Whether you’re landscaping the mountain cabin you see on alternate weekends or the lawn of the city home that you simply have time for on the odd fogless Saturday, your garden requires low-maintenance, drought- and heat-tolerant plants. Sturdy plants that will survive a busy or forgetful gardener thrive with little more than a handful of compost or a drink of starter fertilizer.
Criteria
Although Mediterranean climate regions can be quite dry and warm throughout the summer, they can also experience periods of frost during their rainy winters, so plants must be drought- and heat-tolerant, ideally within several U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones. The plants should be self-cleaning if possible, and require a minimum of pruning or pinching to stay attractive throughout the growing season. Hardy plants also typically self-propagate, either vegetatively or by seed. When you shop for plants that are hardy, start looking for stocky, well-branched and richly colored varieties grown in exactly the exact same place, and they need to thrive as the very potent garden residents.
Old-Fashioned Plants
There’s a reason that zonal or ivy geraniums (Pelargonium x hortorum and P. peltatum) and petunias (Petunia x hybrids) have packed garden borders using shade for years — and that old-fashioned plants like day lilies (Hemerocallis spp.) and hostas (Hostas pp.) Have found new fans. All of them survive neglect and are dependable bloomers. Geraniums grow in a broad range of shades and forms, thanks to years of hybridization. They can be dug and kept inside during freezing weather because of the garden in spring. Petunias division and blossom more prolifically if sheared back one or two times throughout the growing season, plus they self-sow. Hostas and day lilies are available in many sizes, forms and colors. Both plants grow to USDA zone 9, but afternoon lily cultivars that grow to zone 10 will also be available. The mainstay of the Mediterranean garden, French lavender (Lavendula dentate), has gray leaf and blooms starting in late spring. Spanish lavender (L. stoechas) an early spring bloomer, is stockier.
Native Plants
Plants that are natives to Mediterranean climate regions have adapted over millennia to the warm winds and moist winters so common in those regions. Native plant societies often sponsor seed plant or exchanges sales. Ceanothus shrubs, including Carmel creeper (C. griseus var. Horizontalis) and blue blossom (C. thyrsiflorus) are sturdy shrubs, growing from 8 inches to 10 feet tall and up to 20 feet wide with beautiful foliage and flowers that attract butterflies, hummingbirds and birds. California fuschia (Epilobium californicum) tolerates hard frosts and rises into 2-foot-tall mounds covered with scarlet blooms.
Bulbs
Many hardy bulbs and tubers need more winter cooling than you get in a Mediterranean climate, but some, including calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), cannas (Canna) along with daffodils (jonquil spp.) Are resilient enough to plant where the ground chills but does not freeze. Native Douglas iris (Iris douglasiana) appears fragile, but its strong rhizomes rapidly spread to build groups of new plants. California’s native leopard lilies (Lilium pardalimum) and Asiatic or Oriental hybrids kind sturdy colonies as well.