Things here are just awful. Every day when I get home from work, it is "what plants on the verge of death am I going to water today?"
Its beyond aesthetics - I am trying to keep thing alive.
Ophelia wandered East, so no rain from her.
Sprinkler in hand,

Rx

drought is an argument for native plants.
plants that evolved here should be fit enough to survive the most extreme conditions.

Rudy, I only plant natives. They can and do take a lot - this is the first time I have had to water anything this year. But even native trees and shrubs need optimal conditions to survive their first few years, and I'm not going to let my expensive plants wither and fry during those years. After that, they're on their own, yes, but the first three years after planting I will water if necessary.

Well, I get sick of the natives-are-so-tough routine. After seeing many natives decline from cankers, get mites, leaf spots, mildews, thrips, defoliated by beetles or various larvae, ambrosia beetles or die from root borne diseases or other maladies, I am no longer sold on that hyperbole.
Natives get their fair share of problems, and two months devoid of rainfall requires watering.
My "tough" natives would have likely perished or died back severely if I had not hand watered during the drought years of 2000-2001.

Rx

Hi, just visiting this forum and wanted to add a 'native plant adapted to site' comment.

Along the interstate I get a view of a large South facing mountainside, it's a native forest of mixed red maple, yellow birch? and oaks (mostly reds)with some tulip poplar at the bottom near a creek. It's a fairly mature forest.

In the current dry weather the slope is spotted with maples coloring up and losing their leaves premature and yellow birch (I think) that are looking dead with their leaves dried up still on the tree. The oaks are their normal dark green. I'm thinking the maples will probably come through it but several birch will die. I've noticed on walks through this type of forest that the oaks don't regenerate in the shade yet the maples do. I would be interested to see if new oaks sprout up in the open patches to replace the other weakened trees.... they seem to be the best adapted native for this particular spot.

So I guess my point is that although natives evolved here it's these uncommon events that 'fine tune' where they grow. In the wrong microclimate even a native dies.
-which is sobering since the trees look as if they were doing fine where they were for at least 60-80 years, and it's a large swath of forest with dozens and dozens of dying trees.

treedoc66; sorry to hear you are not feeling well! Relax.
Do you believe that things that evolved here and have survived here throughout the ages are not able to withstand extremes? Or are you not buying the whole evolution myth?

Of course if you transplant natives they are not really native, in the pure sense of the word, to where you put them. That is the argument for growing only local ecotype natives from seed. Of course, if you are transplanting individual plants, they wont have the same root system developed as plants that occur without human intervention and grow from seed, and so might need watering to get through the drought.
Who do you think protected native plants from canckers,mites
leaf spots, mildews, thrips etc. before people showed up to protect and nurture them?
Natives did not disappear because of pest or disease, they were destroyed by overgrazing, agriculture, herbicide etc
I'm just a hillbilly who does not know hyperbole from shinola, but I do know that this world worked just fine before us'ns arrived on the scene and will adjust to the time after we destroy ourselves.

Rudy, native SPECIES are well adapted to local conditions. INDIVIDUAL plants of a native species can and do succumb to disease, drought, browsing, you name it, all the time. Natives are not immune to disease or drought, they're just better at withstanding their effects and entire populations will rebound well. But as a GARDENER using native plants, I'm not willing to let my individual plants die during extended extreme conditions, whether they were grown from seed (many were) or transplanted.

I don't care how well adapted a native plant is, if there's no rain for too long a time, that plant's gonna die. Maybe the same kind of plant will come back from seed, maybe not - but I'm a gardener, so I'm partial to what I have where and I don't want to rely entirely on chance. And as for disease, again, natives may have been supremely well adapted to the conditions in the environment before people came along and messed things up - but now the mix of pests and diseases is different, and even natives can die from introduced problems.

jillmcm You are absolutely 100% correct.
just cause i am rude doesnt mean i dont agree.
hip hip hooray for rain. without timely rain we will all shrivel.
growing native plants in a garden is a great way to support the cause and help more people become aware that these species make sense for many reasons.

Being dead is a big part of the natural sustem. Unfortunately I cant afford to wait for my ecosystem to die off and grow back, so I am watering critical plants. Huge native trees in crushing distance of my home were so dried the leaves were curling and branches falling like snow. A neighbor's native tree lost a huge limb. It snapped like a cracker on a windless day. The wood was like balsa wood inside. Apparently the water table has dropped too low even for the huge trees.

Now, if climate has really changed permanently I agree I should let unsuitable plants die off, but I cant afford to have my huge trees removed and replaced with bamboo at this time. Also, I invested money I won't have again in wetland species. A lot of the critters, some threatened, that live off my property are trapped by development. I could let them die out. But they wont be replaced if we return to the old climate. So I am watering on the bet that the new climate is temporary in an area with swamp history. A year of drought is too short a time to prove a trend.