Resilient plants that will flourish through wet or dry times, year-round

Terms like drought tolerant or water wise have long been used to describe a plant’s resilience to growing with little rainfall. Yet, here in the Puget Sound region, dry summers with little rain are not drought—they’re normal. On the flip side of the calendar, our winters are wet. In their new book Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates, authors Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt, both of whom garden in the Bay Area, help gardeners create landscapes that thrive in every month of the year, the wet ones as well as the dry ones.

The book opens with a section entitled “Gardening Where You Are,” which defines six diverse growing regions, from British Columbia to Baja. What we all share in common is our proximity to the Pacific Ocean and its modifying influence on our climate. Beyond that, topographical features and temperature ranges differ wildly. “Gardening in harmony with the summer-dry climate begins with an understanding of where, exactly, you are,” the authors write.

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GROW in The Seattle Times