- EP330 Colour By The Coast, Plants That Thrive By The Sea: Coastal Garden Survival

This weeks sponsor: 

Crann From  Probio Carbon 

https://www.probiocarbon.ie

Coastal gardens are brutally honest. If your planting can’t handle salt-laden wind, sudden gusts that change direction, and soil that drains in minutes, it won’t last long and it won’t look good doing it. We dig into what really makes coastal gardening difficult, why it can feel cold and harsh even in late spring, and how to stop wasting money on plants that never had a chance in an exposed spot. 

The big idea is simple: don’t try to “block” the wind, filter it. We talk through building structure first with tough windbreak shrubs and coastal hedging, then using that shelter to expand your plant choices. You’ll hear practical, proven options for coastal gardens across Ireland, including pittosporum, griselinia, olearia and escallonia, plus flowering shrubs like fuchsia, rock rose (cistus) and tamarisk that can take a battering and still reward you with colour. 

From there, we move into dependable perennials that cope with exposure and keep your borders lively, from verbena bonariensis and achillea to nepeta, sea thrift, hardy geraniums and sedum. We also make the case for alpines as some of the best coastal plants you can grow, especially in gritty, low-nutrient ground. Finally, we cover how pots, bedding plants and compact bulbs let you create sheltered pops of colour through the seasons, even when the wider garden is still taking the full force of the weather. 

If you’re designing or rescuing a coastal garden, subscribe for more practical planting advice, share this with a friend who gardens by the sea, and leave a review so more growers can find the show. What’s the one plant that always struggles in your coastal garden?

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_00 0:12

How's it going everybody? And welcome to episode 330 of Mastermore Garden Podcast. Now this week's episode we're looking at the subject of coastal gardens and how to make, I suppose, make the most of a coastal garden. And uh yeah, there's challenges, but there's also pluses to coastal gardens, and yeah, we'll look at all of those things.

Sponsor Microbes For Plant Health

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Before we do that though, uh special mention for this week's podcast sponsor, and it's Probiocarbon. And the product this week is crayon. So crayon is the Irish word for trees, and this is the product that was featured on Homegrown last year, and essentially what it is, it's a mix of uh microbes, uh bacillusutlus and pseudomonas. And effectively, what it does, it became it becomes a natural fungicide. So it's used a lot on hedging, it's brilliant for uh preventing any diseases. I've personally used it on some of you would have heard me mentioning uh Portuguese laurel, which I had a problem with last year, uh, treated with it, and very, very soon afterwards got a big flush of new fresh growth. I should have hit it with a second treatment later in the year and didn't, so I'm I'm back on it again this spring. But a really, really good product. Um there has been a couple of head gardeners who have trialled it on boxes for boxes blight with really good results. Personally haven't used it on boxes blight, but a very, very good product. I've also used it on apple trees, on vegetables, and so on. So essentially, they're Irish microbes, so they're developed in Ireland, they're local to the conditions, they suit the conditions, and then they work in harmony with the plant. So they make nutrients available, they work with the work with the plant to basically make the most of what is in the soil, you know, making, as I say, nitrogen bioavailable for the plant, releasing minerals, and just generally strengthening the plants. You can use them at all stages of growth, so you can use it on seedling stage, it's brilliant for stopping things like pithium and so on, but at seedling stage it gets in around the root zone of the plant and then stays with the plant throughout its life, and yeah, can be used, as I say, on all crops at all stages, and just gives generally a real big boost and creates resilient prop uh crops. And you can find the product on www.probiocarbon.ie and the product is crane, uh featured as I say on homegrown last year, and and a very, very good product. Currently, I have a five-litre can ready to use the on the Portuguese laurel here again, so yeah, it's it's a very, very good product.

Why Coastal Gardens Feel Harsh

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So now to the coastal garden, and uh this week is a good example. So, weather-wise, it is you know, it doesn't feel like May at all, it is cold, really, really heavy winds, and you know, nighttime temperatures very cold, daytime temperatures with sun are are getting high in certain parts. Um, certainly in your greenhouse, you're getting big day nighttime or daytime temperatures and low nighttime temperatures. And this is you know, this is a feature so far of this spring, and so far, you know, even into May, we are feeling that it's still a little bit cold, it doesn't feel very, very warm yet. While growth has started, you know, for for certain plants, for tender plants, for your young plants going outside, it's quite a shock to the system getting out into the you know into the weather that we have at the moment, and you know that sort of harsh wind, uh drying wind, that you know sort of has a lot of similarities to a coastal garden, and you know, the challenges that you get with a coastal garden are different to challenges that you get in any other garden. So, you know, lots of people have challenging gardens for various reasons. They could be on the side of a hill, could be a very wet site, could be a very stony site. You know, there's various challenges in the gardens. And if there's anyone else listening that has a challenging garden for any reason, drop me a message and we'll we'll cover that in the podcast too. But this this one is you know, it's quite a common one. Coastal gardens can be, with the right plant choices, absolutely beautiful, um, but they do need to have a certain level of resilience, and the plants that you'll choose to go in there have to be resilient. Um, so the challenges with a coastal garden are salt, you know, salty wind, you know, so you get that salty wind all through, you know, get storms, storms are blowing up, especially if you're really, really close to the shoreline. Yeah, get that salt wind whipping up and and then blowing across landing on your plants, and that can that can burn plants. You get that whipping uh wind that you'll you'll get, so where you'll get gusts and changes of direction because you have you know wind coming in across the sea, and then it's hitting some form of land and buildings and it gets whipped in different directions, and that changing of directions, you know, causes the causes damage to plants. You also have the challenge, you know, which others won't have in certain areas of the ground being too free draining. So you can have sandy soil, sand dunes, and just very, very free draining, and that again can cause certain challenges. Nutrients don't hold in the soil very, very well, and you know, they are the main kind of challenges within a coastal garden. The big the big one, you know, is the is that windy um whipping. So anything soft is getting moved in every direction, and and just you know, the plant needs to be able to stand up to that. The plus side of it, and this is what you know, you don't it's like any garden, you can work with what's there, choosing the right plants, and then you'll still end up, you know, with a positive uh you know quality garden at the end of it all by working with the right plants. So you don't fight with it, you kind of work with it. So that's the kind of general principle. The

Filter Wind Rather Than Fight It

SPEAKER_00 6:36

plants that thrive there, you know, are there's a lot of plants that will thrive there, but I suppose the general the general principle is to do something structurally to try and filter that wind. You won't stop it, you know, when you're that close to the to the shoreline, it's very, very hard to stop it. So what you try and do is you filter it. So you use some sort of bigger shrubs, um, ones that are going to stand up to this, and that'll filter the wind through the garden a little bit. Obviously, some bigger ones around the outside will capture a little bit of that salty, um, salt-laden wind as well, and then the ones through the garden are less, you know, they're getting less of that salty air hitting them. So that's the first kind of thing is to create these bigger blocks, these bigger plants that will stand up to that and filter the wind through the garden a little bit better. The other thing you can do is that this whipping wind we're talking about, you know, it generally settles over the summer months. You will get obviously days where it's you know where it's like that. But in little corners, in pots particularly, you can use bedding plants to your advantage, you know, or or annual flowers that just give you pops of colour in sheltered little spots in um spots that the wind is not you know going to be causing any problems for, and it it allows you to get these little pops of colour by utilising you know some kind of annual type plants. And because that can be the problem, you know, getting something that's going to be able to give you these colours uh throughout the seasons. So you utilising pots and into sheltered spots. There is some very reliable perennials that we can go through as well, and we're going to go through all these now in a minute. Uh some reliable prep perennials that will work well in in you know coastal gardens. Again, we're looking to filter that wind a little bit beforehand. And there is, of course, flowering shrubs as well.

Alpines As Coastal Workhorses

SPEAKER_00 8:38

And then other things that are, you know, they're probably overlooked a little bit generally in gardens is alpines. So alpines, by their nature, are meant to grow in spaces. So they trick traditionally are found or in the wild, they would be found on mountaintops or that type of environment. So areas where there's not much nutrient can be free draining, uh, can be quite harsh in terms of changes of temperature, in terms of you know wind, but they're generally speaking able to survive in low nutrient environments, in sandy or you know gritty type soil or growing media. They are low to the ground, they flower at different stages, they spread on the ground a little bit, but by their nature they're ideal for coastal gardens. And they're ones that they're they should be utilized a little bit more in general in gardens. Um people look, you know, they go to the garden centre to see them looking really well when in flower, but their windows of flower then change, and you need to pair several different types together in order to get continuity of flower. But they're a brilliant, tough little plant and ideal for coastal gardens. And you know, they're kind of the categories.

The Holiday Garden Mistake

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Um the biggest mistake that people make, I suppose, in coastal gardens is picturing the coastal garden versus a coastal garden or versus what they see when they go on holidays to Spain or to Italy or to Greece or whatever, and they see you know these maybe tropical type plants, and then they envisage that in their coastal garden. And it may well work depending on where you are, but typically around the coast of Ireland, you know, there is some examples obviously down in Kerry and places like that where there's almost tropical gardens down there. But generally speaking, around the rest of the coast of Ireland, we do get these whipping winds, sort of colder temperatures, and that you know mean that the that look that you'll see when you're on holidays, that tropical look, is difficult to replicate mostly around the coast of Ireland. Uh and wind is generally the challenge. So that's kind of the biggest mistake is you know envisaging a garden from from your holidays and trying to replicate it. You need to look more at what's surviving in those coastal areas, you know, in the wild, what plants are working, and you are thinking about you know a lot of those alpiney type plants, and then from there filtering the wind to allow you to introduce some more tougher perennials and flowering shrubs and so on. So that's kind of the the gist of of the episode. And we're gonna get into you know the uh the structure now of how we would go about this and the plants that we can

Windbreak Shrubs And Hedge Choices

SPEAKER_00 11:45

use. So in terms of you know, tough shrubs, trees, you know, things like that to break the wind first, we're looking at the you have a good few options. You have things like Pitasporum is very, very good, structurally big, will filter the wind. You have hedging plants like grissolinia, olerias, um, you know, those type of plants, Escalonia is another very good one that comes with a flower as well, and they'll they'll be very good at creating barriers, they'll grow quite big. You can also include things like Hawthorne, uh Gilder Rose, those type plants. They're gonna be hardy, they're gonna give you a bit of structure, there is certain types of you know pines that will do well, and that's the first aim is to try and create these windbreaks, as such, and that's gonna give you the opportunity behind those windbreaks to add in some more of the plants. So hedging plants like grissolinia, uh pittusporums, and those type things, they'll do really well. Uh,

Flowering Shrubs That Take Exposure

SPEAKER_00 12:56

then flowering shrubs, and again, there is some. I'm putting the Escalonia into this category as well, so it is you know a hedging plant per se, but it's also a really good flowering shrub if used individually, so lovely vibrant green growth, and then various, depending on the variety, various shades of pinks and purples in the flower. And they're a really hardy plant, don't mind, you know, don't mind any exposure to the to sea winds, and but a nice flower and a vibrant growth. Fuchsia is another one, again, in you know, almost in the wild, you'll see it in certain certain parts of the country as you're heading for the coast. A lot of um fuchsia growing on on banks and on ditches and on the top of stone walls. Beautiful flower in the summer, can grow quite big and can create that barrier as well. So fuchs is a really, really good one and hardy. Um, another one is cystus, it's it's known as the rock rose. Lovely flower on that one, can get a little bit untidy in its growth, but the flower more than makes up for it. So a really, really good solid plant. Another nice one that I like is the you know, the horizontal uh rosemary, so it's not the rosemary that grows up tall, has the exact same type of a leaf, has a little flower on it, um, but horizontal rosemary, very, very hardy, and again, because it's growing horizontally, doesn't really get impacted by the wind, you know, chopping and and and brushing off it. Another good one is uh tamarisk, so nice flower on it. Again, can look a little bit untidy in its growth, but the flower more than makes up for that, a little bit similar to the cystus there, and they're you know they're they're ideal, they are meant to be like they're coastal plants. That's the that's the idea of them. So that's why they have maybe this untidy looking growth, but the flower then, as I say, more than makes up for

Reliable Perennials For Coastal Beds

SPEAKER_00 14:47

it. Some perennials then that you can that you can bring in, but you are initially looking to make sure you're you're given a little bit of shelter. So uh Echinacea will do reasonably well. Just watch out that you're not into pure sandy soil. Um does need a little bit of of you know organic matter there in in order to grow. Um Verbena Bernarienses, brilliant, brilliant perennial. Really, really tall, has those long, slender cell um stems. The fact that the stem is so narrow, uh it's able to take the little bit of wind, so the wind will blow through it as opposed to chopping it around a bit. Uh so they're quite good, but you are again you're on the sheltered side of your garden at this stage or behind your shelter belt. Uh, Achillea is a brilliant one, will grow uh really well, will spread really well, gives nice colour over a long period of time. They're available in lots of different colours, the you know, really vibrant pinks, purples, mauves. Um, most of them will eventually revert to the original uh millifolium white. Um that's just the nature of them, but you'll get a lot of time over it, and the white then itself is is beautiful, will self-seed, uh, you know, will self-seed into the into other places of the garden, which if you wanted it is good. Um, another one then is in the pita, which is the cat mint. That's a really good one for uh nice hit of colour, giving a similar look, say, to lavender, but just a little bit tougher. Um Armenia Sea Thrift, that's a brilliant one. So I was in Dunleary there two weeks ago, and there was a bed, um, quite a long bed, right very near the the walk at you know, the like the or the boats pull in, I don't know what you call it, the pier, the pier walk. Um and there was a big bed done in all Armenia uh sea thrift and it was beautiful, like really vibrant flower on it, tightly packed together and looked looked class. So that's a really good one. Um some of the hardy geraniums as well, the likes of Roseanne, uh Ann Thompson, any of those, they're really good because they'll uh you know they'll spill out, they'll give a vibrant, uh vibrant splash of colour all over the summer months. Don't get blown around too much with the wind, you know, they'll they'll kind of flop around a little bit, but they're they're generally not disturbed too much by it. So that's another brilliant one. Seedum is another good one, really uh vibrant autumn colours in that, so you're getting a little bit of an extension. Um one that I tried to grow from seed and failed miserably with is sea holly, um oringum. So that's a really beautiful, interesting looking plant. Um can be tricky to grow, but not in a coastal garden because that's where it's meant to be. So sea holly is a beautiful one. Um Santalina is another one, likes grey kind of foliage to it. Uh does you know, does well in in a coastal garden. Um, so they're they're kind of whatever there is, eight or ten really good perennials for set back into your garden. So just to shoot over those again. Echinacea, Verbena Banariensis, Achillea and Pita, Armenia Sea thrift, Hardy Geraniums, Cedums, Sea Holly, um, you know, they're kind of a good list. There's probably a couple of others as well, but that's that's a good list. There is some other ones as well, I suppose, that would would fall in there, uh, things like Crocosmia. Don't overly like planting them, and you know, if you you'd want to be able to contain it because they do spread and spread kind of a little bit wild. There is certain areas of the country where it is gone almost invasive, I would say. Um so yeah, you it's nice, but you would want to be able to make sure you keep it under control, keep manners on it. Um Red Hot Poker is another one again. I don't overly love the flower on it. People some people go mad for it, they don't really overly love it, but it is a good one in the coastal garden. Uh, and one that I should have mentioned, I suppose, with the kind of bigger structural plants was forium. Um so forum is one that's probably about 20 years ago, everyone was planting them in every Irish garden, but they get huge, absolutely huge. And in most gardens, they get too big, but for a coastal garden where you're looking for that, creating a barrier, they're they're a perfect plant, really. So um forearm is another one that I, as I say, I should have mentioned in the structural type plants. Um,

More Alpine Picks For Tough Spots

SPEAKER_00 19:31

alpines, then, and this is a this is an area where if you have a coastal garden, this is where your winners are going to come from. They're they're just um hardy, they're meant for this type of environment, they'll survive, they'll flower at different periods, they're dainty, um, they'll be continuous, they'll spread. So there's so much to like about alpines, and as I say, this is kind of an ideal setting for them. Um so there's lots of them. Aubricia is a very, very good one. Um flowering at the moment, looks absolutely gorgeous, will grow, doesn't need much nutrients, is resilient, will grow in pots, will grow on the ground, will grow on the crack of the wall, uh, and full flower at the moment. Smallish window of flowering, you know, maybe six or eight weeks, but during that window it gives massive joy and looks absolutely fantastic. Uh, another one is Sempivermans, we have sedums, saxifries. I love saxifries, brilliant flowers, uh, dainty, spread out a little bit, um, hardy, so much, so much um positives on those, and they'll do really, really well in that coastal garden. Um creeping thyme is one that that's quite good, obviously gives a nice scent as well. You have Orangenum, so basically a daisy, so there's lots of different lots of different types. The one I have at the moment is Profusion, that's a brilliant one, it just that will flower for probably seven, eight months, continuously flowering. Um, and there's not many plants that'll give you that, and it only like it is a daisy, it looks like a daisy, but to have flowering over that period of time is really you know, really is that is something that's really worth having in an al in a coastal garden. Um Armenia Maritime, that's another good one as well. So, you know, kind of seven or eight, there maybe ten different alpines, there's loads more, just checking your in your local nursery or garden centre. Um, they're brilliant for coastal gardens. Next

Pots Bedding Plants And Bulbs

SPEAKER_00 21:47

up is the bedding plants, and this is where and I'm gonna kind of throw bulbs in here as well. This is where you get these sheltered corners where the wind is not hitting it at all, and you're able to add. Just little pops of colour that brighten brighten the place and you know give you that colour that you're looking for. That's you know that's kind of the aim is to get a bit of colour. And generally speaking, you're looking for you know the hardiest of the bedding plants. You know, you you wouldn't probably put a busy Lizzie anywhere near the coast, they don't love that sort of wind, definitely wouldn't like the salt, you know, the bedding begonias, I wouldn't go with that either. But some of the hardier stuff, so osteospernums, uh, canengulas, the canandula will self-seed, will flower over a long period of time, would grow in your ear, like it just will self-seed it anywhere it can. So, you know, it's a good one to to fill up spaces, to add vibrancy, to add colour and hardy. Nasturtium is another one, we all know how that self-seeds, but again, when in flower, it's fantastic. Uh cosmos, you're looking for the shorter type ones, you don't want the like those beautiful cosmos that'll go to two and a half or three foot tall. We don't want those. We want something a little bit smaller because we don't want it getting blown around. Uh, one of the most underrated plants for coastal gardens, bedding plants for coastal gardens, is geraniums. We kind of underrate them a little bit, so they are old-fashioned in a certain sense, but geraniums will, and I'm not talking, we mentioned the perennial geraniums earlier on, but these are the bedding geraniums, them, and they're going to be brilliant, absolutely brilliant, in pots. They'll flower for a long period of time, they don't need much looking after, they're generally hardy. If they do get a bit of wind, they're not going to sulk afterwards. They can be deadheaded and continue flowering. There's just so much positives about them. So geraniums is definitely one you'd be adding. Uh, diasca is another one, quite a good one. Um, nice dainty flower on it, not a chunky leaf. So when it does get windy, it kind of moves and doesn't get blown around. Uh, also in the pots, you can add things like your grasses, they'll do really well in those, you know, something tall like uh stepa, um, you know, possibly even some of you know the K Rex, the those type plants, the Astelias, anything that ha gives you that kind of look. And but keep those in your pots, they'll generally do better, and then you're able to get your summer of colour and then flip it up in the winter time, get in your bulbs in the autumn time, get in your you know, your winter bedding in the in that at that time of the year, and you're getting just colour, little pops of colour, all over that period of time by by using pots in sheltered spaces. Um, so that's kind of the the bedding, and and the bulbs there is something that you should definitely utilize as well, because some of the hardier bulbs, they'll be quite comfortable in pots near the coast, again, keeping them in the sheltered location. And that's just giving you a pop of colour in the springtime. So whether that's your your crocuses in in February time, your tete tets, you know, staying small here with your in terms of height, you know, you're not going to get a big 12 or 14-inch um daffodil that's going to get flapped around, you're staying small, so your little tete tets, your little crocuses, stay stay small, colour over a long period of time, and just adding little pops of colour when there's not much else there. And they are kind of the categories.

Final Tips On Soil And Wind

SPEAKER_00 25:35

And while versus a you know, a a garden, an inland garden that you know has good good soil and good conditions, the the sort of selection of plants that you can choose from is relatively small. Now there is others, of course, but generally that's that's kind of a good list. But it's a generally a coastal garden. You're you're working from a much smaller list of plants, but if they're chosen correctly, they can give a superb effect, you know, equally as good as any other garden by you know hitting these little these little windows of colour. Um so they all have their little moments across the year, and yeah, you get colour through correct choices. The big thing though is to is to get that wind filtered initially. That's that's the biggest point that you can do. Like the wind, the chopping and the changing, the changing of direction, that's that's what does the harm. So you can look at these beautiful plants in your garden centre and take them. And on a sunny day they might they might sit there and look okay, but the next day you you can or even that afternoon you could get a whipping wind, and then all of a sudden they're battered and bruised, and they just they just don't survive or do well in places like that. So that's that's what you're looking to do. Filter the wind and yeah, work from that list of plants. Um stick to the ones that thrive, get ones that are happy to self-seed, check the the you know it's gonna be hard. A lot of these will grow in low nutrient areas, but if it's just pure sand, just add something to it to give it a little bit of something to get its teeth into a little bit of organic matter in there, and yeah, then then you'll get colour across the whole season. So yeah, coastal gardens, they have their challenges, but they also have their pluses. You'll probably never uh have you know something getting killed from frost in a coastal garden. You know, it's it's generally the wind that that that causes the issue. So work from that kind of set list of plants and you won't go too far wrong. Hope that hope that helps for anyone that is working with a coastal garden. Um couple of good episodes coming up over the next few weeks and some interesting guest interviews from different parts of the world. So haven't been doing as many guest interviews of late, um, but yeah, there's a few a few coming up over the next couple of weeks and months. So that's been this week's episode. A huge thanks to this week's sponsor, it's Cran from Pro Biocarbon. I'll put the link to that in the show notes. A super product, as I said, one that I've used myself before. Um hope you're by the time we're back next week, we're looking at slightly warmer temperatures. Yeah, even this week it's cold. It's cold. Uh, if you could close your eyes for a second and picture yourself as a bedding plant, you're you're in uh a warm greenhouse for the last couple of months, you've been getting constant temperatures of you know 20 degrees plus, you're getting all the proper food, and then someone picks you up in the garden centre and plants you into a garden over the last week, you're gonna be feeling right sorry for yourself. It's um cold, windy, doesn't feel like me, um, but it is quite groaty at the same time, so we you know everything seems to be growing very well at the moment, but there is still that that coldness and that harshness there, and yeah, we're hoping that that um over the next over the next week or ten days we're hoping to see some temperatures come up. So fingers crossed on that one. Um yeah, that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and until the next time, happy gardening, so I don't know, I don't know, so you can't do it.