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Blue mistflower, drought-tolerance, and waterwise gardening

Posted October 19, 2007

An unexpected treat is flowering in the corner of one of our garden beds. Blue mistflower or perennial ageratum (Conoclinum coelestinum), a native relative of the annual bedding plant, volunteered behind the old metal wheelbarrow, and is flourishing in spite of the drought. The clear blue flowers are lovely against the evergreen backdrop of Viburnums and Winter honeysuckle, and glow in the early morning and late afternoon.

Blue mistflower is a fairly common plant in ditches and field edges, but really deserves to be used more in the garden. It's remarkably hardy, provides attractive late season color, and its drought tolerance is a definite plus.

I attended a waterwise gardening symposium in Athens at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia recently, and the depths and extent of the drought we're in became ever more evident. I'm certainly rethinking my approach to the challenge; I don't think my fellow participant is on the right track, when she pointed to an aloe plant on the lunch table, and said, "this is what we need to grow", nor that Mediterranean-style gardening or High Desert gardening is the answer either, but we do have a whole range of exceptional native plants with deep roots that are able to withstand long periods of drought in summer. Mix in a few of those Mediterranean plants and high desert plants that can tolerate our heat and humidity in summer, and you've got a great group of plants to work with. Personally, I think we'll need to phase out the temperate Asian plants that need regular summer water beyond what we ever normally get -- this is life support, not gardening. And watering lawns and turf is just not necessary. Our Zoysia lawn went dormant, developed brown patches in the shallowest soil areas, but after the one drenching September rain we received, has recovered quite nicely.