Recommendations for drought/heat tolerant plants

[Jupiter]

Does anyone have any experience with growing rock garden plants from dry, hot places? I'm looking for any suggestions or leads no matter how wild or speculative. I'm open to suggestions. I have it on good authority that Lewisia should fit the bill pretty well so any species that thrives under similar conditions is what I'm after...

[Tim Ingram]

Jamus - have a look at the crevice garden thread on this website (there are 61 pages but all full of value!). Very many of the plants mentioned are drought tolerant, deep rooted and long lived, and certainly in the Czech Republic the hot continental summers test how these gardens succeed. These are just the plants we like growing, especially species from the Mediterranean, Turkey the Rockies etc., etc. Lewisias despite tolerating drought often need a cooler aspect to succeed in the rock garden, and vertical crevices with perfect drainage (we've never kept them long unfortunately, but Peter Korn has shown pictures of L. tweedyi on his sand beds growing lustily with 60" of rain a year! The scale of the garden is quite important!). The Labiate family is a good start - thymes, stachys, sideritis, teucrium, origanum - we are collecting more and more of these and seed collectors like Mojmir Pavelka often list a wonderful variety of wild collected species which add zest to the garden. These are a range of teucriums - left to right: marum, subspinosum, pyrenaicum, orientale and polium.

[astragalus]

I would suggest looking at Eriogonums, Astragalus, Oxytropis and Penstemons from the American west (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Oregon and California.  Their habitats range from high desert to alpine.  They share an ability to handle heat and drought with great aplomb.  Also there are Lesquerellas, Physarias, Calochortus, the list could go on and on.

[Robert]

Jamus,

Lewisia rediviva grows right down the road from us. It thrives in the most brutal sunny, hot, and dry conditions. Think 40c and 4-5 months with little or no rainfall.

You might also consider 'Mediterranean' type annuals. Annuals and bulbs seem to be a huge part of the 'Mediterranean' type landscape i.e. South Africa, Chile, California, etc. We use many uncommon annuals with bulbs and by themselves in our garden. Many will reseed without any help on my part and are not weedy either. Ginny Hunt (Seedhunt) has a good list (both annuals and perennials) and might be a good place to start looking around too. Anyway something else to consider

[Maggi Young]

Ginny Hunt  - Seedhunt  url : http://www.seedhunt.com/

[Jupiter]

Thanks guys and girls you've given me a lot to work with there and I'll get into the threads relating to these suggestions. I have a few of the fore mentioned already and astragalus and Tim, you've confirmed what I suspected regarding west coast of North America, Chile, Mediterranean, etc. as hot spots. I've been collecting plants for the garden from these locales for a few years now but the rock garden is brand new and I have a lot to learn.
Robert I've been tracking your posts as it seems we garden under similar conditions. I love L. rediviva and I'll be putting that one on the list for sure.

[Jupiter]

Just perusing seedhunt and discovered Aristolochia californica!    Why didn't I know about this?!? I've gotta get me some seed of that.

[fermi de Sousa]

Just perusing seedhunt and discovered Aristolochia californica!    Why didn't I know about this?!? I've gotta get me some seed of that.

We can "go halves" on a packet of seed - it's on the "Allowed List"!
cheers
fermi

[Jupiter]

It's a deal Fermi! It's not a bad idea to have seed in different locations and in the hands of different gardeners to avoid having all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. All your seeds in one pot, works better for me, I don't know about you.

The Viola species Robert posted pictures of in the September in the Southern Hemisphere thread are very interesting to me. Lovely plants which might make nice additions to my new rock garden.