This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Shrubs suitable for exposed border
Bella5
Posts: 5
I live in East Lincolnshire, about a mile from the North Sea. I would greatly appreciate suggestions for shrubs that are suitable for a border with no fence. It gets very windy here and the soil is clayish.
0
Posts
I'm not as close to the sea as you (more like 10 miles) but we have a cold windy site. So far I have found:
Rosa rugosa - nothing bothers it. Lilac also seems to bear up through everything. Weigela came through last winter - very windy but not terribly cold so can't be sure. I've got bits of sheltering hedge with rowan, elder, holly and hazel, all of which seem to have coped with everything, even the very cold winters a few years ago.
Basically I find the only small evergreens that cope are junipers and holly (big conifer trees are also fine but probably not what you want unless your garden is huge). Elaeagnus ebbingei is an evergreen that's reputed to do well in coastal areas with the right soil conditions but I haven't got any so can't confirm.
Deciduous plants do better presumably because their leaves are off in the worst of the cold, but I always check the RHS website if I'm investing in something reasonably large to make sure it says it'll cope with 'exposed' conditions.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
This is really helpful. Thank you so much.
I think you could try berberis which comes in several forms, some evergreen and some deciduous, and provides flowers in spring and berries in autumn. Cotoneaster John Waterer gets a bit bigger. Escallonia is often recommended for exposed coastal sites, especially the rubra form. Eleagnus pungens Frederici will give you attractively variegated evergreen leaves and scented flowers in autumn and lonicera Lemon Beauty is a shrubby form of honeysuckle that is worth trying.
As RG suggests, you can look them all up on the RHS website's plant finder to check for size and suitability but all the above are hardy in the UK. It's the combination of cold, salt laden winds coming straight off the North Sea in the depths of winter that may prove hard.
lonicera Lemon Beauty looks interesting. I will take a look on the RHS website. Many thanks for your advice.