Plants for drought-prone gardens with splashes of yellow

Plenty of plants thrive in drought prone areas, so it's possible to create a full and attractive border even in these sometimes challenging conditions

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Plants with contrasting colours can create striking effects
Plants with contrasting colours can create striking effects

Quick facts

  • Drought conditions can means plants struggle to take up moisture
  • Drought conditions are more likely to occur due to climate change
  • Plants that have adapted to drought conditions (e.g., with silver or hairy leaves) can thrive in these sites
  • Newly planted plants are particularly vulnerable

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The planting plan

James Lawrence, RHS Principal Horticultural Advisor, has designed this simple, attractive, and most importantly, sustainable, border design for you to try at home with plants that are easy to grow, widely available and look good together. 
This planting design for a challenging location provides a range of plants that once established will thrive in an environment that can be low in soil moisture while still providing a variety of interest throughout the year.

Drought tolerant yellow planting

© James Lawrence
 

Choosing plants for a drought prone garden

The function of this selection is to provide a set of plants that can still thrive in challenging drought conditions. Once established plants will need minimal care and will perform well without much watering or feeding, reducing our need to use valuable resources. Growing plants in conditions close to their natural environments means they tend to be happier and less likely to suffer from pests, diseases or disorders. The carpeting Nepeta and Hylotelephium will help protect the soil surface from erosion and moisture loss associated with bare soil. The groundcover plants will also help reduce the ability of unwanted plants seeding in bare patches of soil, therefore reducing the need to perform weeding. 
The fleshy foliage of the Hylotelephium allow the plant to store moisture to help the plants cope with periods of drought. 

Additional organic mulching can further help with soil moisture retention and weed suppression.
1 - Cytisus ‘Boskoop Ruby’ 
2 - Genista ‘Porlock’
3 - Elaeagnus ‘Gilt Edge’
4 - Cytisus x praecox ‘Allgold’
5 - Salvia ‘Blue Spire’
6- Hylotelephium ‘Ruby Glow’
7 - Nepeta ‘Blue Dragon’
 
1 - Cytisus ‘Boskoop Ruby’ - a small deciduous shrub of rounded habit with abundant, deep crimson flowers on upright shoots in late spring and early summer.
2 - Genista ‘Porlock’ - a semi-evergreen, medium-sized shrub with small leaves and flowers of fragrant, bright yellow flowers in spring. 
3 - Elaeagnus ‘Gilt Edge’ - an evergreen shrub with broadly-ovate dark green leaves margined with yellow. Small, fragrant, silvery flowers form in autumn and are sometimes followed by orange berries. 
4 - Cytisus x praecox ‘Allgold’ - a free-flowering deciduous small shrub of bushy, dense habit, with small leaves, silky when young. Flowers are bright deep yellow, in late spring. 
5 - Salvia ‘Blue Spire’ - is an erect small deciduous sub-shrub, with white stems bearing deeply-divided, aromatic greyish leaves and small violet-blue flowers in large plumy spikes in late summer and autumn. Previously known as Perovskia.  
6- Hylotelephium ‘Ruby Glow’ - is an herbaceous perennial forming a low clump of spreading deep red stems, with elliptic, purplish-green leaves and terminal clusters of starry deep crimson flowers. 
7 - Nepeta ‘Blue Dragon’ - a spreading perennial with bright green, aromatic foliage and large, blue-violet flowers in short spikes from mid-summer to early autumn.   

Choosing plants for drought prone areas

Drought prone areas in gardens can be caused by a number of reasons, including a lack of rainfall locally, hard landscaping and drainage causing excessive runoff, over-exposure to the sun, and a lack of organic matter in the soil structure. 
By choosing plants that are adapted to drought conditions you can keep your border looking good, growing well, and once established they will reduce the need for additional resources such as watering.  
Plants will need watering whilst they are getting established for the first year or two. These plants are drought tolerant but not drought proof – and so they will thrive in drought but not for extended periods. 
A simple planting plan helps create depth, interest and good coverage in a border. 

The challenge of growing plants in drought prone locations

Sun and wind can increase the rate of moisture loss from soil and from plants, and so plants grown in drought prone areas are prone to drying out if they are not adapted to the conditions. Choosing plants that are already adapted to drought conditions can help to mitigate this effect. 

Why choose a sustainable planting combination?

Using the ethos of 'right plant, right place' to create a sustainable planting combination is great for the environment. It helps avoid waste and the use of products and practices needed to try and help ailing plants, such as the application of fertiliser. It also creates robust, long-lived planting that benefits soil health and garden biodiversity. 

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