Plant Resilience Choosing plants for landscapes in a time of escalating heat and unpredictable rainfall has made gardening a gambling sport. Gardeners who pay attention to which of their landscape plants are more tolerant of our climate’s changing behavior know that instead of adding another hydrangea — the Greek root word in the genus name, hudor, means “water” — it might be a good idea to duplicate a garden plant with proven staying power. At Mizzou Botanic Garden’s (MUBG) recent program, Adapting Home Landscapes to a Changing Climate, presenter Chris Starbuck shared a list of drought tolerant plants based on his observations of plant performance. What follows — for your consideration — are profiles of a tree, a shrub and two perennial plants he recommends, three of which are native. American hornbeam, or musclewood, Carpinus caroliniana, is a slow-growing understory tree 20 to 35 feet in height. In wild Missouri, it occurs on rocky slopes, at the base of bluffs and along streams. A very nice specimen grows in MUBG’s Woodland Garden north of the Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources building on campus. Hornbeam grows in single or multi-trunk configurations and has attractive serrated foliage that produces decent shade and exhibits lovely fall color. Hornbeams flower in the spring with both male and female catkins — slim, dangling cylindrical bunches of blooms reminicient of jazzy earrings. Female catkins produce winged nutlets that are on the menu for a variety of song and gamebirds. Additionally, hornbeams are a host plant for 72 species of butterflies and moths, including the gorgeous io moth, eastern tiger swallowtail and luna moth. It is known as hornbeam because its very hard wood can be polished like horn, and musclewood because the trunks of mature trees bear a resemblance to rippling musculature. Possumhaw, Ilex decidua, a small tree at 30 feet, commonly grows as a shrub, reaching heights to 15 feet in cultivation. It occurs naturally in limestone glades, open woods and low wet woods near streams. It is a deciduous holly with glossy ovate leaves – unlike the spiked leaves of evergreen hollies in Christmas displays. Possumhaw’s white blooms are inconspicuous, and plants are either male or female. That means if you want this holly’s pretty orange-red berries to glow in your winter landscape, you will have to plant one of each, or more, since it’s tough to tell the boys and girls apart. They do make a nice hedge. And full sun will result in more berries. Birds and some animals, including opossums — obviously — will eat possumhaw’s berries but not until later in the winter season. This might be because the berries taste better as they age, or because critters run out of better tasting things to eat by then. Blooms are a nectar source for pollinators. Possumhaw is a host plant for Henry's elfin butterfly. Wild Indigo, Baptisia tinctoria, is a 2- to 3-foot foot shrubby perennial with clover-like leaves and pretty pea-like blooms in shades of cream to bright yellow. It is a nitrogen-fixing plant that occurs naturally in open woods and fields. Wild indigo’s blooms, described as “candy to bees”, form as sparce racemes on the ends of stems above its foliage in May and June. Blooms give way to small inflated seed pods that ripen to a black color, adding visual interest. Wild indigo also goes by the name of rattleweed in reference to the sound the seeds make within the pods when the wind blows. A deep-rooted plant, it is considered a good choice for erosion control and is native to the Eastern United States. Wild indigo hosts caterpillars of orange sulfur butterflies as well as the caterpillars of io moths and skippers. Rose verbena, Glandularia canadensis, formerly Verbena canadensis, is a low, sprawling plant 6 to 18 inches tall that takes root where its stems touch the ground. It grows naturally in prairies, fields, pastures and rocky glades, freely flowering from March to November. It’s flat-topped clusters of five-petaled blooms occur in shades of purple to pink to magenta atop its spreading stems of deeply lobed dark green leaves. Nectar in rose verbena’s long-tubed flowers lure long-tongued butterflies, skippers, bumble bees, mason bees and leaf-cutting bees in for a sweet drink and quick pollination. Seeds are favored and dispersed by mice and birds. For more possibilities, Starbuck’s full list of recommended plants has been posted to MUBG’s website. And, OK, if you must have a hydrangea, the oakleaf hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia, has thicker leaves that help reduce water loss. But it is far from drought tolerant. List of drought tolerant landscape plants.