Why choose a dry garden and how to design it
When choosing plants to establish a Dry Garden, you can consider various alternatives suited to different needs and tastes, and that meet different territorial, climatic, and environmental requirements.
Between aesthetics and sustainability
There are varieties that resemble the green, compact cover typical of traditional gardens, such as Zoysia tenuifolia, which forms a dense, highly resistant and versatile plant carpet. You can choose varieties that meet specific needs, such as Frankenia laevis, which requires very little maintenance, Achillea crithmifolia, which offers an evergreen garden, or Erigeron karvinskiatus, perfect for the most difficult gardens. And then there are the highly original Verbena hybrida and Lippia nodiflora, which with their resistance and extremely original appearance – the former rich in lilac flowers, the latter in small white-pink flowers – remain the undisputed best sellers of low-water-use lawns.
These original varieties allow you to create unique gardens that meet aesthetic standards and provide benefits to those who care for them and, of course, to the environment. The concept on which the Dry Garden is based, in fact, is the belief that a garden that works is a garden that respects nature, instead of trying to bend it to certain aesthetic standards. That of classic English lawns, in fact, is an idea born in other places and in other climatic eras, and at times when sustainability and water conservation were not central issues. Today, however, the need to adapt to new natural parameters is evident: instead of designing gardens that do not adapt to climatic conditions and therefore require artificial irrigation, it becomes rather a need to have gardens capable of surviving, without excessive maintenance and without excessive external interventions, the conditions of the place where they are located. And, in an increasingly arid world, with many hot months and much drought, the Dry Garden represents an answer.
A self-sufficient garden
Another strength of the Dry Garden is its very low maintenance requirement. Precisely the adaptability to drought conditions allows these varieties not to grow excessively, limiting maintenance to a few mowings per year. Alternative lawns tend to be autonomous also in the management of any weeds, since the low irrigation that a low-water-use variety needs prevents the conditions for weeds to survive for long from being created.
A Dry Garden, generally, needs more careful maintenance during its first year of life, in the phase that separates planting from the complete establishment of the seedlings. During this period, it will be necessary to water a little more, but never more than necessary: so that the roots develop deeply – and therefore make the plants autonomous, because rooted enough to take nutrients from the soil – it is necessary to water very infrequently but in large quantities, so as to make the seedlings ready for the conditions in which they can survive.
Designing a Dry Garden
A Dry Garden, therefore, to be such, needs to be functional, resistant, and ready for the climatic conditions it may encounter. The point, in fact, is not the amount of water it can receive from precipitation, but the amount of water that does not fall for a long time, and then falls all at once. The phenomenon of drought alternates, in fact, with downpours, and therefore it is necessary, in the design of a garden, not only to choose drought-resistant plants, but also to provide a system of rainwater management that allows you not to waste this precious resource, but avoiding puddles or excessive soil erosion.
If the rain arrives, in fact, unevenly, it is important to manage it, for example collecting it in some depressions created on the contour lines of sloping gardens, giving it the possibility to slowly penetrate deep to be absorbed by the soil. For flat gardens, on the other hand, it can be useful to create earthworks, so as to avoid puddling problems. Or, if the soil has a significant skeleton and presents large quantities of stones, these can be buried to create underground chambers full of water. It is a technique typical of Rain Gardens, that of creating swales, in which to let the water flow, preserving important water reserves. In short, the design of a Dry Garden must consider the conditions of the place where it is located and adapt to them. In any case, however, the focus always remains on water, which is why it is essential to also talk about the drainage system.
The design of a Dry Garden must certainly meet the specific needs of those who care for it, but it must, above all, be sustainable. Sustainability, in this case, does not only concern ecology and the well-being of the environment, but also the ability to survive without excessive effort or maintenance. A Dry Garden can become an autonomous ecosystem, which, to survive, does not need water waste and therefore safeguards the Earth's precious water resources.
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