Hillside gardening Med. style

We are attempting to create a garden on a terraced hillside one hour inland from Alicante on the Costa Blanca in Spain. Height approx 2,500 feet above sea level. Very cold winters, although not snow covered. Hot, dry summers with temperatures around 30 centigrade.

I had visions of a beautiful, lush tropical garden with hibiscus and bouganvillia round the pool. It is just too cold in the winter to grow these beauties. Olives just about survive the winters there, but lemons and oranges will not. Watering in the summer is a problem!

Suggestions for small trees and shrubs for this terrain and climate would be much appreciated!

 

Hi, pts! We have a pretty dry summer climate here, too, and 30 degree temperatures, as well as winters which see temperatures as low as minus 8 or so. Some lemon trees will survive that, in fact, as do our figs and hibiscuses. How cold is "very cold"? Easier to suggest things if we have some idea of lowest temperatures!
One of our local native species is the Judas tree (Cercis siliquastrum) - a small tree which usually reaches about 15' in height here, although it can make 40' in ideal conditions. A leguminate with lovely pink pea-flowers in spring - don't know if you know it. Seems to survive the cold, heat and drought pretty well. Maybe have some more ideas if you can tell us how cold it actually gets!!

 

Temperatures have been down to minus 20C but not every year, usually around freezing or with a few degrees of frost. Your minus 8 sounds very similar. Local natives include pine trees, 'bog' oaks (I think - blue-green evergreen leaves, very shrubby and scrubby). The land used to be a plum orchard. Smaller wild plants include rosemary, thyme, cistus and little grey-leaved plants which look a bit like rosemary and lavender that can obviously take the summer drought. Which hibiscus do you grow? Figs may be good for us, they grow wild in the village lower down the hill where it is a bit more sheltered from the elements.

 

Ola pts. I'm afraid I can't be of any help to you because we don't reach zero even here!

However, this is the Cercis siliquastrum that Hyla arborea recommends above, mine is just coming into bloom ...



Another possibility is the Arbutus unedo, the Strawberry Tree, which are virtually indestructible and can take frost and drought. They grow wild on the hillsides in our mountain ranges. Plus you have the benefit of the fruit which is edible which is made here into Medronho, a local spirit.