Tips for growing flowers in a drought
The Sunflowers don’t even know there’s a drought. They are shading the more heat sensitive plants behind them. You can also see our 3 rows of drip irrigation along the ground.
Central North Carolina is now months into a historic drought and most counties are on some type of water restrictions. Despite this, our flowers are thriving. Here I’m going to keep a running list of adaptations we’ve made to accommodate the drought. Maybe you can incorporate some of these ideas into your home garden.
Drip Irrigation. Hands down the best way to maximize every drop of water in your garden. Drip irrigation gets water to the roots, minimizing runoff and evaporation. It is is easy to install and inexpensive. We used this kit in our three 10×4 foot raised beds and this one for our flower field, meaning the total cost to irrigate our entire flower farm was just over $200. We turn the system on for a couple hours every morning and every evening.
An amazing benefit to our drip irrigation system? Toads! The toads have found our irrigated raised beds and are spending their days in there.
Take advantage of shade. Long, hot summer days stress plants. Whenever I’m planning a new flower bed, I think about how I can use the more heat tolerant plants to shade the more vulnerable ones. Here are some examples:
I plant sunflowers in the front of the field, rather than the back. During the hottest hours of the day, the sunflowers shade the Basil and Eucalyptus. The hottest areas of the field are planted with Zinnias, the most heat tolerant of all the flowers I grow.
I do the same thing in our shoulder season flower beds. Iceland Poppies are planted behind Bells of Ireland. Cerinthe is planted among the fading Daffodil greens.
Keep on top of weeds. A benefit to drought? Fewer weeds. Still keep on top of them. Weeds are shallow rooted and are keeping what little water is available from the deeper rooted flowers.
Provide water to wildlife. Birds and other wildlife are also having trouble finding water. We are keeping our bird baths clean and full with fresh water. The birds go to it as soon as I’ve filled it!
Our property is also the fawn nursery of our neighborhood. Mother deer bed down with their babies in the wooded area at the bottom of our property. The stream bed down there is long since dried out and we noticed that the moms and fawns were having a hard time finding water. We filled pond insert we had lying around and added rocks going up to the top and back down for smaller wildlife that might have a tough time getting out. An inexpensive fountain pump keeps water moving, preventing breeding mosquitoes.
Attractive it is not, but this inexpensive pond insert has been a saving grace to the numerous fawns and mother deer up on our property- as well as birds and squirrels.
