Following on from our recent look at creating gardens for the future, a drought-resilient garden doesn’t happen by accident. Three very different gardens spring to mind when considering how we can build gardens that are better prepared for what lies ahead. Each demonstrates how thoughtful design, the right soil conditions and carefully chosen planting can create beautiful gardens capable of coping with increasingly hot and dry summers.
Jardin Exotique in Èze
A garden that has stayed in my mind since I first visited it in the late 1970s is the Jardin Exotique at Èze.
Perched high above the Mediterranean near Monte Carlo, its extraordinary collection of succulents and drought-tolerant plants has endured decades of intense Mediterranean summers. Free-draining soils, gravel mulches and careful management of water all contribute to a garden that looks remarkably at home in its environment.
Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden
Beth Chatto’s remarkable Gravel Garden, near Colchester in Essex, is perhaps one of the best-known examples.
Created from a former car park, the garden began as an experiment to see whether a beautiful garden could survive without irrigation in one of the driest parts of the country. The conditions were challenging: poor, free-draining soil, full sun and very little natural moisture.
Rather than trying to change those conditions, Beth worked with them.
She and her team selected plants naturally adapted to hot, dry environments, many originating from the Mediterranean and other areas with poor, nutrient-deficient soils. The result is a drought-resilient garden that is famously never watered, yet remains wonderfully rich in texture, colour and seasonal interest.
It’s a simple principle, but an increasingly important one: understand the conditions you have and choose plants that will thrive in them.
At Gardenproud, drought tolerance and resilience are now part of the thinking behind every new garden we create.
Sissinghurst’s Delos Garden
Another inspiring example is the Delos Garden at Sissinghurst.
Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson originally conceived Delos after visiting the Greek island in 1935. They wanted to recreate something of the atmosphere and wild planting they had experienced there, but Sissinghurst’s heavy Wealden clay and relatively shady conditions made Mediterranean planting difficult.
More than eighty years later, Head Gardener Troy Scott Smith and garden designer Dan Pearson revisited that original idea.
This time, the conditions were designed around the plants. Drainage was dramatically improved, poor, gritty soil introduced, shade reduced and new terraces angled towards the south to make the most of the available sunlight.
Around 6,000 plants, predominantly native to the Mediterranean basin, were introduced. The result demonstrates that drought-tolerant gardening isn’t simply about choosing different plants. It is about creating the right environment in which those plants can flourish.
What these gardens have in common
These three gardens are very different, but the thinking behind building a drought-resilient garden has much in common.
Four shared principles
- Work with the site, not against it. Each garden was shaped around its existing conditions rather than fighting them.
- Improve drainage where necessary. Free-draining soil is a consistent foundation across all three.
- Choose plants suited to the conditions. Drought-tolerant species, often Mediterranean in origin, were selected to match the environment on offer.
- Protect the moisture that is available, and use irrigation intelligently. None of these gardens rely on indiscriminate watering.
These principles are becoming increasingly relevant to the gardens we design here in the UK.
At Gardenproud, drought tolerance and resilience are now part of the thinking behind every new garden we create. That doesn’t mean compromising on lushness, colour or atmosphere. In fact, some of the most exciting planting combinations come from plants naturally adapted to tougher conditions.
Future-proofing a garden is ultimately about designing a drought-resilient garden more intelligently – creating something beautiful today that has the resilience to become even better with age.
For further information or help with your garden design, get in touch.