I watch with despair as my carefully curated garden shrivels up in Maine’s extended drought of 2025. The plants I selected to inhabit their native landscape are brown and dry. Even the drought-tolerant Joe Pye weed has lost all sign of color.
With my husband’s frequently repeated admonition of “Don’t pull the well dry!” ringing in my ears, I scour my garden for signs of life. I’m looking for plants that haven’t needed to be watered with a hose. I’m seeking plants that have come through this extended dry spell with health and vigor — preferably native plants that have evolved to survive the vicissitudes of the weather.
I find a few bright spots. There are the New England asters, swarming with pollinators. The purple, lavender and mauve flowers seem to glow in the sunlight. Their tall stalks lean beyond the confines of the flowerbed to reach for the sun. Not only are they unbothered by heat, but they seem to be thriving. I make a mental note to add more asters to the garden for a late-season show, even during years of drought.
In the so-called “wildflower circle” that I carefully prepared for native wildflowers, I find among the tall weeds something new (to me). A quick snapshot with a plant-identifying app tells me it’s sweet fern, Comptonia peregrina. The serrated leaves are a bright, rich green. It is clearly flourishing. I get out my weed whacker and clear away the surrounding tall grasses. I tell myself I’m giving its Darwinian advantage a helping hand.
Later, when I check in with that renowned landscaping expert, Dr. Google, I learn that sweet fern is not, in fact, a fern, but rather a small shrub in the bay laurel family. I am impressed to discover that it is a nitrogen fixer, which allows it to access nutrients under the harshest of conditions. Even more impressive is the fact that its leaves provide food for more than 60 species of caterpillars! I decide it’s a definite keeper.
On the heels of this happy discovery, I see that my experimental patch of Canada burnet is doing well. The Wild Seed Project (wildseedproject.net) published a booklet last year entitled “Planting for Climate Resilience.” They highlighted Canada burnet, Sanguisorba canadensis, as a standout native that has been listed as threatened in Maine. This inspired me to order plugs from several online nurseries last winter.
I planted a patch of seven plants this past spring. Happily, the frequent rains of May and June helped them get established. Now, in mid-October, despite a severe lack of rain, they are growing vigorously in their new location. My long-term goal is to establish a much larger stand of burnets for the beauty of their tall, white, fuzzy spires and for the pollinator food they provide.
With the benefit of these observations, I have resolved to take advantage of the cooler fall weather to sow the seeds of native plants that have truly proven themselves to be drought-tolerant.
