Some new ideas for plants which will tolerate or even relish a heatwave with record temperatures and no need for additional watering.

Leucophyllum frutescens ‘Green Cloud’ – The Texas rain sage is a fast growing small shrub with lush green foliage and rose-pink flowers which are said to appear after rain in its native Texas. This is a new plant on the Burncoose website and it started flowering well in the second recent heatwave.

Agave geminiflora forms a pin cushion like rosette of leaves. The leaves are filamentous and this grows into an attractive feature plant in a hot dry location especially in coastal locations.

Hibiscus syriacus ‘China Chiffon’ has large semi-double white flowers with purple-red markings at the base of each petal. Full out in July this is an outstanding shrub for a hot sunny location in a town or a cottage garden.

Campsis thrive climbing up hot sunny walls or garden fences and are flowering early this year due to the excessive heat. Burncoose offers a number of different Trumpet vines in a range of colours from golden yellow (Campsis ‘Yellow Trumpet’) to orange (Campsis ‘Indian Summer’) and salmon red (Campsis ‘Madame Galen’). These climbers are self-clinging and need little support to get them growing. Our plants are all at least 3 feet tall with flowers and buds ready to perform.

All Callistemon and Grevillea relish hot conditions and we have a few new ones on our website for you to try in a hot location. Callistemons are flowering particularly well this year as you would expect.

Callistemon viminalis ‘Rose Opal’ has deep pink-red bottlebrush flowers 

Grevillea ‘New Blood’ is a new form with intense bright red flowers.