Seascape gardening

by Anne Moyer Halpin

In this lushly illustrated how-to book, veteran gardener Halpin (Homescaping; etc.), herself a seaside gardener on Long Island, delves into the difficulties, pleasures and practicalities of gardening by the sea. She presents an overview of the geology and geography of the Atlantic coast from Maine to South Carolina and discusses the elemental challenges of seaside gardening wind, salt, flooding, sand and sun. Suggestions for ways to work with or overcome these conditions include finding and sheltering an appropriate garden site, using native plants, creating windbreaks and improving the often poor seaside soils. Halpin presents "profiles" of 11 gorgeous seaside gardens varying in locale, from rocky southern Maine to marshy Maryland, and structure, some with formal and difficult-to-maintain plantings, others using native plants for low maintenance, with intriguing comments from the gardens' designers and caretakers about their failures, successes and passion for oceanside gardening. The