Drought Plants In a Wet Summer

by Em
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When I purchased some plants for my patio pots in May, my brain was in drought mode. After three straight summers without much rain I wanted something that didn’t require daily or twice-daily watering to thrive.

So I potted up some lantana and portulaca plants—both are champs in dry conditions. Then it barely stopped raining for 5 weeks in a row. On some stormy days I even had to dump standing water out of those flowerpots so the plants wouldn’t drown.

The portulaca (moss roses) are trying to hang in there, but mostly they’re all foliage and little flowering. I purchased ‘Pazzaz Nano Orange’, and it’s trying:

A photo of a 'Pazzaz Nano' portulaca plant
A photo of 'Pazzaz Nano' portulaca flowers

But ‘ColorBlast Double Guava’ keeps sending out more and more foliage with very few flowers:

A photo of a 'ColorBlast Double Guava' plant
A photo of two 'ColorBlast Double Guava' portulaca plants in bloom

The bright spot is the drought-tolerant ‘Bandana Black Cherry’ lantana. At first the plant looked like it really hated all that rain and I thought it might just rot in the pot. But it’s rallied nicely. Look at all those fun, bright colors coming from the same plant!

A photo of 'Lantana' Bandana Black Cherry' in bloom

At least I made one smart purchase this spring. My new swamp milkweed plant is loving all this rain!

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