| benefit from some afternoon shade.
If you have a spot that gets direct light for six to eight hours
these "full sun" annuals will still bloom well and they will
need less water to survive. Nevertheless, annual flowerbeds will need to
be watered for a couple of weeks in order to get them established, but
once established they are very drought tolerant if you choose the right
plants. A soaker hose, snaking through the flowerbed, is an excellent
way to conserve water while avoiding the often detrimental practice of
wetting the plant foliage. If we run into another extreme drought, a
good soaking once every two weeks will be all that is needed to keep
them looking great.
Good
soil preparation prior to planting, and a light mulching after planting
to help retain moisture, is always a good practice. Well decomposed
organic matter is the best thing you can add to the soil to help improve
air exchange in a heavy soil and water retention in a lighter or sandier
soil. Till in two to three inches of organic matter into the upper six
inches of native soil. It may be a good idea to add about five pounds of
lime per 100 square feet of bed area in order to bring the pH up just a
little because the organic matter may somewhat acidify the soil.
Another
important point often overlooked and can lead to drought stress later
relates to plant spacing. Space plants far enough apart to allow for
future growth. If you place plants too close to make the bed look full
immediately, the plants will start to crowd each other very quickly.
This often leads to greater pest problems and greater competition for
the limited moisture available within the soil. Most annual flowers can
easily be spaced one foot apart and many trailing or running plants
(such as wave petunias or lantana) could be spaced at 18 inches or more
apart.
The
most important thing you can do to avoid drought stressed plants is to
choose the right plants. There are several great plants I could mention,
but I will give you a few bulletproof plants to try. Annual periwinkle (vinca)
is a ‘tried and true’ favorite for good reason. They are very
colorful all summer long and stand up to even the worst drought with
little supplemental watering after the first two weeks. Their only
negative is they must be planted in a well-drained soil because they are
prone to root rot diseases. On the plus side, the researchers are
releasing newer cultivars with much better disease resistance. Some
other old favorites include: blanket flower, dusty miller, amaranth,
mealy cup sage, purslane, narrow leaf zinnia, purple hearts, strawflower
and gazania.
Here
are some lesser known favorites of mine: Scaevola, heat tolerant
Petunias (ie: Wave or Surfinia), Cupheas (Mexican heather and bat
flower), Ruella (Mexican petunias) and Abutilon (flowering Maple). To
get a larger list of commonly available drought tolerant plants visit http://www.aces.edu/HannaCenter/documents/Droughttolerantplantlist.pdf.
If you want to research how annuals performed in Athens, Georgia’s
huge plant trial, visit their website at: http://ugatrial.hort.uga.edu.
The Georgia website provides detailed performance information on
hundreds of annual and perennial flowers.
Tony
Glover is a Regional Extension Agent with Alabama Cooperative Extension
System. |
