Salt-tolerant hedges for a Ramsgate seafront garden
On an exposed Ramsgate frontage, most of the hedge shrubs a mainland nursery will sell you are going to be brown by February. Here is the short list of what actually works, and how to layer it so the pretty species live behind something that can take the hit.
Prevailing wind on the Kent coast is south-westerly, but it is the autumn and winter gales off the sea that do the salt damage. Seaward gardens on the cliffs and along the front are the exposed ones. Anything on that line takes salt-laden air straight in the face for days at a time in winter.
Front-line species: direct salt spray
Elaeagnus × ebbingei
A widely used coastal hedge. It is evergreen, tolerant of alkaline soil, quietly fragrant in late autumn, and takes a hard clip. My default choice for the outer skin on any exposed line where a clean, formal look matters.
Euonymus japonicus
Glossy dark-green foliage, wind-firm branches, and good salt tolerance. Clips as neatly as box and is not troubled by box blight or box tree moth. Good in the front garden of a Regency terrace where the frontage is exposed but the plot is small.
Olearia macrodonta and O. traversii
Daisy-bushes, well suited to exposed coasts. Olearia traversii in particular will hold shape on a fully exposed line where little else does. Silvery underside to the leaves, small white flowers midsummer.
Hippophae rhamnoides (sea buckthorn)
Native, nitrogen-fixing, and at home on sandy coastal ground. Silvery leaves, orange berries in autumn. It suckers freely, a feature on a wildlife boundary, a nuisance on a formal one. See the sea buckthorn guide for the boundary decision.
Tamarix
Feathery, pink-flowered, deep-rooting into sand. Very salt-hardy. Two families to keep straight: spring-flowering T. tetrandra and T. parviflora, and summer-flowering T. ramosissima. They prune at completely different times, which people get wrong regularly.
Griselinia littoralis
AGM, apple-green, evergreen. A standard UK coastal hedge. Slightly softer than the true front-line species, happier with a metre or two of shelter than in a fully exposed line, but reliable on all but the worst spots.
Second-line species: one to two metres of shelter available
Behind a low wall, or set back from the frontage by a garden's width, the palette opens up considerably.
- Escallonia macrantha / 'Apple Blossom': AGM, flowers most of summer.
- Pittosporum tenuifolium: takes clipping cleanly, gorgeous winter foliage. Hates a first-winter easterly, so plant in late spring after the risk has passed.
- Rosa rugosa: a low, thorny, informal boundary; front-line-capable but tidiest as a hip-height line rather than a clipped hedge.
What I would not plant on a Ramsgate seafront
- Beech. Fine in a walled rear garden, badly scorched on the front line. Substitute hornbeam if you want a similar look inland; substitute Elaeagnus if you want evergreen presence on the seafront.
- Cherry laurel, Portuguese laurel. Both fail on direct salt exposure. Fine two gardens back from the front.
- Camellia, rhododendron. Thin chalky alkaline soil is against them independent of the salt. Ericaceous plants turn yellow and chlorotic on it.
- Hawthorn as a solo hedge. It copes with exposure better as a tree than as a clipped hedge, and can show dieback and a ragged silhouette on the front line. Better set well back behind a salt-tolerant outer skin as part of a native mix.
The layered coastal hedge
On a fully exposed frontage, the right answer is usually two lines, not one. A sacrificial outer skin of Tamarix, Hippophae or Olearia traversii takes the salt hit and can be replaced or coppiced when it thins. Behind it, an inner ornamental line of Elaeagnus ebbingei or Griselinia planted once the outer skin is established gives you the clean, evergreen presence you were after. The outer skin does its job precisely by being expendable.
Frost is not the enemy here
One genuine coastal advantage: the sea tends to soften the winter minimum, which helps evergreens like Griselinia and Pittosporum that dislike hard frost. Wind and salt are the constraint on the seafront, not cold.
Want this looked at?
Send a couple of photos and your postcode to hello@ramsgatehedges.co.uk or 07763 100 477.
Sources: Royal Horticultural Society plant profiles and coastal hedging advice.