Spot a Drought-Tolerant Plant—Without Latin or Labels

You don’t have to be an expert to choose the right plants for your water conservation garden. The following tips will help you find drought-tolerant plants—without learning Latin or reading labels.

Look for plants:

• With bulbs. Their underground water/nutrient storage structure makes them more drought-resistant (daylilies, daffodils, dahlias, gladiolus, ginger lilies, and canna lilies).

• With a horizontal underground root system that produces additional roots and shoots (many varieties of irises).

• With thick and/or fleshy leaves like cacti and succulents. These plants are typical of the west, but do well on the east coast (ice plant, Delosperma, Setcreasea, Pittosporum, and Oleander).

• With very tiny or narrow leaves. They prefer well-drained soils with less moisture (Atlas Daisy, Butterfly Weed, Bluebell, Blue Flax, Prairie Coneflower, and most herbs - thyme, rosemary, sage, oregano, lavender, etc).

• With especially hairy foliage. These generally only do well in drier areas (lamb’s ears, Phlomis fruticosa, and Salvia argentea).

• From dry areas and sandy seaside locations. Don’t overlook tall grasses—many are beautiful and drought resistant (Sideoats Grama Grass, Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass, Blue Fescue, Blue Avena Grass, and Blue Oat Grass).

These visual cues will make selecting drought-tolerant plants easier. But, you can still learn Latin if you want to.

Special thanks to Mike Andruczyk of the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension Environmental Horticulture Chesapeake Office for providing this information.