Drought resistant gardens

Southern Waters Chelsea garden to be.

I was asked to give a bit of help to the creation of their drought tolerant garden and this is what I came up with.

Drought resistant gardens... Why Prairie Plants ?

When asked to give a bit of advice I wanted to get away from the traditional Mediterranean solution of lavenders, rosemarys, and agaves. Which are great in hot and dry summers but struggle or fail in cool wet summer/winters.

I wanted to find plants that can survive all the rubbish that a typical British year throws at us (just look at this March and then April).

One answer was prairie plants, taking as inspiration the weather of the Russian Steppes, wickedly cold in the winter, miserably muddy in spring/autumn and devilishly hot in  summer. So anything surviving there would do the trick. Russian Steppes, European Plains and American Prairies it was.

As you know that is not all, but that will be another story!