The warm weather in March was full of promise. Beautiful gardens abounded as early as May. Now lawns and flowers look scorched, and gardeners are suffering losses. We investigated which plants can stand up to the drought and what you can do to protect your garden from the heat.

“It has been one of the worst droughts we have seen since the 1950s,” said Tina Gilbert, manager of Bonnie’s Nursery and Garden Center in Springfield. “The heat and the excessive winds has been a very bad combination indeed.”

The plants you bought in May and June are likely looking worse for the wear. “There are going to be a lot of replacements put in this fall,” said Sherri Berger, manager of Mary’s Plant Farm in Hamilton, who advises planting drought-tolerant plants even in nondrought years to avoid the inevitable. “There isn’t a drought every year,” she cautioned. “But this isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last.”

Best bets for planting

Our local experts discussed a plethora of plants that generally tolerate heat and drought conditions.

Quite a few native trees and shrubs are looking good whether they get water or not, Berger said, adding that native plants often do best. Gilbert said, “Shrubs that do well in drought conditions are boxwood and holly. Most evergreens do a little better during drought conditions, too, but newly planted specimens are still going to need a lot of water.”

As for flowers, Kelly Hale, a gardener with Berns Garden Center in Middletown, offers her two cents: “Sedum comes in several varieties. Some are groundcover, some get 2-3 feet tall.” These late-blooming plants are “really attractive in the fall and handle drought very well.” Moss rose, vinca and geraniums are also safe bets.

Jerry Schelhorn, nursery manager at Grandma’s Gardens in Waynesville, suggested Angelina Sedum in particular. An evergreen plant, it will give your garden a year-round splash of color. “It has gold foliage in the winter that turns chartreuse yellow in the summer, then back to gold.” Schelhorn added that Penstemon or “bearded-tongue,” lavender, and dianthus – another evergreen variety – also do quite well in droughts.

Naomi Graham has been the perennial supervisor at Berns Garden Center for 15 years. She recommended a newer plant called Mr. Goodbud. “It has only been out for a few years,” she said. “It gets about eighteen inches tall and has a dark pink fuchsia bloom. It does well without a lot of water.” Echinacea or “coneflowers” are very drought tolerant– in fact, “they don’t like to be wet at all.” Becky Shasta Daisies or “Becky daisies” bloom all summer, are “excellent for cutting,” and stand up to heat well.

Despite these plants’ hardiness, all the experts cautioned that they need at least some water.

“Don’t panic”

Plants frequently go dormant during severe conditions, so the brown plants in your yard may not be beyond repair – yet.

“Plants want to live,” Berger said. “We have to do a lot of dastardly things to them to kill them.”

“Don’t panic if you forget to water once or twice or you go on vacation when it’s hot and dry,” Schelhorn said. “Most plants will rebound with proper watering.” Perennials especially will often “rebound in the fall” and also come back in the spring. “Perennials are very hardy and can take abuse better than annuals.”

Don’t ignore your plants entirely, of course. Schelhorn cautions that letting a plant go dormant is “kind of rolling the dice.”

Further tips

Berger suggests strategic planting: “Put things to be watered closest to the house.” This would include fragile plants such as most annuals.

Don’t try to bring plants indoors for safekeeping. “Outdoor plants need to be outdoors,” Berger said.