How to make a coastal garden
Coastal gardening can be a challenge, but with the right plants in the right place, your garden and its wildlife visitors can thrive.
Water vole by Terry Whittaker/2020VISION
Coastal gardening can be a challenge, but with the right plants in the right place, your garden and its wildlife visitors can thrive.
A scrambling plant, Common vetch has pink flowers. It is a member of the pea family and can be seen on grassland, farmland and waste ground, as well as at the coast.
A scrambling plant, Meadow vetchling has yellow flowers. It is a member of the pea family and can be seen on rough grassland, waste ground and roadside verges.
A scrambling plant, Tufted vetch has violet flowers. It is a member of the pea family and can be seen along woodland edges, on scrubland and grassland, and at the coast.
A delicate, small plant of woodlands and hedgerows, wood-sorrel has distinctive, trefoil leaves and white flowers with purple veins; both fold up at night.
Selfheal is a low-growing, creeping plant that likes the short turf of grasslands, roadside verges or even lawns. Its clusters of violet flowers appear in summer.
A small and delicate plant of chalk grasslands, Fairy flax can be seen in bloom from May to September - look out for its nodding, white flowers.
Greater celandine is a very common plant that spreads easily in the garden, on waste ground and in hedgerows. It is considered a weed, but the small, yellow flowers provide nectar for insects.
Hedge mustard is a tall plant with small, yellow flowers atop tough stems. It likes disturbed ground and grows in hedgerows and roadside verges, and on waste ground.
Considered to be one of the prettiest gentians, the Chiltern gentian is a rare plant in the UK. It likes chalk grasslands, its purple, trumpet-shaped flowers blooming from August.
Creeping jenny is a low-growing plant of wet grasslands, riverbanks, ponds and wet woods. It has cup-like, yellow flowers and is a popular choice for garden ponds.