Gardening at the shore can be a challenge

JOSE F. MORENO/Courier-Post Peg Moore stands in her garden of roses and flowers. She holds one of her dinner-plate-sized Hibiscus (inset) that has thrived in her Brigantine garden. ------------------------------------

By KIM MULFORD
Courier-Post Staff

When a 1992 Nor'easter flooded Peg Moore's Brigantine yard, a fungus destroyed her lawn, turning it into a patchwork of brown grass and weeds.

Moore and her husband, George, tried to save the lawn, but nothing seemed to work. Disgusted, they uprooted the grass and a hedge of 6-foot junipers.

"We gave up, and I said, `Put flowers in,'" Moore recalled.

They did. The salty air is filled with the scent of 300 rose bushes and perennials like stargazer lillies, plants that require extra care to survive at the shore.

Fungus still attacks the Moores' yard, and nematodes have killed off several pine trees. Wind, sea spray and sandy soil are also factors here. But shore gardeners can successfully grow flowers, shrubs and trees with hard work and education.

As president of the Brigantine Garden Club, Moore advises novice seaside gardeners to choose their plants carefully. She speaks from experience. When the retired couple planted roses, Moore said, "Everybody thought we were nuts."

Most roses don't do well and require careful attention, she said. Rosa rugosa is an exception. The hardy shore native offers colorful fall foliage and rosehips. The ADVERTISEMENT - CLICK TO ENLARGE

Moores uproot ailing plants and baby them in a nursery. Others are replaced with new specimens, but that can be costly.

"The main thing is to try and get plants that are appropriate," Moore said. "What we do takes a lot of work."

The environment and soil conditions can be harsh, and can vary greatly from site to site. The salt air is worse closer to the beach, while the bay areas are more sheltered.

Some areas are nothing but sand. Others feature two inches of topsoil over hard gravel fill. Poor soil should be amended with organic material when digging holes for new plants.

When choosing plants, look for drought resistant and native varieties. Beach grasses do well, as do hollyhocks, Shasta daisies, black-eyed susans and yarrow. Some hibiscus also flourish, and Moore has found success with some dinner- plate-sized varieties.

Beach plum is an excellent native plant, but "very hard to find anymore," Moore said. "People consider them weeds."

As for trees, cedar, junipers and black pine, they "do marvelous here," Moore said.

In Atlantic City, streets are lined with several varieties of London plane trees, which can offer yellow and red fall color, said Martin Irving, a certified landscape architect for Adler Engineers in Camden.

The firm handles work for the Casino Reinvestment Development Agency. Irving recently designed a healing garden for the agency-funded Show House at the Shore.

Besides, wind, salt spray, sandy soil and often urban environments, shore gardeners must also contend with bright sunny conditions, Irving said. The combination of factors limits a gardener's plant pallette.

A simple plant selection using those naturally found at the shore gives landscaping a better shot at survival, he added.

"That's why you see a handful of varieties of plants repeated," Irving said. "There's not a lot of variety in this type of environment."

To get variety like the Moores have, gardeners must amend soil, provide wind breaks and irrigate constantly. The Brigantine couple recently installed drip irrigation to replace the old hose system.

Give plants a fighting chance by installing them properly, Irving suggested. Provide proper watering and fertilizer to give them a good start.

"The key to survival of this material is in the first couple of months," Irving said.

Japanese black pine can get quite large, but when exposed can become stunted, gnarled and sculpted by the wind.

"They get kind of a battered but interesting character to them," Irving said.

Native flowering or fruit-bearing shrubs, such as bayberry, do well. Hydrangea is a traditional shore favorite and is the official flower of Atlantic City.

Hydrangeas are underrated, said Moore. Once, they covered Brigantine, but have since fallen out of favor.

They offer a wide variety of color choices, sizes and habits. They are easy to maintain and resilient, but do leave a hole in a garden when they die back for the winter.

Irving's healing garden includes many hydrangeas, as well as day lillies. Eventually, the north side of the garden will become a shade garden.

The soil beneath the garden is mostly construction-grade topped with a few inches of topsoil. It was formerly a bus depot.

Many shore residents hire a lawn service to maintain their properties. Professionals can advise homeowners on what plants will work in their yard, and can give them some creative landscaping ideas, said John Ferrie, owner of Fresh Cut Lawn Care, Inc., in Egg Harbor Township.

As chairman of the South Jersey Landscape Association, Ferrie stresses the importance of checking three or four references before hiring a landscaping contractor. Find out how the company handles problems and responds to calls, he said.

"Price is important to everyone, but you can also end up doing the job more than once," Ferrie said. "You really want to check those references."

Shore homeowners shouldn't be afraid of grass. Lawns in beach towns usually need frequent watering because of the area's sandy soil. But grass does better in sandy soil than in clay or rock, Ferrie said.

"If you're right on the beach, a lot of places opt for stone, only because when the tide comes up, the salt damage will be more of a problem," Ferrie said. "If the water is on it for any amount of time, they'll lose the grass."

If using a stone yard, homeowners can still add shrubs, beach grasses and other shore plants to make it look more interesting.

But, Ferrie cautioned, stone yards reflect more heat than a grassy lawn and they still need maintenance because they get weedy.

That's why Mary Turner of Long Beach Island dislikes stone landscaping. The 83-year-old has been growing annuals, perennials, herbs and tomatoes at her ocean-front home for 36 years.

"One of the big problems with stone is it gets weedy like anything else," Turner said. "People call in the man and he puts on herbicide. That is so dangerous for the environment and a health hazard. It's a very bad thing."

Turner suggests homeowners take a long-term approach to improve growing conditions.

In 1968, the Long Beach Island Garden Club began selling Japanese black pine seedlings and later added other shore plants like bayberry, juniper and beach plum, Turner said. People started growing the pines and they've since taken over the island, dropping seeds and growing like weeds.

"That has made Long Beach Island a more beautiful island than anyplace else because it's so much greener," Turner said. "These black pines help control the wind ... making not just my garden, but other gardens possible."

Despite the challenges, gardeners up and down the coastline find satisfaction in turning their lots and even public garden beds into beachside Edens. Many of Brigantine' s public areas are tended by garden club members, just because they love to garden.

"We have people who take care of 10 different beds," said Moore. "They take quite a bit of pride in what they do."

Shore-loving plants
Trees: Plane tree maple, red cedar, London plane, service-berry, sour gum, silver poplar, Russian olive, Colorado blue spruce, laurel leaf willow, American holly, Japanese black pine, sassafras
Shrubs:
Chokeberry, Heath, seabuckthorn, groundsel bush, beach heather, memorial rose, juniper, Japanese yew, Japanese quince, creeping juniper, blueberry, summersweet, California privet, arrowwood (viburnum), Scotch broom, bayberry, inkberry, autumn olive, beach plum, rugosa rose
Annuals: Centaurea, annual phlox, nasturtium, gaillardia, dwarf marigold, petunia lantana, cleome, portulaca, California poppy, geranium, verbena
Perennials: Golden tuft (alyssum), chrysanthemum, lythrum, arabis, dianthus, rudbeckia, armeria, day lily, bearberry, santolina, sedum, dusty miller, candytuft, teucrium, New England aster, perennial flax, periwinkle, lavender bulbs, bearded iris, veronica, cerastium, yucca.
Vines: climbing hydrangea, Chinese fleece vine, wisteria

Source: Ocean County Rutgers Cooperative Extension, U.S. Department of Agriculture