Dryland Gardening: Plants That Survive and Thrive in Tough Conditions

By Jennifer Bennett

Book Overview

The world is getting warmer -- and the weather less predictable. This is bad news for many of today's gardens.

Dryland Gardening is your guide to selecting and growing plants especially suited to survive in today's tough conditions. Based on gardening techniques that favor not only water conservation, but also low-maintenance, easy-care plants, Dryland Gardening offers time-tested techniques and strategies for:

Selecting tough plants Coping with limited access to water Dealing with trees under stress Nurturing ground covers and grasses Starting bulbs, perennials and vines Growing herbs and annuals.

Dryland Gardening is packed with practical advice and extensive plant lists for grasses, ground covers, bulbs. Perennials, annuals, herbs and shrubs: all chosen specifically to survive in the hotter, dryer, windier new climate of the 21st century.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0228106079
• ISBN13: 9780228106074
• Release Date: March 2026
• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Length: 192 Pages

Customer Reviews

An overview of low-water gardening. You'll need another manual if you want to overhaul your own lan

Jennifer Bennett's DRYLAND GARDENING is a well-structured and well-researched guide to plants that survive and thrive in tough conditions. The author describes herbs, ground covers, bulbs, vines, flowers, and shrubs that will withstand the inevitable drought she (and many scientists) believe our world will be facing in a matter of years. DRYLAND GARDENING is best read as an overview of alternative garden theories. The reader will be introduced to dozens of species and techniques, complete with illustrations. For a major garden overhaul, however, a more detailed climate-specific manual should be purchased. If you read DRYLAND GARDENING and are inspired to modify your landscaping, I recommend picking up Ortho's All About Dry Climate Gardening or a title from the Sunset series.

Master Gardener Workshop Resource

I selected Jennifer Bennett's "Dryland Gardening" for a basic primer on xeriscaping in southern New England for a RI Master Gardener Advanced Education workshop. Rhode Island receives between 39-54" of precipitation annually but water is not always available where and when it is needed - especially in the summer when gardeners are growing, and especially in many of our groundwater dependent areas. This primer has excellent pictures, zoned plant descriptions, and treats water conservation as a central concept. I highly rate this book.

A real problem-solver for any seeking to produce a beautiful garden under today's drier conditions

As the planetary weather patterns and overall environment warms, so garden plants which typically did well in prior decades are now suffering from hotter summers, requiring even the most experienced gardener to try new plants which have a greater range of tolerance to warmer conditions. Gardening writer Jennifer Bennett has already produced several award-winning titles, but Dryland Gardening: Plants That Survive And Thrive In Tough Conditions is broader-based than most, and provides alternative plant choices for all kinds of dry conditions. Organized by type of plant: bulbs, grasses, groundcovers and vines, and even herbs, Dryland Gardening is a real problem-solver for any seeking to produce a beautiful garden under today's drier conditions.