Native plants tend to put down deep roots and can tolerate drought conditions well. After a 10-day July vacation during which time the garden got no rain or watering, I was interested to see how the plants here would fare in the blistering heat. Almost all of the native plants that had been planted this spring looked just fine and some of them thrived beyond my expectations.
These were the happiest:
Not only did the tree put out new leaves, it also decided to produce some buds even though the usual blooming season has passed.
This is a strong and feisty tree and I expected it to do well. Even so, I was impressed by the several inches added to lower branches. (Look how brown and crispy the Bermudagrass is behind it.)
This spreading ground cover increased its reach by several inches, and the flowers were being visited by a variety of tiny butterflies.
There are two of these plants in front of the house (replacing “non-useful” plants that the builder installed), and they continued to stand strong and produce flowers. There are already some offspring plants from earlier dropped seeds, and they also did well.
This hasn’t flowered yet but it has grown several inches.
Several native grasses have been planted here. I don’t know yet which these are (I seeded a mixture of three in this area), but they remained green while the builder-laid Bermudagrass turf turned brown.
Rewilding My Lot 
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