Complementing beautiful ocean views with attractive flowers and foliage, beach shrubs can also provide shade, screen out wind and enhance the local environment by supplying cover and food for wildlife. Shrubs that tolerate coastal conditions can cope with salt spray, sandy soils and occasional drought. Plant tall windbreak shrubs to face prevailing winds along your garden boundaries and lower-growing, flowering shrubs toward the front of borders where their blooms can be appreciated. Watering well during the first year helps shrubs become established.
Tough, tall shrubs screen out wind, protecting gardens and gardeners on breezy beaches. Scarlet bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus) is an attractive screening shrub for beach gardens. Growing 10 to 12 feet tall and wide, it's hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8 through 11 and bears red bottlebrush flowers year-round in frost-free areas. Tobira (Pittosporum tobira) is another useful, ornamental windbreak shrub that tolerates a coastal position. Suitable for USDA zones 9 and 10, it grows 15 feet tall and wide and bears clusters of small, fragrant flowers in late spring.
Including some pretty foliage shrubs adds interest and continuity in beach garden design. Evergreen "Silver King" euonymus (Euonymus japonicus "Silver King") has glossy green leaves with silvery-white margins and is hardy in USDA zones 6 through 9. Tolerating a beach location well, it grows 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide. Willow wattle (Acacia iteaphylla) is another coastal-site-tolerant, evergreen shrub with interesting foliage. Bearing delicate, drooping, blue-green leaves, it grows 10 to 12 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide and is suitable for USDA zones 9 and 10.
Flowering shrubs add seasonal, and sometimes year-round, splashes of color in washed-out beach landscapes. Ballerina Indian Hawthorne (Rhaphiolepis indica "Ballerina") is a deceptively tough shrub bearing beautiful rose-pink flowers from late winter to spring. Hardy in USDA zones 8 through 10, it grows 2 to 2 1/2 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide. Purple rock rose (Cistus x purpureus) continues the floral display from late spring into summer, bearing maroon-spotted, rose-purple flowers. It grows 4 feet tall and 4 to 6 feet wide and it hardy in USDA zones 8 through 11. Both shrubs cope with seacoast conditions well.
Bees, butterflies and birds bring as much beauty to gardens as flowers, so include some wildlife-friendly shrubs in your beach garden. "Blue Jeans" California lilac (Ceanothus x "Blue Jeans"), hardy in USDA zones 8 through 10, attracts birds into the garden by providing seeds and cover. Growing 6 feet tall and wide, it bears lavender-blue spring flowers. Pink princess escallonia (Escallonia x exoniensis "Fradesii") attracts birds and butterflies with its rosy-red clusters of flowers, born year-round. Hardy in USDA zones 7 through 9, it grows 5 to 6 feet tall and wide and has sweetly-scented, glossy green foliage.
- San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission: Shoreline Plants, A Landscape Guide for the San Francisco Bay
- Floridata: Pittosporum Tobira
- Monrovia: Scarlet Bottlebrush
- Monrovia: Silver King Euonymus
- Monrovia: Willow Wattle
- Monrovia: Ballerina Indian Hawthorne
- Monrovia: Purple Rock Rose
- Monrovia: "Blue Jeans" California Lilac
- Monrovia: Pink Princess Escallonia
- Creatas Images/Creatas/Getty Images