It's Not Hot, It's ROOF Hot
12:00 AM - Jun 12, 2009
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Not Just Hot, Roof Hot
A new term and some new plants for Austin gardeners
I'm coining a new term to describe Texas summer heat: Roof hot. We need this. After 35 years of surviving Texas summers, I’m finally tired of saying things like “Man, it’s SUPER hot” or “Geez, it’s hot” or my most recent favorite “Dude, it’s CRAZY hot”. From now on, when it’s super hot or crazy hot, I’m just going to say “Wow, it’s like ROOF hot out here.” I’m pretty sure the functionality of this term is almost limitless, and gardeners everywhere will rejoice at having this new convenient yet descriptive term in their vocabularic arsenal. Perhaps the best use of this phrase will be in describing a plant’s heat tolerance. For example, say I’m talking to a guest about one of my favorite summer plants, Bulbine, and I say “Let me tell you, there’s not a plant here that can take heat like Bulbine. It can take it ROOF HOT.” And that will immediately tell the customer that this plant can stand up to the hottest, most smolderingly horrible place in Texas: a Texas roof. Have you ever been up on your roof in the summer, on a cloudless day? If not, don’t. It’s like a solar oven. If a plant can live up there, it deserves a horticultural medal of honor. I should know, sometimes I get appointed the not-so-fun job of crawling up on our roof at the nursery and tending to the living “green roof” we have on display. Not only is it roof hot up there, it dries out almost immediately after watering, which means plants living up there require pretty much NOTHING to survive. Thriving, now that’s a different story, but any plant that can just hunker down and survive a rooftop summer will most likely grow like a weed during the cooler wetter times of the year. Or just imagine how they’ll do in the ground where it’s so much cooler year-round?
Why don’t I go ahead and list out the plants we have growing on our roof? I’ll bet that would help some folks decide what to plant in those hot, dry, exposed areas of the yard that just can’t seem to support life. I would recommend you keep up with the water throughout the first summer, but after that turn ‘em loose until next August and see what happens; I’ll bet you won’t be disappointed. These plants are like the Green Berets of the garden world. Here they are:
1. Bulbine frutescens. This rugged little cousin of the grass aloes might very well be the perfect plant for Austin. With its orange and yellow flowers clustered and hovering above grassy evergreen foliage, what’s there not to like? Survives even the most intense drought when established, but when rain, irrigation, or a passing dog wets its roots, bulbine will show off for weeks. Blooms spring, summer, fall.
2. Sedum mexicana. For what it’s worth, this is my favorite sedum, and I’ve loved many. The trick with sedums is to plant the heat-tolerant ones, most of which, I would argue, are not. Mexicana loves the heat, but can take some afternoon shade too.
3. Sedum ‘Blue Spruce’. I’m pretty sure this plant is half plastic, it just doesn’t seem to ever suffer from heat or drought. When the going gets tough, this plant hunkers down and starts throwing out these strange pinkish-red aerial roots, I suppose to capitalize on the most water possible whenever that day comes. Love this plant.
4. Prostrate Myoporum. A tough little soldier native to Southwest Asia, myoporum is cursed in name alone (Aussies call it Creeping Boobialla). This evergreen, fast-growing ground cover can do sun or shade, moist or dry, hot or cold, and even has little white flowers in the spring.
5. Delosperma cooperi ‘Hardy Ice Plant’. Think of this plant as a sedum with bigger, prettier foliage and quarter-sized pink daisy flowers in the spring. Evergreen and tougher than an army boot, hardy ice plant spreads fast and suppresses weeds along the way.
Here at the Great Outdoors, Merrideth and Jill do a pretty fantastic job of keeping our tables stocked with these and many other awesome, tough plants that can take all kinds of hot, even roof hot.
