Well now lazygardens - as a native East Coaster myself, I would say that you shouldn't generalize about "they" (who is they?) being "surprised" by a drought. Yes there have been a number of droughts here over the years... But you need to seriously take into consideration the geography and topography of the East Coast, which is about as different from the West as it is from Mars. The Atlantic Ocean is right there at our doorstep, and its effects in this area are quite dramatic. The fact that right now, the water temperature of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey is in the mid-70s (which is normal for this time of year), yet the Pacific Ocean water temperature off the coast of Southern California is in the mid-50s (which is also normal for this time of year), should make one take pause. The climate of the U.S. is not as simple as you make it. The propaganda about "sunny warm" California and the west, with surfers on the beach, is a big myth that people continue to perpetuate over and over and over again. They myth that it never freezes in the desert is yet another myth that continues to play out (why is there a "Zone 5" in New Mexico?). It's alot of B.S. and many people are being deceived by whatever B.S. is being perpetuated about the East Coast and its climates and how we deal with it. This side of the continent is much older, is dotted with many hills and valleys forming interesting microclimates, and is within target range of coastal storms such as Nor'easters, Hurricaines, and blizzards, depending on the season. Our average seasonal rainfall - whether it comes evenly throughout the year, or with up to 1/3rd from a single Tropical storm, is ~40". My state alone has more rivers than any other state in the union. The coast itself and many sections inland are below sea level. The fact that the New Jersey beaches have been continually eroding away due to these coastal storms; is an indication that drought conditions, although happening every so often, are NOT the norm for climate extremes here. More often than not, we get the complete opposite - too much water at once.. The thing that concerns me is not so much the introduced alien plants, but the natives themselves. Yes they have adapated over centuries, but the climate has changed here. Not so much with rainfall or lack thereof, but temperature-wise. And so there is a steady migration of more southern plants, a creep if you will, into this area, as the climate has become more conducive to them. Meanwhile, the more cold-hardy plants that were native here, are suffering and end up creeping further north into a better environment for them. Such is the way of evolution... As for our plants recovering from this, whether we manually irrigate or not, the chance of a large rain system coming in off the ocean will be the deciding factor that the plants will have to deal with - whether native or not. There are native American Sycamores here that are dropping leaves like mad because of the extended periods of mid-upper 90s and little rain. As natives, they have the potential to die, either before or after some deluge, and there's nothing we can do about it. And many people have seriously considered planting drought-tolerant plants, which is a noble effort. But this effort can ultimately fail if a hurricaine like Floyd that came through here a couple years ago with 12" of rain in the city, decides to make an appearance this fall.

Well the weather report we just watched said that we have a chance of frost in Grove. Intellicast.com is showing 36 as the low for tonight. I have covered what I can cover and I may have a few things lost if we get a frost, but there isn't much else I can do. I pulled the cages off some container tomatoes and covered them with two layers of insect barrier row cover, I covered the beans the best way I could but since most are already climbing, they are hard to cover. I put flat sheets of cardboard on each side of the trellis and pulled the tops together and clipped them together with clothes pins. Some bean plants I couldn't cover. I had put in 4 eggplants this week that are about 6-8 inches tall, but I put them in the holes where broccoli plants had been eaten by something (before it was covered) so they are under an Agribon low tunnel. I have good sized squash which is also under a low tunnel and I just threw a sheet over some of the bed since the temp is already down to 42. They are saying 'frost' not 'freeze' so maybe I will be OK with most things. Most of the tomato plants have a flower pot turned down over them, but they are getting wide enough to touch the edges. The ones that got the row cover over them were too tall for a flower pot to cover. Most of the tomato plants are looking really good so it would be terrible to have to start over at this point. I only have two plants that aren't looking good. One is a Tess's Landrace that has a million little holes in the leaves and the other is a Green Zebra that just doesn't seem to be thriving. I have a replacement for both, but hate to take them out if I don't need to. It looks like we will be in the 40-60 range every night after this one, through the end of the month. Surely we can relax when May arrives. It may take me an hour to uncover everything in the morning, but if it is still green then it will all be worth it.

I devised a plan for hauling water in our garden cart (a little trailer pulled by our lawn tractor) that I have never used, but that might work, which is to use a rain barrel to transport water. I notice that rain barrels have a hose connection at the bottom of the barrel, so that, rather than siphoning water from the barrel, gravity does the work for you. However since that time, we have discovered that the garden cart/trailer itself can be filled half way with water and driven to far reaches of our property without spilling or sloshing out en route. When we get to the distant perennial beds I can dip buckets out to water plants, and when the water level is too low for dipping, we just tip the cart and let the last of the water run downhill to the last garden. I have set up an outdoor kiddie pool for my goldfish who outgrew their aquarium. It needs to be emptied every one to 3 weeks, and that nutrient rich water is what we transport to the plants. I fill watering cans too with the "fish water" for hydrating plants closer to the house and plants in containers. When I'm out of fish water I fill watering cans with tap water. I'm in rural Vermont and we have a well, so no water restrictions here other than our own conservation measures. The thing is though, that we have so much water pressure in our well that it necessitates an overflow pipe which runs continuously into our brook (now almost dry), so saving grey water for instance would be rather pointless. I often do carry the dogs' water buckets out to the plants when I change their water several times a day, providing I am dressed at the time. Molie, your comment "Personally, I think my gardening practices will have to change. Not only are we getting less rain, we also have fewer bees." I think is the quintessential truth to this whole thread/situation. I suspect that this drought is the leading edge of the prediction of scientists about desertification coming our way. Not in this decade perhaps and incrementally as opposed to a sudden shift, but I believe it is coming. Fortunately it is coinciding with my advancing age and a desire to cut back on gardening somewhat. My perennials are pretty much a fait accompli. I'm converting another garden from both annuals and perennials to all perennials, and will then just grow annuals in pots and in the vegetable garden. I'm going to plant a few more trees this fall, and then just sit back and watch the forest grow.

Thank you all for your replies, I can understand the difficulty in choosing a species fitting in these climate constraints. Any opinion is warmly welcome. I've checked a scientific paper about drought and waterlogging tolerance of many tree species which nicely lists each with values ranging from 0 (no tolerance) to 5 (maximal tolerance), and those numbers have kind of surprised me (didn't expect Sequoiadendron giganteum to be slightly more drought resistant than Metasequoia glyptostroboides, yet slightly less waterlogging resistant). I did copy some species scores and created a resume, with marked what was in my mind (perhaps erroneously), a "benchmark" conifer for drought, waterlogging resistance and fast growth, dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). Apparently those numbers show that bald cypress would be my best choice since it scores above any other species suggested (and others I was wondering about) in both drought and waterlogging resistance, however since neither the drought nor the waterlogging may be as severe as requiring such a high performance score, I'm curious about how would those species be ranked against each other regarding growth rate (since I have little idea about this and maybe a Pseudotsuga menziesii would score enough for my garden yet grow taller and faster than bald cypress) ? Thank you