Do you like gardening? Is your garden quite close to the sea? If so, you’ll be on the lookout for plants that grow at the coast. Our own seaside garden is right on the edge of the sea. These are plants which will tolerate the harsh, salty winds here, many of which are in our own garden. The different climate at other coastal places might mean that you can grow different plants elsewhere.
We’ll keep coming back to this page and adding other suggestions. Got any of your own top-tips for plants that grow at the coast? Please leave a comment below and enlighten us all!
Plants that Grow at the Coast
We’ll start with the ones that will grow in a front garden, right on the seafront, exposed to all of the weather! Like most front gardens on the Fylde, ours has a brick wall around it which offers some protection. Starting with small plants, working up to larger ones:
Sea Thrift
A page about plants that grow well at the coast just has to begin with sea thrift. You’ll see it growing wild on the seafront and in gardens all along the Fylde. The usual wild colour is a pale pink.
Cultivated varieties are available to buy at garden centres in white and darker shades of pink. Crop the dead flower heads and stems off when they’ve finished and you’ll get another flush of flowers. Sea thrift self seeds quite easily. Watch for seedlings because they look very similar to grass weeds.
Delosperma and Mesembryanthemums
We’ve clumped these together because they’re very similar plants, albeit it mesembryanthemums are annual varieties. These plants grow at the coast with their fleshy, glaucus leaves.
Bluebells/Muscari
You’ve probably seen bluebells growing wild in roadside verges on the Fylde Coast. They grow well here, and will self seed easily.
Muscari are a similar, smaller relative. They usually flower earlier in the year than the bigger bluebells.
Silene
Otherwise known as sea campion, this is another close-growing plant that does well beside the sea. It tends to grow with abandon and sprawl all over the place. Keep it under control by cropping all the top off the plant when it’s finished flowering. It looks brutal but it stimulates new growth and reinvigorates the plant.
Aquilegia
These pretty, nodding flowers are a welcome sight in spring, and come up each year. The common variety seems to be purple. Cultivated ones come in a rainbow of pretty colours. Grow them easily from seed – and they self-set freely too.
Calendula
Once you’ve got this cheerful and robust plant in your garden you’ll have it forever! They’re very easy to grow from seed – buy a packet and scatter them on the ground. After your new plants have flowered, the seed heads will disperse and you’ll have a cheerful show every year afterwards.
Sedum
This whole group of plants grows well at the coast. Small and large, and all kinds of colours. The fleshy, glaucus leaves resist the drying effect of the salty winds. As a bonus, bees and butterflies love the nectar rich flowers.
Have you got the large leafed, large flowered sedum spectabile in your garden. Here’s a tip to stop it growing long and leggy. Give it what’s called the ‘Chelsea Chop’. So called because it’s done at roughly the same time as the famous garden show. Simply crop new growth on the stems down to the very bottom. Like this (below). You can pot the bits that you cut off to make new plants and they root easily. It looks very brutal, but each one will grow new branches, making the plant more compact and resulting in many flower heads.
Ivy
This is a good cover up plant. It also comes in lots of different varieties – different colours and leaf sizes. Ivy will romp up a brick wall or fence, and it’s also good ground cover under hedges. Not only will it suppress weeds, it’s also a great habitat for wildlife. Insects will set up home and, if you’re lucky, birds will nest in its dense cover.
Carnations & Pinks
This might be a surprise to you, but the carnation family does really well in exposed, coastal conditions. In our own front garden we’ve got several plants of all kinds of sizes, from small pinks to full sized carnations. They do incredibly well – some of them are many years old. You’ll find that the wind makes them grow quite compact, with sturdy stems. Pick the scented varieties for the added bonus of their beautiful perfume! Simply deadhead the stems down to their base for repeat flowering right through the summer.
Aster
I always call this a seaside aster, but it’s proper name is erigeron glaucus. It’s also known as seaside fleabane! If you’ve got it in your own garden you’ll understand it’s common name. It grows like mad. The plants throw off long stems which then root to form new plants. It also self-sets easily from seed. All you have to do to keep it under control is give it a good haircut when it’s finished flowering. And you might occasionally need to take a spade to it and dig some up – give them away to friends and neighbours!
Day Lily, or Hemerocallis
This plant is another surprisingly hardy perennial, which can withstand the harsh coastal weather. It’s called Day Lily because each individual flower lasts just for one day. But the multi-headed stems flower and flower! It’s also easy to multiply too. Simply lift the clumps in autumn, divide and replant. Just watch out for the slugs and snails though – they seem to be partial to this one!
Valerian
This is another perennial plant that’s associated with the coast. And another one that you’ll frequently see growing wild. Wild plants are usually pink but cultivated ones are available in white. At one time it was a common plant that was easily available in garden centres. For some reason it’s been quite scarce in recent years. Considering how pretty it is – and how easy to grow – that’s quite strange!
Crocosmia
Crocosmia is another one of those marmite plants. You either love it or loathe it! You’re possibly more familiar with the bright orange variety. Montbretia, which grows rapidly like a weed. The cultivated forms aren’t quite as invasive. This one is ‘Lucifer’ – it’s a much taller, stronger variety than the weedy one, carrying these lovely dark red flowers. Crocosmia grows from a corm, so when it out-stays its welcome you can just dig (or pull) them up.
Lysimachia Punctata, or Loosestrife
This is another hardy perennial which gives a good splash of cover at the back of a border. It does need a bit of shelter from the salty winds – you can see that our plant has had a singeing. If unseasonable winds blow and burn your plant, just chop the worst bits off and wait. New growth will quickly follow.
Agapanthus
If you’re a regular visitor to Cleveleys, you’ll have seen hundreds of these, flowering in the seafront gardens. They’re a sight to see in such numbers. Personally, I’ve never succeeded in getting one to flower! I do know that they flower best when they’re root bound and the plant is stressed. Which is why they also do well in pots.
Red Hot Poker
These do well at the coast, with their long, fibrous leaves, topped off with the distinctive flowers.
Marguerite or Shasta Daisy – Leucanthemum
This is a vigorous and hardy perennial that grows well at the coast, also one of the aster family. White is the common colour but pretty pastel colours are also available.
This plant forms a large clump which dies back to the ground over winter. Dozens of big, white daisy shaped flowers are carried above the dark green stems. Even in an exposed position the plant can reach quite a size, with stems a couple of feet tall. The white variety also seeds freely too. If it gets carried away just lift the clump in spring or autumn, divide and replant. Or give some clumps away!
Seneccio Greyii “Brachyglottis”
This is a good shrub that you can train into all kinds of shapes! It’s fairly weather resistant too. You need to keep it under control though, rather than letting it grow and grow.
I’ve trained one against our garden fence – tying new growth back to make a densely covered shrub. It has big flowering plumes, each carrying dozens of small yellow flowers. Cut the whole flowering stem off when it’s finished to keep the shrub tidy and compact. Also evergreen, this plant makes great hedge cover for garden birds to hide and nest in.
Rosa Rugosa
This is a marmite plant – you’ll either love it or hate it. In sand dunes and wild places it can be considered a weed and it is invasive. But it’s useful in a garden for hedging and structure. It’s actually a native of eastern Asia, where it grows on beach coasts, often on sand dunes. That explains why it’s so hardy then!
In white or pink, its many flowers are a welcome splash of colour in the seaside garden. They’re followed by rose hips in autumn. Not only does it tolerate the salty sea spray, it’s also quite resistant to black spot and other rose diseases. Keep it under control by removing suckers and pruning it into shape. Keep an eye out for seedlings too. Then it’s a good addition to your garden and another of the plants that grow at the coast.
Tamarisk
This is another personal disappointment. The gardening books will tell you that this shrub will grow to quite a size, and it’s salt tolerant. When it gets bigger it becomes a mass of pale pink when it comes into flower.
This is the plant in our garden – this photo was taken in 2010. Ten years later the same plant is certainly no bigger – if anything it’s smaller. The other two we planted at the same time are dead!
Hydrangea
This shrub is probably the one most associated with seaside gardens. Rows of them line suburban streets, with their floppy mop-heads in shades of pink and blue. They do tolerate the salty, windy conditions, and hydrangea plants grow well at the coast. All they need is a bit of pruning to keep them in shape. But don’t cut the flower heads off until the harsh and/or frosty weather has passed, as they protect the stems.
Euonymus
We’ve used euonymus in our own garden to create a green hedge backdrop and some shelter from the coastal winds. It forms a sturdy plant and also offers some shelter for wildlife and garden birds. If your euonymus shrubs are in direct line of the wind you might find the leaves are burnt by the wind. Leave the dead on until well into spring (April/May) as protection for the stems. When you trim the dead off, new growth will follow.
Another similar shrub is griselinia. It has similar leaves – sort of camelia crossed with euonymus – and is said to do well at the coast. However, we planted it in our front garden and all of the ones that we bought died. We’ve seen other seafront residents try to plant hedges with it and fail too.
Hebe
Is perhaps one of the best known coastal shrubs. The thick and leathery leaves withstand the winds and salty sea air quite well. As a bonus, shrubs carry bunches of dense mauve flowers in spring and summer, which bees and butterflies love.
Phormium
These are the long, spiky leaves that grow from the ground. Not to be confused with the cordyline. That’s the one that grows like a palm tree, eventually forming a trunk.
Phormiums are available in many different shapes, sizes and colours. The large ones are especially useful for creating shelter in seafront gardens. Beware – they can spread and they’re not easy to get out once they grow! Smaller varieties are good for adding shape and form to a coastal garden. Phormiums are a good substitute in exposed places where you’ll find other shrubs difficult to grow.
How to Look after your Plants that Grow at the Coast
If you’re new to seaside gardening, it’s a new experience to get used to! Here at Visit Fylde Coast we killed a lot of plants before we learned what do do. Both how to look after them, and what will actually grow!
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