As we go into possibly our sixth or seventh week without any significant rain in the UK, I’m becoming more and more interested in the plants that are really holding up to this drought. In my own garden, plants such as alliums, irises, salvias, alchemilla and euphorbias are all still looking sprightly. I noticed some Agastache aurantica ‘Navajo Sunset’ had appeared again in a pot that I haven’t watered for weeks - so that’s obviously a notable one for drought-tolerance. And I also have a pot with Helianthemum ‘The Bride’ and the bullet proof Mexican daisy, Erigeron karvinskianus - a good combination for a pot that you can easily ignore for a few days. On the other hand, the hydrangeas are starting to look a little tired, and plants like the geums aren’t flowering with quite as much enthusiasm as they normally do, their blooms going over quite quickly.

Last year I planned a series in H&G on resilient plants which is running this spring - it now seems quite timely. I had some interesting chats with some of the country’s leading gardeners about the plants that they thought would stand the best chance of withstanding periods of drought as well as some degree of winter wet. Here are a few of those key plants from the series.