If our trend for hot, dry summers continues we may well be looking at some different plant species for our gardens. Seriously.

Trying to keep the plants that require regular watering alive when we are under water restriction orders is proving to be a challenge. Good thing we do not own a dishwasher as all sink water is bailed out for plant watering purposes. And we conserve in other water use areas too. We must be handling our water conservation well, as our latest quarterly water bill is low for the billed time period.

Don’t get me wrong. This kind of water conservation is a struggle. I have a whole new appreciation for the family story of my grandmother religiously carting her wash water – from dishes and laundry – outside to water my grandfather’s many standard roses. It is a tedious chore, one which I would gladly throw over to be quietly weeding.

But I persevere with our water recycling regime because I love our garden and the plants must be watered. However, I cannot help noticing which plants are doing better than others, and it is forcing me to pay more attention to each plant’s needs and location in the garden.

For example, take Geranium psilostemon. This is a hardy geranium which I have talked about before. Love this whole genus of plants for their bullet tough performance and almost rock solid resistance to pests and diseases.

This particular geranium is no different. But, location is an important factor towards its stellar performance in the garden. I have one in my front island bed just behind my water fountain. This bed gets full sun in late spring through summer from about 8 a.m. through to around 2 p.m. before the chestnut tree is shading it out. John has a Geranium psilostemon in his back garden where it gets full sun for a good 12 hours, or more, from the time the golden orb is above the birch tree in the back corner until it drops behind the neighbours’ fir trees in the west.

The point of this explanation on location is to verify why my Geranium psilostemon outperforms John’s. Mine continues to look lovely and lush, fully adorned in blossoms when his is pretty much spent for the season. Even now, with fewer blossoms, the leaves on my plant are still looking quite chipper whereas the leaves on John’s plant are showing severe scorching.

There is one caveat, however. My geranium likely gets a bit more water than John’s because of its proximity to my water fountain, which has to be topped up three to four times a week. And that means some of the plants in its vicinity benefit from some water splashing.

Granted, I am blessed with shade trees in my garden, but there are other ways of providing water on a budget to your plants. Make a mini bog garden for them. I have started to do this for some of my plants who are struggling against the massive root system of said shade trees. And also for those few water-loving plant species I just had to have for my garden design, like ligularia and rodgersia. (Check out the How To section on my website, duchessofdirt.ca, for instructions for putting in a bog garden.)

Of course, the plants that really stand out in these drought conditions are those species which truly thrive in the dry. Sempervivums, sedums, small alpine varieties, euphorbias (wood spurges), yuccas, and a host of others. If the need to conserve and bail water continues, I may well be re-thinking my landscape design and looking at the varieties available in these genus of plants.

Leslie Cox co-owns Growing Concern Cottage Garden in Black Creek. Her website is at www.duchessofdirt.ca and her column appears every second Thursday in the Record.