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What will grow?


Angie
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Having owned our house (in Aude, 11) for 5 years now we finally have time to start on the outside.  It's a holiday home and is in desperate need of some structure and colour in the garden.  We have successfully planted a number of trees but as its almost all south facing we are having difficulty growing shrubs or perennials, because we don't have anyone close by to water them.  It can rain quite significantly in the autumn but its the long, dry spells that seem to put paid to our efforts.

Can any of you avid gardeners out there please recommend any heat/drought tolerant plants we could try?  We have plenty of space so size is not an issue.   Not too keen on cactus!!

Thank you

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Ten years in to a holiday home garden, I can only give you the following advice:

Plant stuff that you see in everyone else's gardens. It really is the stuff that will grow even when neglected.

If you can put some sort of protective membrane over the soil, it does seem to have an almost magical effect on your shrubs

It's not just the dry summers you may need to worry about: I think I've lost (or nearly lost) more shrubs and plants to surprise snowfalls or unusually harsh frosts than I have to drought.

My best "survivors" - although your climate is almost certainly different - are Oleanders, Kerria Japonica, Lavenders and euonymus, and roses! Oh, and a passion flower that's so far survived being dug up by the dog, cut down by the neighbours' builders and knocked out by snow and frost.

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We're further north than you although our garden faces south and has very little shade. Things that have done well are bear's breeches (acanthus), rock rose (helianthemum) for some reason the yellow has done better than the pink, lamb's ears (stachys byzantia), all sorts of roses and some lilies which were already there.

I was surprised this spring when we arrived to find that four out my mature rosemary bushes had died in the extreme cold of last winter.

Hoddy
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If its a holiday home, its always difficult unless you can call upon a friendly neighbour to give plants an occasional drink during really dry periods and take care of dead-heading.

Just to reiterate what has already been said.  Around here, roses work really well and are surprisingly drought-tolerant once established in the open ground. Lavender is an obvious one, but not much good if you're not around from mid-June - end July-ish when they flower.

The only 'new' suggestion that I have is Agaves. They're attractive plants (some flower I think, but not the ones that we've got) and may only need a wrapping of fleece for the worst of the winter cold.  I've just potted up 3 babies that have sprung up from the base of an existing plant.

 

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This is great advice, thanks so much all of you.  Yes, roses are about the only thing that we've managed to hang onto and they do flower well and for long periods.  I took some cuttings of Oleander (from outside Carcassonne airport!!) and all 10 of them took and grew a little but unfortunately (as advised by you all) the recent harsh winter killed them all.  I will definitely try the membrane idea and plant all of your suggested varieties to see what's successful.  Thanks again, much appreciated.
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Oleander is, in fact, a lot more resilient than you think. I've thought on more than one occasion that mine were as dead as a dead thing, but leaving them be and waiting has proved me wrong. In fact, after a period where there was a good covering of snow and the temp was down as far as minus 14 last winter, I lost my oldest Oleander (which was no bad thing as it had been there since before we bought the house and was in an awkward place and a bit "leggy") but the two newer ones have thrived and come back better than ever.

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Yucca flourishes in my jardin secondaire. Whenever there is a hard winter it goes very dead - rather to my relief, as its leaves are ferociously sharp - but comes back with renewed vigour. But if you plant it away from any points of passage, it is spectacular and "architectural". Next to the water-hole is NOT a great place, as I have found...

Anything with silvery leaves will usually stand up well to drought and neglect. Phlomis (Jerusalem sage), buddleia, cistus, perovskia have all done well for me. As already said, now is the time to plant, so they can settle in during the cooler, damper season.

Angela
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Buddlea, roses, lavender, sedum, bearded iris, hollyhocks. Yukka are ok but a bit lethal if you need to get anywhere near them! Anything we have planted in the spring generally doesn't last the summer. The 1st thing I do when we get to the house is go out in the garden and see what has died or thrived.
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