Planting a Wind-Resistant Garden by the Sea

Know what your garden is up against

Few gardens are asked to work as hard as one within sight of the sea. Even a gentle onshore breeze carries salt, and in a winter gale that salt can travel several miles inland, scorching leaf edges and turning evergreens a miserable brown. Add relentless wind, soil that drains almost as fast as you water it, and the odd blast of pure sand, and you have a growing environment that sorts the tough from the tender very quickly.

The good news is that exposure is not the enemy of beauty. Some of the most evocative planting in Britain happens where wind and salt shape every leaf, and the result is low, dense, silvered and quietly dramatic. The trick is to work with the conditions rather than fight them.

• Salt spray is worst within roughly 100 metres of the shoreline, but strong onshore gales can carry it far further. Burnished, blackened leaf edges on the windward side are the giveaway.
• Wind does more damage than salt alone. Constant buffeting tears leaves, snaps stems and dries plants out even when the soil is damp.
• Soil is often thin, sandy, shell-rich and alkaline, holding very little moisture or nutrients. Dig in plenty of organic matter before you plant anything.

Start with shelter, not with flowers

It is tempting to fill the front of the plot with colour immediately, but a garden by the sea earns its keep through structure. Establish a permeable windbreak first and everything else becomes possible. Permeable is the key word: a solid wall or fence simply deflects the gale over the top and creates damaging turbulence on the leeward side, whereas a filter of around 50 per cent porosity slows the wind and drops the salt out of it.

Woven willow or hazel hurdles, chestnut paling, windbreak netting on stout posts and planted hedges all do this well. Plant a double row of tough hedging species — hawthorn, blackthorn, sea buckthorn, Escallonia or Griselinia littoralis in milder districts — and let it knit together for two or three seasons before you judge it. Trim it lightly and late, never in the teeth of a spring gale, and keep the top uneven so the wind is broken rather than funnelled.

Grasses that dance rather than snap

Grasses are the backbone of a coastal garden. They bend, they recover, and their movement softens the hardest sea light. Choose species with fine or leathery foliage and avoid anything with soft, sappy leaves that will shred in a gust.

• Pheasant's tail grass (Anemanthele lessoniana) — evergreen, copper-tinged, endlessly forgiving, and happy in poor sandy ground.
• Blue fescue (Festuca glauca) — compact, silver-blue, perfect for edging a gravel path where the wind scours.
• Tussock grass (Deschampsia cespitosa) — native, tolerant of both drought and damp, with hazy summer flower spikes.
• Lyme grass (Leymus arenarius) — brilliant grey-blue for stabilising sand, but give it room; it spreads.
• Stipa tenuissima — silky, mobile and surprisingly sturdy once established in free-draining soil.

Plant in generous drifts rather than single specimens. Groups hold together, shade their own roots and read as a single soft mass from the house windows.

Shrubs that shrug off the salt

Shrubs give a coastal garden its bones through winter, when grasses have been cut back and perennials have vanished. Look for small, thick, waxy or grey-felted leaves — these are nature's salt-proofing — and for plants that naturally grow on cliffs and dunes.

• Tamarisk (Tamarix ramosissima) — feathery grey-green foliage and frothy pink summer flowers; it thrives on exposure.
• Olearia and Brachyglottis — superb silver foliage, excellent in mild coastal counties, though they resent wet, cold roots.
• Rosa rugosa — rugosa roses are practically indestructible, with wrinkled leaves, scented flowers and fat orange hips.
• Elaeagnus x ebbingei — fast-growing, evergreen and tolerant of wind, salt and shade; ideal for a quick screen.
• Lavender and rosemary — both adore sharp drainage and full sun, and both release scent as the wind passes through them.

Perennials for pockets of calm

Once shelter is in place, you can create small pockets of relative stillness where slightly softer planting will survive. Use walls, low banks, raised beds and the lee side of that new hedge to widen your palette.

• Sea thrift (Armeria maritima) — tight pink pom-poms on wiry stems, made for a windy rockery.
• Sea holly (Eryngium) — steely blue, architectural and utterly unbothered by salt.
• Crocosmia — sword-like leaves and hot summer colour; it stands up to gusts better than most.
• Hardy geraniums — long-flowering, forgiving and quick to knit together in a border's lee.
• Sedum and thyme — low, drought-proof carpets for gravel and stone.

Planting and care in a salty garden

Autumn is the best time to plant, while the soil is still warm and rain is regular. Water thoroughly in the first summer — a deep soak twice a week beats a daily sprinkle — and mulch with well-rotted compost or leafmould to hold moisture and keep roots cool. Seaweed is a fine soil conditioner, but rinse it well first and use it sparingly so you do not overload the ground with salt.

Go easy on nitrogen-rich fertiliser. Soft, fast growth is exactly what a gale wants to shred; slow, tough growth is what you are after. Trim hedges in late summer, stake anything tall, and wrap or simply accept some scorching on the most exposed evergreens. Above all, be patient. A coastal garden takes three or four years to settle into its own rhythm — and once it does, it will look relaxed, natural and entirely at home beside the sea.