Drought? What Drought?

Surprise!  This onion has gorgeous blooms that
bloomed for weeks longer than my  ornamental alliums.

Hi, all!  It's been quite a while since I last posted; it's been too depressing.  This has been a rotten spring and summer for my garden and yard.  Once again, there's no rain in the forecast and even mature trees and weeds are struggling.  I have lost most of my vegetable garden and many of the small shrubs I planted this spring.  My poor veggies never stood a chance-even with watering, the heat was just too much for those tender little seedlings.

So, why am I posting now?  Well, I realized that there are some plants that are doing just fine despite the drought.  I thought I'd share with you what's doing ok in my garden, with only the barest of supplemental watering, and in some cases, no watering at all.

We are on well water so I try not to water unless it's really needed.  I've let my lawn go dormant and am basically just hand-watering anything that's wilting.

Butterflyweed

My established hostas and daylilies are surprisingly well.  So is my bergenia and buglossoides.  In fact, the buglossoides are looking pretty happy at the moment, although they didn't bloom for long this spring.

Strangely, my lamb's ear and rudbeckia, both of which I thought were drought-tolerant, have been wilting badly and needing extra water.  Also strange, my 'Sem' spirea, which I thought was not drought tolerant, is not only doing fine but starting to sucker a bit.  (Off-track I know, but 'Sem' does sucker.  It's advertised that it doesn't.  Same is true for 'Tiger Eyes' sumac, also advertised as non-suckering.  Mine suckers like crazy.)

Tiger's Eye Sumac seems to be happier in the
heat than its native sibling, staghorn sumac

Let's see...some woodland natives that seem to not be affected yet include solomon's seal, columbine, solomon's plume, hairy mountain mint, carrionflower, all the goldenrods, baptisia, virginia creeper and sweet woodruff.  Some natives that aren't quite as forgiving: wild ginger, ferns (with the exception of my male fern), avens and sweet cicely.  

Of course, there's the native prairie plants and well-known drought-tolerant domestics that I expected to do well and they are: yarrow, rudbeckia, grasses, butterflyweed, smokebush.  (My smokebush looks really good at the moment-the ninebarks not so much.)

All of the viburnums (nannyberry, highbush cranberry, arrowwood) are wilting and losing leaves.  My peach tree is struggling as well but that's to be expected because it's new.  I've had to water the arborvitae, spruces, spirea, and surprisingly, my diervilla, even the native ones.

Yesterday it was only in the 80s so I finished
the path through my meadow garden.

Oh yeah, another plant that is doing great is sumac.  Not the native staghorn; their new growth is being killed off.  But 'Tiger Eyes' is practically hopping and skipping in excitement over all the heat and is using its summer vacation to take over the hillside I planted it on.  And I've never seen 'Gro-Low' looking so healthy and happy.  I haven't given these two a drop of supplemental water and they are on a steep, blazing hot slope.

(Another off-track thought: I really like 'Tiger Eyes' paired with dark-leaved canna.  Very tropical looking.)

Is this summer a hint at the future of Wisconsin weather?  I think it might be and so I'm going to start looking at adding more drought-tolerant, native plants to the yard and also try to find a spot where I can put in rain barrels for my veggie garden.   Two things I should have done as soon as we bought this place.

One last thought: There's been no mosquitoes.  Yay!  Gotta have moisture for mosquitoes.