be normal from here on. Not getting into climate change, just being practical for someone who appreciates all-year garden benefits but is gone months at a time with nobody to water or cover plants.

To start with, I trekked out west to see what is being grown in no-water "xeriscape" gardens from Oklahoma City and Tulsa, down to Fort Worth, Dallas, and San Antonio. I was relieved to see a lot of familiar garden plants doing quite well in an even harsher climate, including Mexican petunia, rosemary, asters, iris, shrub roses, perennial salvias, purple heart (a running groundcover), and more.

And I fell for some that are already starting to show up in Mississippi gardens such as vitex, variegated dwarf yucca and Texas sage, a medium-size shrub with gray leaves and delicate pink flowers. Those are all tough enough to thrive even in cemeteries, whose growing conditions are pretty much like my own home garden - low maintenance and no watering from a hose.

This week I tackled one of my hardest show gardens, the one planted in a low, wide container shoved up against the cab of my antique pickup truck. Countless thousands of gardeners have seen me drive up to libraries, garden club and Master Gardener meetings, and other lecture venues, proving that it's possible to have a nice garden all year in a big pot, even in the back of a truck.

Along with dwarf nandina, striped Liriope, rosemary, trailing oregano, groundcover juniper, and other evergreen beauties, I planted durable summer and winter flowers. In the spring I went with dwarf zinnias, basil, zesty-hot ornamental peppers, and marigolds, swapped out in the fall with blue kale, violas, pansies, dusty miller, and parsley. Looked good all year, plus I had herbs for kitchen use.

Most of that came to a crispy halt this summer; however, instead of replanting hopefully, with more of the same, I tore it all out and started afresh with plants I think will be better suited going forward.

Now it has dwarf agaves, variegated soft-tip yuccas, golden and other trailing sedums, thornless prickly pear cactus, cascading rosemary, cemetery white iris, spreading juniper, and hardy perennial blue salvias and gaura. I accessorized with driftwood, stones, and a handful of wreaths made from rusty barbed wire.

Looks like a desert scene, with flowers. Should take whatever the climate throws at it from here on.