Whilst we generally have milder winters on the coast than further inland, gardens still have to cope with continued salty sea breezes. Although I personally do not believe our run of mild winters will last forever, it is nice to see such a wide variety of plants grown along the coasts while it lasts.

Palm trees are becoming increasingly popular because of their resilience to strong salt winds, although they can look a little ragged by the end of the winter.

Trachycarpus fortunei is the hardiest of all the palms available and whilst it may take many years to attain a decent height, I do not suggest buying solely large specimens, plant a small one too, this way as time passes and the top of your palm disappears out of sight, there is another coming on to delight the eye. Personally, I prefer smaller palms like chamaerops humilis, which only attains about 1.2m. It clumps up nicely, can easily be restricted and does rather well long term kept in a pot on the patio.

Washingtonias and phoenix palms have also taken the great plunge outside in recent years and I watch with great interest to see how many consecutive years they can survive.

Cordyline australis although not strictly speaking a true palm, quickly attains a reasonable size and with thoughtful pruning can make a very architectural shape. A variety such as ‘Torbay dazzler’ with its broad white leaf margin or ‘Torbay red’ (which is hard to differentiate from ‘atropurpurea’ and several other varieties) provides us with the only purple evergreen trees.

Yuccas and agaves are two other rosette shaped plants with similar coastal tolerant properties, they have similar habits in that the main stem may die after flowering, all is not lost however as they both grow numerous off-sets in the mean-time. Agaves are not suitable for gardens where young children are likely to be playing for their sharp saw like spines are unforgiving.

Hebes, long known for their salt resistant, evergreen, long flowering properties, have yet more eye-catching new varieties introduced every year, such as ‘purple shamrock’ and ‘silver dollar’ with their seasonal colour changes of foliage. Older known clones such as ‘autumn glory’ often still defy their namesake and flower up until Christmas.

Phormiums are another seaside plant that comes in enough shapes and sizes to suit any coastal garden, from phormium tenax with its thick giant iris like leaves and tall alienesque flowers, to the shorter, brighter varieties such as ‘yellow wave’ or ‘bronze baby’. There are many colourful new clones that have been produced but some are unfortunately very prone to reversion, the only solution is to cut off any plain leaves and hope that it will continue to develop its variegation; otherwise you will end up with a larger, plainer plant than anticipated. Even though they can tolerate the salt air, strong winds can easily bend their leaves and make them look very sorry for themselves.

Arundinaria are one of the few varieties of bamboo to tolerate salt air, whilst they are prone to snapping in strong winds, they are moisture-loving plants which can often scorch during the winter months if they freeze and cannot draw the water up.

Callistemon or ‘bottle-brush’ has been grown rather well along our coasts for many years, their flowers as their nick-name suggests look like oversized (mostly bright red) pipe cleaners.

Pittosporum, is an undervalued evergreen sea tolerant plant, coming in all colours and sizes to suit any garden, plus a real asset to flower arrangers all year round. The genus provides some unusual purple shrubs such as ‘purpureum’ or ‘Tom Thumb’ and the way the new leaves come through lime green and then darken to a deep purple as summer progresses is a seasonal joy.

Please bear in mind the term ‘tolerant of’ means just that and doesn’t mean that plants will look their best under these conditions, simply that they will withstand them. Having described some of the more exotic coastal tolerant plants, ceanothus, eleagnus, pine trees and many traditional others still deserve their place somewhere in our coastal gardens.

Shane Walton is proprietor of Walmer Nurseries.

© 2006 DEAL TODAY magazine and website.