Video:Plant a Seaside Garden

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Transcript:Plant a Seaside Garden

Hi, I'm Amanda Switzer for About.com Home. Having a house by the beach might seem to some like a luxury beyond comprehension, but there is sometimes trouble in paradise. The seaside is a harsh growing environment and making the right plant choices can be the difference between a lush, gorgeous landscape and a dried-up desert.

Soil in a Seaside Garden

When you are at the beginning stages of planning your design, determine what type of soil you are planting in, because if your property is primarily sand, then either your plant choices are extremely limited, or you will have to add yards upon yards of top soil.

Sand in a Seaside Garden

Planting in sand is tricky. There are plants that will do well in sand, but when you plant them you are going to have to be religious about watering them.

These are some plants that thrive in very sandy soils:

• yucca
• bearberry
• memorial rose
• fragrant sumac
• trumpet vine
• beach plum
• rosa rugosa
• Scotch broom
• tamarisk
• Austrian pine

Plants that will do well with little or no true soil:

• pitch pine
• Japanese black pine
• Russian olive
• amelanchier

Above are some of the plants that will do well with little or no true soil.

Learn From Neighboring Seaside Gardens

When you are looking for plants for your property, in your research, try driving around your neighborhood and note the plants that are doing well. Consult specialists and purchase landscape books, because planting in this difficult environment is challenging and making a mistake in plant selection can be costly.

Salty Seaside Garden Plants

There are plants that can tolerate salt spray and wind better then others. Usually plants that have a silvery color are good choices for the garden, like lambs ear and Russian sage. The farther you get from the primary dune where you have more shelter from the wind and spray, the more you can start planting plants like:

• hydrangeas
• Montauk daisies
• butterfly bush

There are of course many others in addition to this list, but these type of plants are salt tolerant and will be able to withstand some of the storms that ravish the coast.

Protect Your Seaside Garden in Winter

In the winter it is advised to protect your plantings. One way to do this is to wrap the shrubs in burlap, and build wood frames covered in burlap to protect trees from the winter storms.

Plant an Ocean Garden

When you are planting by the sea, take your time and don't plant everything at once. Live with the plants a little and see how they progress, then as you learn more about what does well in your environment, plant more.

The seashore landscape is beautiful on its own, so try not to over-design nature's design, which has worked for eons. Using a light hand will aesthetically pay off.

Thanks for watching, To learn more, visit us on the Web at homegarden.about.com.