RobinM wrote:

Actually, since these plants were at the bottom of a slope where
run-off might collect, and both of them prefer less water rather than
more water, are you sure they haven't been getting TOO much water,
rather than too little?

I thought about that -- but I am a California gardener, and I actually
like to be stingy with water. I watered this spot by hand when needed,
deeply and infrequently. If anything, I would have expected the plants
to wilt as they succumbed to the summer drought conditions. This isn't
how they died, as I described in my original post.

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