Planting A Rock Garden

7 Alpines For Coastal Gardens

Planting A Rock Garden in seaside areas can be a challenge.
This list of flowers for rock gardens will help you choose plants that will grow in a coastal climate.

A lot of alpine plants are very hardy and tolerant of wind and salt spray. They are easy to grow and need little maintenance but reward you with great color and ground-cover.

Most rock garden plants require a free draining soil and sun to part shade to thrive well. In raised rock gardens this is usually not a problem though. They also tolerate poor or sandy soils.

These plants are also suitable for growing on top of walls, gravel beds or in alpine containers.

7 Alpines For Planting A Rock Garden

Armeria maritima - Sea Pinks

These easy to grow alpines are great seaside plants and will grow even in the most exposed seaside garden. The most common cultivars are Armeria maritima Splendens with pink flowers or 'Alba' with white flowers.

Check out this page for more info on how to grow Sea Pinks

Cerastium tomentosum - Snow In Summer

This silver-leaved alpine forms large mats or cascades. It covers itself with hundreds of white flowers during spring and early summer. The evergreen foliage covers the ground all year round.

Lampranthus

These tender succulents form mounds of silvery green foliage and are excellent seaside plants. They cascade over walls and edges and are covered with purple daisy flowers during early summer. They thrive in poor free-draining soils but they are not fully frost-hardy. Cover them with fleece in frosty nights or overwinter them inside if you live in a cold area. They can also be used for containers.

Erigeron 'Seabreeze'

This is also a great rock garden plant for exposed gardens. The purple daisies appear during early summer. The plant keeps a neat mount of silvery-green foliage all year round.

You can find more info here on how to grow Seaside Daisies.

Aubretia

These creeping and mat-forming plants flower profusely in the spring and are great for planting a rock garden. There a are purple, red or white Aubretia varieties available.

If planted at an edge or on top of a wall they will cascade and add a bright splash of color to your rock garden in the spring.

Mossy Saxifrage

These are one of the prettiest flowers for rock gardens! The mossy foliage forms little dense mounds that produce lots of pink, white or red flowers during spring and early summer. They need little soil to grow. They are even suitable to grow in cracks and crevices of walls and stones.

Dianthus deltoides Varieties

These are magnificent flowering alpines for planting in a rock garden. The scented flowers are either pink, white or red depending on the variety of Dianthus you choose. They flower for a long period during spring and early summer. They form mats of evergreen, silvery foliage.

What would you like to see next?

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.