One thought on trees.

You might want to consider fruit trees/shrubs that if you water also gives you food rather than trees that just give shade or look.

They also feed the wild animals, good and bad, but I enjoy the birds that glean the last of the fruit too high to reach. Migratory and locals alike visit the tops of the fruit trees for a snack.

My experience with fruit trees is that they are not as long-lived as many shade trees. Often fruit trees only live about 9 years, whereas a good oak tree may live 40-50, up to 75-100, years.

I'm fortunate that I planted pin oaks and red maples (not silver maples--they are bad trees) around 3 sides of my house many years ago. I swear it feels about 10 degrees cooler underneath them. If you want some good shade, plant those trees now--they need to be watered in the beginning, but just occasionally when they become more mature--but it will take 10-20 years to get them to a size where they will create abundant shade--so (to repeat), plant them this winter. Later, in the middle of a drought is too late to plant them.

If the excessively hot summers start coming regularly, we should probably just make up our minds to accept the fact that our roses are going to go semi-dormant in July and August and watering them to do more than keep them alive is a waste of valuable resources. Our roses will bloom again in the cooler fall, we should keep on reminding ourselves.

Kate

Must be the difference in zones, but our old citrus trees are probably about 100 years old and most of the fruit trees I am replacing are 30-50 years old. (replacing because some had grown too tall or gotten diseased in the last 15 years or so my dad could not care for them) Others did fail due to old age, but there are new varieties coming on the market constantly so it makes for a good time to update.

Our apple tree is at least 70 years old...according to old pictures. Here's a look through the different seasons :)
{{gwi:329681}}From Lavender's Garden
{{gwi:83916}}From Lavender's Garden
{{gwi:329683}}From Lavender's Garden

This a good thread Ingrid. If we have the kind of summer that I fear we might here I think that nature will tell me what to do. The plants that die shouldn't be replaced. I'll see how the roses do going dormant and hopefully coming back in the spring. I already know some things that require no water in the summer. I will have to do some attitude readjustment.

Perhaps it is due to the colder winters here in Kansas? Many fruit trees come through the winters somewhat battered by ice and snow and low temps and Nordic winds.

Kate

Kate, might be the kind of trees too.

The Washington DC Cherry trees, with some replacements are 100 years old, some of the new ones coming from 1400 year old trees as bud budwood.

Here is a link that might be useful: NPS Cherry Trees

And Washington DC is one gardening zone warmer than where I live.

Kate

Right now I'm gathering up falling leaves to put down and then I'm going to put manure and wood chips on top. Shade trees that make easy to gather leaves are so nice. The other thing you can do is plant more of the same rose that is doing well. Placing roses behind a short wall or a large rock helps so much because the roots can stay cool in summer.

Thanks for starting this thread, Ingrid. In fact I was thinking not only of resource-thrifty plants and gardening techniques, but also of attitude adjustment. I agree with your ideas.
When I started gardening here I had an idea that water was going to be the critical item, and with our dry summers and diminishing rainfall that's true, though we also have our flood-landslide years. Scrounging up organic matter also turns out to be quite a chore. I think it's scarcer here than in the U.S., and our clay is very poor in organic matter, though once adequately supplemented it takes care of itself. People who garden in Florida sand, for example, may need to amend forever--do you? I'm asking--while, if I can ever get ground well enough amended that the plants there grow vigorously, the litter and prunings from those same plants provide all the organic amendment that ground needs. Unfortunately there's not much of the garden where this happy state of affair reigns, but it's true for the escarpment in front of the house, the bed beside the house with the big climbing roses, much of the woods, and a few other places. My goal is to get the garden feeding itself. Generally I'm friends with annual grass in the beds: it grows, dies, and provide a layer of organic matter above AND below the ground, with its dead roots that I don't have to dig in. I want all the ground covered with plants busily generating organic matter. Nonetheless I anticipate that we're going to be buying bales of old hay for years to come. Digging big planting holes and heavily amending the the soil we return to them has shown itself to be a necessity.
We water plants the first year after they're planted, and little or none after that. We have one hose for the big garden and water by hand. Plants grow VERY SLOWLY here. This is part of the attitude adjustment I mentioned. However, if I dug them a good hole to start and the plants are tolerably adapted to their conditions, they hang on through all kinds of adverse conditions, not keeling over when the summer drought hits. They develop good root systems, I believe. We have deep clay they can dig themselves down into, the ground is moisture retentive, and we have 40" of average annual rainfall. All this makes dry gardening feasible. (N.b. I believe there are plants that grow in thin soil in dry climates: not everything requires clay and good annual rainfall.)
More attitude adjustment: I accept that my roses aren't going to bloom to speak of in summer, nor will much else. By the end of summer the sunny garden in fact looks like a bomb hit it. Total devastation. I stay indoors and forget the garden, rather like northern gardeners in winter, or I stay under the wisteria pergola, where I have my sansevierias and other potted plants to admire. Last summer we got busy clearing a strip of woodland of ivy and brush, and the shade down there was very enjoyable. Just a pleasant spot to be in is worth having, whether or not anything is in bloom. And good foliage and interesting plant form can be present and enjoyable even in a drought. I love the seasonal aspect of the garden, looking forward to cyclamen and the persimmon in fall, admiring dormant buds and sarcococca flowers in winter, getting thrilled by the first sweet violets at the end of February.
As always, I have more to say, but I ran out of steam. Coming up: trees.
I want to hear others' thoughts.
Melissa