Garden Plants from A to Z

by Liz Smitten, Certified Master Gardener

Originally printed in Avalanche-Journal Spring Home & Garden Supplement, May 6, 2006

In one of the first garden articles of this season, I expressed some concern that many of my plants might not have made it through our extremely dry winter, since I provided no supplemental watering to my garden from October until mid-April. In this final issue of the 2006 Home & Garden Supplement, I am pleased to report that while I did lose a small number of plants, the vast majority are thriving, and I consider them to be absolute essentials for the gardener whose goals are to use native and adapted ornamental plants in a beautiful, colorful, and varied garden setting, while conserving our region-wide limited water resources.

As I began making a list (and checking it twice) of those plants which did extremely well under conditions of prolonged winter drought, a pattern began to emerge and when I sorted the list, I was struck by the fact that I had a complete botanical alphabetarium to share. Because some gardeners prefer to use the scientific name of a plant and others are more comfortable with the common name, my list includes both, as well as the named cultivars when appropriate. Here are the 2006 drought-tolerant stars of the garden:
Acanthus mollis                                              Grecian pattern plant
Berlandiera lyrata                                            chocolate flower
Campanula carpatica                                       bellflower ‘Blue Clips’
Dalea purpureum                                             purple prairie clover
Elytrigia elongata                                            tall wheatgrass ‘Jose Select’
Falugia paradoxa                                             Apache plume
Geranium maculatum                                      wild cranesbill geranium
Hymenoxys acaulis                                         sundancer daisy
Imperata cylindrica                                         Japanese blood grass
Jasmine nudiflorum                                         winter jasmine
Kniphofia                                                        golden poker ‘Minister Verschuur’
Leucophyllum frutescens compactum            dwarf Texas sage
Macleaya cordata                                            plume poppy
Nandina domestica                                         cut leaf nandina ‘Oki Himi’
Originam libanoticum                                     cascading ornamental oregano
Poterium sanguisorba                                      salad burnet
Querus virginiana                                            live oak
Rivina humulis                                                pigeon berry
Salvia pitcheri                                                 Pitcher’s blue sage ‘Grandiflora’
Tagetes lucida                                                 Mexican mint marigold
Ulmus parvifolia                                             lacebark elm
Veronica pectinata                                          blue woolly speedwell
Wisteria sinensis                                              Chinese wisteria
Xanthoceras sorbifolium                                 yellowhorn
Yucca glauca                                                   soapweed
Zauschneria garrettii                                       hummingbird flower

Of course there are dozens and even hundreds more drought tolerant perennials – bulbs, grasses, vines, shrubs, groundcovers, and others - in my garden, all deserving of their moment of stardom, and I will include a complete and more detailed list of the 2006 thrivers and survivors on the Lubbock Master Gardener Association website http://lubbockmastergardeners.tamu.edu within the next month.

Meanwhile, while some people sing in the shower, and some people sing in church, I tend to sing in the garden, where there are fewer critics, and a captive audience of my two box turtles Leonardo and Michelangelo, who will listen to anything as long as they get their daily strawberry, green grape or chunk of banana. Sometimes I sing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” sometimes “You are my Sunshine,” or perhaps “Morning has Broken,” and usually I close the evening with “Now the Day is Over.” But these days, after a long, dry winter, the song that most often comes to mind is an old melody that begins “A- you’re adorable, B – you’re so beautiful, C – you’re a cutie full of charm...,” which is how I feel about all the green and growing things in my garden on the Plains.