ediblelandscapingsc said:I grow cannas and Opuntia but cannas can not deal with our drought they look horrible right now.
our clay soil is the sticky red stuff that when wet will add 20lbs to your boots and when dry turns I to a brick. I don't think many of our native plants are equipped to handle a drought of this extent. When I took the kids to school this morning almost every tree I passed was yellow and even roadside weeds in the ditches are drying up. One good thing is I have not gotten bit by any mosquitoes in almost 2 months.
While the cannas look poor.... they do not die.
For me, when a plant can survive stress... that's all I ask... they aren't expected to look like magazine photographs when it doesn't rain.
I used to have a patch of kaolin in my previous garden... and after adding plenty of horse poop... the cannas positively thrived!
Was walking around the garden this morning, looking for plants that would thrive in clay... plants that I can barely keep alive in the sand... but were fantastic in the clay... No matter how dry it was...
try... swamp hibiscus, swamp sunflower, jerusalem artichoke, vernonia altissima, rudbeckia laciniata...
also try sea oats, smallanthus uvedalius, centrosema virginianum, Clitoria mariana, ipomoea pandurata, datura inoxia, 4 o'clock, Verbena rigida...
also... annuals like cypress vine, moonflower, orange cosmos, calico pepper, Cucumis anguria, Croton capitatus...
How about beauty berry? How about bluestem grass?
if you have shade... maybe try Acalypha hispida...
Acalypha hispida not happy in the sand, but doesn't die...
Cucumis anguria... spiny cucumber, I made pickles last week...
Beautyberry bush.
These calico peppers self sowed in my previous garden... also in the clay in Macon... they don't come back in the sand...
Ok, I took a bunch of great pictures this morning... but you get the idea... the right plants do not need supplemental watering.... they may wilt when when it heats up... but usually look good in the AM.
re: when to plant?
Usually when I pull them for weeds in town...
Good possibilities usually thrive in the weed patch that most of us have in an unobserved corner...
The trick is simply encouraging likely possibilities.
Of course... there are select plants at my house that have proved impossible to divide, or grow from seed, or any other propagation effort in spite of when I've attempted.
