Tips for choosing the best tough plants

Tips for choosing the best tough plants
Look at what’s doing well in gardens near you: in this garden, grasses provide drought proof structure; the Flower Carpet® Pink rose is a dependable performer; and once established, a clematis is a surprisingly tough plant.

It doesn’t matter where you live, if you’re deciding what to plant based on weather forecasting you may as well buy monthly lottery tickets and expect them to pay the rent. Not that we’re taking a swipe at meteorologists. Even with their insights things are usually a bit up in the air. While one coast is being warned of a drier summer, the other is being given a heads-up that it’s going to be soggier than normal – and everywhere in between is told things for them could go either way. So if we can’t predict and control the weather we can at least apply our secret super power – informed plant choice. That’s right, we can assemble our own A-Team of tough plants that will survive and thrive whatever happens. Here are some tips for choosing the best tough plants:

1. Look local. First step in recruiting plants that will be able to look after themselves in your garden, patio or balcony is to pop on your walking shoes and go for a wander around the neighbourhood. When you see something you like that’s obviously thriving, take a quick photo to help identify it if you don’t recognise it already. And when you are online fact checking, type in your location and search what plants originally grew wild in your area. Climate shift may be messing us around but local plants still tend to be best adapted to grow well on their home turf.

Tips for choosing the best tough plants
Fairy Magnolia® Blush magnolia has a great reputation in the industry and an equally happy public following: reason enough to add it (and its two sisters) to your A Team tough plant list.

2. Read the reviews. Just like anything, look for reviews to see what plants have a reputation for being proven performers. Pick a plant you like and start searching: you’ll soon find comments from gardeners telling it like it is, and you may even come across your plant on a site listing it as an award winner – usually a sign a plant’s organisation has put it through the hoops and it’s come up as garden worthy.

3. And if you can’t be pure…. But what do we do with our tender treasures – those plants we just love but which are fussy and prone to dying at the hint of drought or flood? The good news is there is a way to keep them in our lives. Plant them into containers and keep them where you can keep a closer eye on them and tend to their needs. If a scorcher of a day is forecast, move your pots into the garage or off the balcony and into your air-conditioned living room. Or if more water has fallen from the skies than set Noah afloat, bring them under cover, make sure they’re draining freely (no saucers) and space them out so that the air can circulate freely to avoid mildew.

Pop this espaliered Fairy Magnolia® Blush magnolia on wheels and roll it out onto your balcony, and when the heat wave looms, relax and just wheel it inside.
Tips for choosing the best tough plants
Again – use resilient plants like lavender and roses (this is Flower Carpet® Amber) and you’ll have covered your bases when extreme conditions push the boundaries.