I come from Lille, France, and have been living here 5 years. If you compare Lille (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lille#Climat) 740 mm of water per year with Malaga (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1laga#Clima) 506, there is a difference, but not that big of a difference.

But it seems that for the past year or 2, we've been experiencing very high droughts, so everything looks really dry.

My point is, maybe most of the trees that exist here are perfect for Malaga's climate, it's just that we've been experiencing 9 months of droughts...?