Every spring, garden centers on this coast sell truckloads of plants that will be brown by September. Not because they're bad plants — because they're inland plants, and nobody mentioned the salt.
How salt reaches your yard
You don't need waterfront property to have a salt problem. Wind carries salt spray meaningfully inland — strongest within sight of open water, still present blocks away, and pulsing far beyond that during storms. It lands on leaves and burns them at the edges, and it accumulates in soil near the coast where rain doesn't flush it fast enough. That edge-scorched, struggling look on a shrub near the beach is usually salt, not drought.
The zones that matter
Front line (direct spray): only genuinely salt-tough natives thrive — think of what grows on the dunes untended. Muhly grass, yucca, saw palmetto, seaside natives.
Second line (salt wind, no direct spray): the practical zone for most homes. Salt-tolerant ornamentals do well: many hollies, oleander, bottlebrush, society garlic, most palms suited to our zone.
Sheltered (behind the house, fences, other plantings): near-normal planting freedom — and this is where a well-placed fence genuinely expands what your yard can grow, by breaking the salt wind.
Soil is the other half
Our sandy soil drains instantly and holds few nutrients, so even salt-tough plants need bed prep — compost worked in, mulch to hold moisture, and irrigation designed for sand rather than a sprinkler that guesses.
We design plantings by zone and tell you plainly which wish-list plants won't make it on your lot. That's the landscaping service — honest plant lists included. Related: sod in sandy soil.