It was typical of such announcements that we should read of water shortages when it was raining cats and dogs for the umpteenth day in a row. It hasn't been what I would call a dry winter.

Xeriscaping is the buzzword of the moment with garden designers. It comes from the Greek xeros which means dry but it is catching on as a way of charging lumps of money to create a visually attractive landscape using plants that don't need much water.

There are plenty of them. I suggest looking out for varieties known to be drought tolerant.

One of my first choices is a new kind of eryngium, or Sea Holly. The variety most commonly grown is derived from a native wildflower, eryngium maritima, a clump-forming perennial about 30cms tall with a similar spread and dense globular metallic blue flowers. The plant I recommend is a form of eryngium bourgati which hails from the Pyrenees although the new variety, Picos Blue, was developed in England.

The bourgati clan may sound like a stable of motor racing cars but is made up of extremely striking herbaceous perennials with leathery grey-green and silver-veined leaves and flower spikes that reach up to 75cms (30ins) high.

The Sea Holly is easy to grow from seed and one of the finest collections is in the catalogue of Chiltern Seeds, of Bortree Stile, Ulverston, Cumbria, LA12 7PB. There you will find several varieties of eryngium giganteum, the species which spawned well-known varieties such as Miss Willmott's Ghost which, when seen at dusk at a distance, takes on a ghostly luminosity because of the silvery-white blooms.

There are a great many more drought-tolerant flowers, including lavenders, chrysanthemums, euphorbias, calendulas, sedums, asters, amaranthus, brachycombes, coreopsis, corydalis, cosmos, dianthus, diascia, and many of the ornamental grasses.

By Jim Roberts