Plants for a Seaside Garden - Part 1

Do you live by the sea and seek a greater variety of plants? Are you looking for plants that will withstand salt wind gales? or maybe you are only able to visit your seaside garden at the weekend, and you are searching for plants that will survive without daily attention. 
  
There are lots of hardy plants that will grow in coastal gardens. But please bear in mind that some are suitable for colder northern areas of Britain, while others require a warmer southern region. We will come to choice plants for a variety of areas and soil types later.

Plant colours for seaside gardens. (Some ideas for seaside rooms too!)

Colours I like for cottage gardens by the sea are ice blue or palest pink with drift wood browns and splashes of red geraniums, Pelargonium - terracotta pots on paving and purple clematis around an inland-facing door. (Pot-grown clematis can be transplanted at any time). These colours seem to evoke the whole concept of seaside.

Touches of suft-white can be effective too. And successful seaside gardens can also include the colours of sand through to bright yellow colours. For the yellow colour scheme, Welsh poppies and sea lupin can easily be raised from seed. We shall be looking at other colour schemes for plant associations.

Red sails and rose hips

Do you recall the navy of seamen’s jackets, red sails, pale washed out blues of sea-worn denims and canvas shoes? – the dot colours of children’s buckets and balls? How can we choose colours that harmonise with this scheme, while keeping an eye on the hardiness of plants?

Consider the navy of some rosemary flowers – light and dark-flowering varieties exist of this shrub that stands for remembrance. I like dark purple irises, a wild rose - the kind with open single flowers of the palest pink in June - and bright red hips following in autumn. These plants are ordinary to some gardeners, special to others. Cultivars with larger flowers of a deeper shade of pink are also available, or the white rambling rose ‘Seagull’.

Seagulls and shasta daisies,

Patches of white paint, sails, seagulls: all draw to mind white daisies. Shasta daisy, Chrysanthemum x superbum ‘Elizabeth’, is a neat variety; but there is also an attractive, vigorous form for the seaside with longer, fimbriated petals. (More types of daisies to come).

Canvas shoes and cornflowers

The washed out blues of summer flowering cornflower Centauria cyanus go well with this scheme. You can raise plants easily from seed. Shirley poppies will blow in from fields and grow amongst them. And have you seen the pale pebble colours of shell-like ‘Mother of Pearl’ poppy? Or a ‘ "Coastal" Wild Flower Mixture’ of seed includes: dog-violet, knapweed, harebell, tree-lupin, thrift, thyme and sea-holly.

Other plants for coastal gardens

Hebes, hydrangeas, and even tall crimson hollyhocks will stand the wind blast, especially when they are near a wall. If you go for vivid pink splashes of colour, Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus grows remarkably well as a hardy plant in coastal gardens in the South East. And ‘Mrs Popple’ is a good hardy fuchsia for the seaside. (More corms, bulbs and fuchsias to come)

A word about weeds

Unless your garden is very formal and geometrical shapes in stone are the main attraction, it is best, in many places, not to be too fussy about weeds. The surprise of self-sown plants appearing around the garden adds to the excitement. A too efficient weeding programme will remove every forget-me-not, and many hardy cyclamen. Cyclamen will grow wild along grassy coastal paths almost to the shore.