This is interesting... we have a different water source in Carrollton, can water a little more, and I really didn't lose anything, but to me it's interesting in how the natives managed to make it through!

I am an extreme gardener in that I garden with the environment and I do very little altering of the environment. Some soil altering. I do go for the wild look.

The only thing we lost was lawn and some geraniums to heat more than drought. Watered twice weekly because we live on sand.
My Salvias made it through just fine and even the mexicana is already up far earlier that I can ever remember. We're not too sad about the lawn and plan on expanding gardens, putting in a pond and reducing lawn area substantially. I will really miss those geraniums.

I am really thankful that we are out of the drought here in DFW.

I lost a large elaegnus, which surprised me as they are very tough plants, a Texas betony, columbines that were not established, some of my pink moss groundcover, and all my azalaes (no surprise there).

My big leaf hydrangeas appeared to have died last summer but are coming back - they must have gone into hibernation during the drought.

My salvia greggis were not impacted by the drought and are looking great. In fact, almost all of my native and naturalized plants are looking better than ever - blackhaw viburnum, oak leaf hydrangea, turk's cap, various grasses, and that shade plant that looks like oats waving in the wind, and much of my shady back yard has become horseherb.

I'm not as extreme as you are, Wantonmara, but I only watered the yard once or twice a month and the potted plants got by with weekly waterings. I've got the lovely black clay soil that Dallas has, with little of it amended. I did water my rosemary occasionally when I watered the potted plants, it's still getting established and I wanted it to grow. I lost my thyme, lavender, and Mexican oregano, I think to heat and possibly being left out in too much sun for the amount of water that I gave them. I may have lost one of my guaras, but the other one is coming back. The Carefree Beauty rose did just fine.

In the front I tried to put in a row of pincushion flowers that I started from seed and a row of cosmos. One of each survived the summer, the pincushion really took off over the winter. My iris is blooming, the Lady in Red salvias reseeded and didn't die so they may be coming back from the base, too. The cenizo and salvia greggii came through just fine, although the latter has some bare spots that I thought were dead but the wood's still green. The Henry Deuhlberg salvias were so happy that they gave me two volunteers during the summer/fall. The Mystic Spires Blue salvia did fine, although the blue salvias did slow down flower production during the intense heat. The althea that I planted last spring survived without me remembering that I needed to water it (it gets afternoon shade from the house). I'm waiting on the lantanas to start growing again, but they all still had green wood when I cut them back. I did lose the silver ponyfoot, probably not enough water and too much sun.

Most likely, I lost even more grass in the backyard...guess that'll be the next project. :)

It appears that Lavender really needs the wet winter of Mediterranean climates. A dry winter followed by hell is not its cup of tea. Rosemary and oregano too. So does this mean that if we water them during the winter we can get by by not water them in summer? I think that the rosemary and Lavendar were close to 10 years old and were OLD. The younger rosemary has some dead branches but is coming back a, just a lttle ragged. I had death of my older Desert Mallow. Arizona and New Mexico get summer rains, not much but they get releif in the summer. I find that rain patterns are so interesting.

I watered my pots of cactus and succulents once a week and once every 2 weeks also. That watering takes so little, I don't count them.

My Augusta Duelberg is having babies with Henry all over their corner of the yard.

I think that many plants in sand get to water by their roots going to china very easily. Here in the uplands, the valleys that have sand in them stayed green longer and were the first to green up. The plants and trees around streams seemed to suffer more than the plants up high on hills. I guess the roots only go down as far as the water from ythe stream and once that dries up, those plants are stressed whereas the plants on the hills roots are long and adventurous and the plants have learned to make do with less.

I'll just mention a little of what's out on my property...the Damianita survived and is fine, no watering ever. There was some dieback, but all is well, they will recover. Fendler's Bladderpod is coming back nicely...it's more of a West Texas thing, but it's here just west of San Antonio. 4-Nerve Daisy is fine, it's happy. Nerve-Ray survived and is really doing well, not blooming yet, but will soon. Skeleton Plant laughs at drought! Navajo Tea is just fine. Drought-tolerant native plants, all of them. The Barbara's Buttons is in my garden, but it will tolerate a fair amount of drought. I don't often water it.

Hi Mara!

I'm in Austin gardening on amended caliche. Surprisingly, most of my stuff made it through. I watered some of my front bed with my washing machine water on a weekly basis, so that helped the roses. I watered my pear trees and persimmon weekly for an hour. Blackberries got watered for 30 min. weekly. Most roses in the back yard were watered every 3 weeks.

I lost a champanel grape vine, a redbud, two 10 y/o antique roses, a flowering quince, a cuphea, two lavenders, a small possumhaw, and a few others I'm not remembering at the moment. One senna almost died.

The salvias, desert willows, pomegranates (sp?), coral vines, crinums, rosemaries, Mexican oreganos, esparanza, Turk's caps, lantana, iris, viburnums, anacacho orchid trees, crape myrtles, and other antique roses all pulled through.

Turk's cap was watered only once through the entire summer. I was impressed.

Hey BedfordDIY. I live in Bedford, too off of Cummings and Martin. Where are you? We could swap plants and seeds!

I live outside of Dallas and did very little watering. I'm on three acres with a creek and underground spring so all the trees including pecans survived although without bearing any nuts. I had a cousin over for a family reunion in September who is a lifetime country boy. He told me that we won't see the effect of the drought for several years. He said in the next few years we'll see trees dying for apparently no reason but he says it can be traced back to the stress from last year's drought. I'm sad to say that I confirmed yesterday that I lost a 30 foot mature black walnut tree in my front lawn area. I fear the drought's effects will be felt for several more years.

I was down in the back tank and saw 5 cedars that were dead, probably from spider-mites. Again, these trees were those close to the dry arroyo that has a swampy area on most years. Roots stay shallow, The water disappeared in the stream and they died. The trees farther up the hill is fine. My madrone right by the house looks very sad. I am hoping the growth grows in better.

we did little supplemental watering for the couple of hours we were allowed 1-2 times per week. Since our soil is pure sand here on the coast it doesn't hold any moisture. Lost a few small things, some stuff in pots and a couple of palms that were not well established and from 1 gallon pots. The yard looked horrid but the majority of it survived. The pecan dropped all it's leaves and produced no fruit but this year is starting to leaf out finally.
Here's to a summer full of enough rain!
Tally HO!

That is great to hear. I bet your plants have developed some DEEP roots in your sand. Moisture might have still been there, but really deep down there. Our tees by the broken rock areas stay hydrated longer if they have their roots. I have the most problem in the clay. Once that water has dried up, the roots break in the shrinking clay and they are prone to rot once the rain does come back.