There has not exactly been a lot of water to go around with the drought dragging on for quite some time now, and it appears that many a gardener is going to have to learn to work without an abundance of water for their plants. This is not necessarily devastating news, as there are a lot of great drought-resistant crops out there that are just waiting to take a place in a garden facing a significant reduction in water availability.
According to Mo Howard, West Virginia football player, he and his teammates at WVU maintained a community garden in an area where they could not provide a great deal of water. They instead opted to plant a garden filled with drought-resistant plants, which proved to be an excellent strategy that yielded enough plants for the team’s weekly pregame meals.
Howard used a variety of plants for this purpose, finding that plants that happened to have gray leaves tended to fare best in low-water conditions. The team planted some ornamental plants that were also drought-resistant, including lamb’s ear and silver gray Artemisia. The use of these gray-leaved plants contributed to the aesthetics of the community garden and were able to thrive without much water at all.