What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: Using plant traits to inform species selection for naturalistic plantings in hotter and drier climates

• Low-maintenance naturalistic plantings can improve the liveability of cities. • We evaluated woody plants for naturalistic plantings managed by coppicing. • Survival and growth of 77 shrub and tree species after coppicing were measured. • Most species survived coppicing and will be suitable for naturalistic plantings. • Selecting larger sized plant species will maintain visual appeal and reduce weeds. Urban plantings can improve the liveability of cities, but wide-scale implementation can be deterred by maintenance costs. Naturalistic plantings are low-maintenance and are being used to provide multiple ecosystem services and amenity in cities worldwide. In hotter and drier climates, naturalistic plantings could take inspiration from natural shrubland communities to tolerate summer droughts and remain low maintenance. The Woody Meadow Project proposes using diverse plantings of small trees and shrubs maintained by coppicing (hard pruning every 2 years) to create dense canopies to suppress weeds and promote flowering. Therefore, Woody Meadow species should resprout vigorously after coppicing, but coppicing response remains poorly understood. Leveraging on research into resprouting after natural disturbances such as fire, we investigated whether plant traits, starch reserves, and habitat water availability influence resprouting success and vigour after coppicing. We evaluated 77 Australian woody species in a common garden experiment and related coppicing response to pre-coppiced traits and storage reserves and their habitat water availability based on species occurrences (Atlas of Living Australia) and their climates (WorldClim). Most (88 %) species resprouted after coppicing, suggesting that most Australian woody species are suitable for Woody Meadows. However, we could not predict resprouting success after coppicing with pre-coppiced traits and habitat water availability. Nonetheless, greater species diversity could minimise impacts of poorer resprouters on planting success. Greater resprouting vigour was observed for species with greater pre-coppiced basal area, height, total biomass, and starch pool (i.e., greater pre-coppiced plant size), indicating that larger-sized plant species will maintain weed suppression and visual appeal in Woody Meadows after coppicing.