Last month, we sent out a survey asking you to help us direct this newsletter, asking about which sorts of content you enjoy and find useful. The results were both gratifying and validating, and will help us tweak our emphasis. (Congratulations to Candace, a randomly chosen participant in the survey, who will be receiving a free copy of our book.)
We should not be surprised that those who answered the survey were generally pleased with what we are doing. After all, everyone has opted in to receive the newsletter to begin with, and those who read it regularly must like what they see, but we will be making some subtle shifts.
We clearly see a specific interest in the ecological value of plants and an interest in garden design. Nearly everyone mentioned enjoying the long-form blog post, and there was surprising interest in even more articles. Be sure to read the Links We Like feature at the end of the newsletter for more on how this might evolve.
Let’s begin with what might be a little different. Our blog post this month begins a survey of the five summer-dry climates of the world and the plants native to them. We start specifically with the Mediterranean region and include a brief tour of the Sparoza Garden in Greece, home of the Mediterranean Garden Society.
~ Saxon Holt and Nora Harlow
June’s Blog Post:
The Mediterranean Basin
It pays to know something about the geographic origins of a plant when considering it for the garden. Summer-dry plants in the nursery trade are often described as Mediterranean natives, but this only suggests the conditions under which these plants naturally grow. Provenance isn’t destiny, but it can provide important clues.
Some plants have a wide and varied distribution and occur in both summer-dry climates and in climates with year-round or mostly summer rainfall. Others are native only to a particular climate but are adaptable enough to be grown in gardens elsewhere. Plants from regions with summer or year-round rainfall may or may not adapt to the heat and dry air of summer in Mediterranean climates, even with supplemental water. And many summer-dry plants will struggle in climates with year-round rain.
Many silver or gray foliage plants are adapted to summer-dry climates and look great in gardens—Stachys byzantina, Lamb’s-ear or woolly hedgenettle, in a Portland, Oregon garden—design Missy Prince.
As we begin focusing on the various regions of summer-dry climates, we start with the Mediterranean, and there’s no more appropriate garden to feature than Sparoza in Athens, Greece, headquarters of the Mediterranean Garden Society.
MGS has been instrumental in popularizing the concept of Mediterranean gardening throughout all the summer-dry regions of the world, and through its newsletter and worldwide membership, has been sharing garden information since 1994, when it was formed.
The garden itself was created by Mary Jaqueline Tyrwhitt in the early 1960s as an experimental garden to find plants from around the world that would survive the rocky landscape and hot summers of Athens. Now owned by the Goulandris Natural History Museum, Sparoza has, in recent years, been incorporating more Greek native plants as part of that experiment and continues to inspire garden visitors from around the world.
We recently visited on a tour hosted by Pacific Horticulture that included Greek nurseryman, plant explorer, and horticulturist Lefteris Dariotis, who has been very influential in the current direction of the garden. More photos can be seen in our Instagram post from early May.
Greek native tree Euphorbia (Euphorbia dendroides) and strawberry tree (Arbutus andrachne)
Want to learn more?
By choosing naturally occurring, climate-appropriate plants, gardeners can promote healthier ecosystems and make a difference from their own backyards. Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates guides you through the journey of cultivating a stunning, biodiverse landscape with gorgeous pictures, detailed advice, and an expansive plant compendium. Plus, when you order it directly from us, we will autograph it for you.
A lot of excellent information is being produced by experts in garden clubs and garden societies around the world, as the Mediterranean Garden Society linked above. We hear from garden societies in South Africa and Australia, and many friends who read this newsletter come from Chilé. In the U.S., Pacific Horticulture no longer prints a magazine, but its website is full of well-researched, in-depth articles directly related to gardening in summer-dry climates.
We heard a lot of comments on our survey about wanting more long-form information and articles. In the past, we’ve used this section of the newsletter to link to web stories and timely events we have come across in our news feeds, but we’re going to readjust this service.
We will feature long articles by our colleagues around the world who garden in summer-dry climates, and we urge you to let us know about stories that you think need recognition. Let’s start this month highlighting the series called Lab Reports published by Pacific Horticulture, each article includes current research that you won’t find anywhere else.
Timely Links
We would love to hear about any resources you would like to pass along. We all get these snippets from our news feeds and inboxes. Let’s share the best, and we will keep a running list so you can find them later on the Links We Like page.
Saxon Holt is a photojournalist and sole photographer of more than 30 garden books, including the award winning books Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates, The American Meadow Garden, and Hardy Succulents. He is the Director of the Summer-Dry Project, a Fellow of the Garden Writers Association, and owner of the PhotoBotanic Garden Library.
