My lantana looks great. I planted it last year, cut it back last fall and covered it with pansies. Most of them came back and are really going well.

my lantana, gaura, artemesia, gladioli, hardy hibiscus, blackeyed susan, butterfly bushes, yarrow, canna lilies, herbs and liriope all look good at the moment. I have only watered twice this summer so far. Somethings look worse for wear but on the whole things are looking good. I did plant mainly drought tolerant things as i know that when it gets too hot i can't be outside for long.

I have 3 vines, Sweet Autumn Clematis, cypress vine, and a pink honeysuckle, that look great. We are under a complete outside watering ban so nothing is getting watered. We have had a few light showers and one good rain in the last couple of months. My blueberries and fig bush that I planted last fall look good, too. For some reason, my centipede grass looks fantastic. Althaea, or Rose of Sharon, had to be cut down for some construction work earlier this summer and they are growing back beautifully. None of my annual flowers look very good, unfortunately.

I'm actually not doing too bad inside my fenced garden (that's where the vegetables are and on occassion, the flowers mixed within get some accidental water from the sprinkler). :-)

It's the shrub line that I planted early spring that's suffering so badly. And I've let a lot of other things go. Definitely helps you decide on next year's plantings.

Hanging in there and looking good - Lantana, blackeye susan, butterfly bush, the usuals.

Best year i have had in 15 years of growing. I added 2 bales of peat moss to the ground before I planted this year. That , along with the pine straw mulch really melp hold the moisture in. I have watered less than a dozen times this year and never had better results.

My lantana and pink phlox are the only things that really look great. The phlox was already here when we moved in and I had never grown it before. I would love to know the variety of it so I can get lots more since it is looking so good and smells good too. Most of my hostas (except Francis Williams, of course) are looking pretty good but only because I've watered them real often. My brother-in-law gave me a bunch of "marsh hibiscus" he started from seed which I now wish I had never planted because they are WATER HOGS! Surely this heat and drought won't last much longer... at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Great post! My coneflowers are looking great. My rudbeckias, sedums, goldenrod, angelonia and crocosmia are all looking good. My shade garden plants are hanging in there, too. My ferns, tricyrtis, and native gingers are looking good. I have watered this summer. I planted a new garden in the spring, and I didn't want to lose it.

I'm disappointed that my agastache gets so droopy. I thought they were supposed to be more drought tolerant.

My sedums, heucheras and loropetalum are all doing well. The roses aren't doing that much worse than they usually are at this point in the summer. The lavendar and salvia are fine.

My real worry is the trees. I am starting to see some branches dying off in the canopy around me. In the 9 years I've lived here, I think this is the 4th drought year with watering restrictions, and I do worry about the cumulative damage to the trees.

Oh my...I'm losing my mind. Not a good feeling, let me tell ya. I responded to this thread, but somehow I got mixed up and posted on another thread. Great. I can only imagine the people over on the other thread reading my comments and looking at the pictures I posted, saying, "Huh?"

Well...here's a link to that thread. Just scroll down to the first pictures loaded...I think it is the forth response, and you'll see what is still surviving in my gardens and yard. Surviving for now, that is!

Link to thread with pics of what's growing in my garden

Sheesh! I need some Ginko Biloba!!!!!!!!!
Beverly

I don't irrigate. My garden looks like *&%$#

I'm so fed up.

girlgroupgirl

Most of you Zone 7's seem to be holding up. Down here in the Savannah area, not even lantana looks good. I will say, however, my Dahlias are beautiful. They have been blooming since late June and still are covered with blooms and buds. Also, I think the Crepe Myrtles have been more beautiful than ever before. Most of my annuals and perennials have given up the ghost.

I'm with GGG, it all looks bad! Nothing but rain can undo this.

My whole yard looks crispy. The liriope, a couple of ferns and the veggies look OK. Most everything else looks like a candidate for spontaneous combustion.

It looks like we'll lose almost all of the newer trees in Grant Park. Trees Atlanta is doing a watering project in the park this weekend, but it may be too little, too late.

Brownwood Park has lost a ton of trees. Every week they cut down one or two more that have suffered. Across the street from me, a guy has a dead tree in the back (I don't really even know if he realizes it is dead). We have a huge, and I mean HUGE 70 year old Tulip tree with a massive hole in it. We can't afford to get the thing cut down right now. I'm afraid if it rains it might fall down. So sad. I love that tree when it rains it's pretty orange and green blooms.

Agave scabra, Opuntia imbricata, Dasylirion wheeleri, Yucca recurvifolia, Yucca aloifolia, Hespareloe parviflora, Hesparelo funifera.

Anybody try Xeriscaping?

Hey Alex,
I don't suppose you're going to the fall trade in ATL? I'd love some of your Hesperaloe parviflora. :)
Pam

We have a 40% chance of rain in Atlanta tomorrow night. Everyone cross their fingers and head to the car wash!

We have an enormous white oak right next to our house with a slime flux. The tree service guy said it was healthy other than that, and that if we could get some regular rain it would probably heal. I've never seen so many tree service trucks. They're everywhere, all the time. Grant Park has less shade every week.

Alex, I'm thinking of doing some more xeriscaping when we get some stone work done in the back yard.
How did you ammend your soil?
I've tried a few of the plants you mention, and some have had a hard time even in really, really well ammended soil with course sand instead of just plant materials. Other plants I grow are considered xeriscape, but it is the heat that is getting to them. It's relentless!

Hmmmm, guess that water fairie has been really good to me.
{{gwi:835045}}

If anything, my garden needs a hair cut!

Beautiful garden, Vroomp. What is the silvery plant growing in the top, right-hand corner?

I admit to having cheated a little (ok, a lot) by planting food crops in and amongst most of my ornamentals so that I could water them all at the same time. Almost every pot with a flowering bush or bulb in it also contains a tomato, pepper, herb or onion plant, and earlier in the season I had lettuce growing in every bare spot I could find. I highly recommend this technique not just so that you can cheat on watering, but because it's great to grow your own food and many food plants look beautiful.

There are a few things, however, in my yard and in our community garden that have never received a drop of supplemental water this year and still look fine. Off the top of my head, I can name these things:

lady banks roses (I'm convinced you couldn't kill these, once mature, with any kind of neglect or abuse)

climbing hydrangea (mine isn't old enough to bloom yet but it is growing fine and not drying out at all as far as I can tell, seems to still be spreading)

gardenia (planted in an extremely dry spot under a large tree where I doubt it even gets much rainfall when we have rain, but has at least a foot deep mulch, mostly leaf mold, all around it)

passionflowers (I have two kinds, the one with the startlingly beautiful purple flowers, and the one that makes the egg-shaped purple fruit but has only tiny insignificant white flowers that you have to search for if you want to see. Both are doing very, very well.)

lilies of many varieties, although I tend to plant the tall ones (4-6 feet tall)

creeping fig (another plant you can't kill once it gets past a certain age)

naked ladies or lycoris squamigera, blooming their lovely pink heads off right now (transplants from Ohio that took 2 or 3 years after moving down here to decide to bloom, but are now apparently completely acclimated)

verbena bonariensis, not only blooming without water but reseeding and growing new plants everywhere without water, which also grow to maturity and somehow bloom and reseed without any water, and so on into infinity. . .

kudzu and poison ivy, about which no more need be said.

GGG...

Most can go into red clay. The toughy is the Agave. Ground pine bark and small river stones form a berm on top of the ground. The only problem is when we have an ice storm in the winter. Then, you have to cover the plant and berm.

Hi, Alex, yes, I've been doing some xeriscapnng of shrubs and trees chosen create an enduring but still green Georgia garden, although also seduced away by so many lovely others, too. I wandered into this forum seeking the comfort of fellow suffers, but I'm bucked up by this thread and taking notes--thanks, Natalie!--and am hoping to see more coming.

In my garden, baby fringe tree, parottia, and crepe myrtles planted three months ago are doing much better than old well-established dogwoods. Two-year-old redbud also doing relatively nicely, definitely getting more. A native Cockspur hawthorn (crusgalli), a tiny baby at the foot of an old oak during the last drought, apparently can't be killed. With the branches pruned up to get the wicked thorns safely overhead, I love this tree. I've been watering baby Parsley hawthorns so don't know how they compare; the leaves are signifantly thinner.

For shrubs, Chinese (cornuta) hollies; osmanthus heterophyllus, fortunei and fragrans (all beautifully fragrant); our native cherry laurel (P. virginicum), Eleagnus ebbengii (a not invasive child of the baddy); Lonicera fragrantissima and purpusii; roses laevigata (Cherokee), Madame Plantier, russeliana, and hugonis' Japanese privet (Ligustrum japonicum); Abelia, the usual kind and mosanensis (great fragrance); spireas, all varieties; camellias; and Cotoneaster lacteus and divaricatus are all holding their own even though only half grown and so far bearing out my hopes that they could get through a signficant drought with maybe one or two waterings at most. A few of the deciduous ones are starting to drop a few leaves but most don't seem to know there's anything wrong. If they look up, they'll see old trees dying, tho.

The plant in question is a Blue Cypress named Blue Ice. Cupressus glabra 'Blue Ice' is the botanical name and it is available at Sauls. This one is about five years old and grows about 8-10 inches taller per year. It is currently 8 feet tall and should max out height at around 18 feet.
{{gwi:835047}}

My driveway is holding up pretty well! I'm running two sprinklers as I type just to stave off death!

Wow! That tree is gorgeous, Vroomp! I love unusual, yet very pretty plants. The color and texture on your Blue Cypress would enhance just about any garden or yard.

Thanks for the response,
Beverly

My Plumbago, Ruellia, Oleander, Blue Salvia guaranitica, and Cordylines look awesome. I haven't watered the salvias but a couple times this summer, and they look amazing. I saw on the Grower's Outlet site they are going to get in some of the Hespareloe parviflora, and I'll have to try them along with some more Sedum. Next year I am going to work more on xeriscaping.

I think the Rose of Sharon is the only thing (besides the kudzu, of course) that is coming through this weather just fine. Even the weeds in my garden are dying! When I took the dog out this morning to do her business, my front yard looks like fall has come ultra early this year. There are maple, oak, and dogwood leaves everywhere. I guess they're dropping them to conserve water?

Zinnias did extremely well almost all summer -- no mildew! Passionvine is rampant -- yay, butterflies finally are everywhere. Goldsturm rudbeckia stalwart for the most part, but most impressive -- melampodium.

I've got to get me some lantana - if only the Athens wouldn't die on me!

Rose