Coastal Landscaping in Chatham: Protecting Yards From Salt and Storms

Salt reaches a Chatham yard two ways. Airborne spray lands on leaves and needles during windy days, and storm overwash or flooding can push salty water straight into the soil. Spray burn usually shows up as browning on the side of a hedge or tree that faces the water, while soil salt tends to stunt growth across a whole bed and is slower to recover.

A quick test for your own lot: walk the property after a strong easterly or southerly blow and look for leaf scorch on the windward faces of shrubs. Those are the spots where tough, salt tolerant plants belong, and where fussier ornamentals will keep struggling no matter how much you water or feed them.

Rinsing foliage with fresh water after a big spray event helps sensitive shrubs, and a layer of organic mulch keeps sandy soil from drying out and concentrating salts near the roots.

Native coastal plants are the backbone of a yard that lasts here. Northern bayberry, beach plum, inkberry and rugosa rose all handle spray and lean soil, and they give the natural, weathered look that suits shingled houses. American beach grass, switchgrass and little bluestem hold sand in place and move nicely in the wind.

For a more traditional garden, hydrangeas, Russian sage, sea thrift and daylilies do well in spots with some shelter from the direct wind. A practical pattern is to plant the toughest material on the water side as a living windbreak, then tuck the showier perennials and hydrangeas into the lee of the house or behind that buffer.

Lawns are the hardest part of a coastal yard to keep green. Fine fescues tolerate sandy, low fertility soil better than many turf mixes, and on very exposed lots it often makes sense to shrink the lawn and replace part of it with native groundcover or a planted meadow.

Nor'easters and summer thunderstorms both bring down limbs in Chatham, and the pitch pines and oaks that cover much of the inland part of town are prone to breakage when they are crowded or carrying deadwood. Late summer and early fall are the right time to have trees near the house, driveway and power lines looked at, before the heavy weather arrives.

Walk your lot with a short checklist: dead or hanging branches, trees leaning toward a structure, cracks where large limbs meet the trunk, and roots heaving in soft ground. Anything that would hit the roof or block the driveway if it failed belongs at the top of the list.

Drainage matters too. Patios and walkways that shed water toward the house, or downspouts that dump onto bare sand, can carve channels during a heavy storm. Gravel strips, planted swales and permeable pavers help water soak in where it falls instead of running off toward a bank or the street.

Under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, coastal banks, beaches and dunes are protected resource areas, and Chatham adds its own local bylaw with buffer zones that reach well back from the water. Clearing vegetation, cutting trees, regrading, or building a wall or patio near those areas usually needs review by the Chatham Conservation Commission first.

The reason is practical as well as legal. The roots of bank vegetation are what hold sand together, and removing them to open a view or tidy a slope can speed up erosion. Bare, mowed slopes above the water tend to slump during storms, while banks planted with dense native shrubs and grasses hold up far better.

If your yard runs to the water, check with the Conservation Commission before any work beyond routine mowing and garden care. Chatham also regulates fertilizer content and application through a Board of Health regulation that took effect in February 2015, so any lawn program on a waterfront lot should be planned around it.

Chatham Village, around Main Street and the lighthouse, has older homes on smaller lots, mature street trees and formal plantings close to the house. Hedges and hydrangeas are the stars here, and the main jobs are trimming, cleanup and keeping beds tidy in a tight space.

North Chatham and the Pleasant Bay shoreline see more wind off the water and more homes with bank frontage, so erosion control and native buffers come up often. West Chatham and South Chatham, toward Route 28 and the Harwich line, have more inland, wooded lots where pine and oak cleanup and lawn care take up most of the season.

Down toward Cockle Cove and Morris Island the exposure is about as direct as it gets, with open marsh, beach and Monomoy close by. Yards there do best with the toughest native plants, minimal lawn and hardscape built to drain freely.

Spring: clear winter debris and storm litter, check shrubs for salt burn and prune out dead wood, and refresh mulch once the soil warms. This is also the time to open seasonal homes and look over walkways and patios for heaving after the freeze.

Summer: mow high so grass shades its own roots, water deeply but less often in sandy soil, and trim hedges after the main flush of growth. Early fall: aerate and overseed thin lawns, and schedule tree inspections ahead of nor'easter season. Late fall: remove leaves, cut back perennials and close down beds before winter.

Best Cape Cod Landscaping is based in Mashpee and serves every town on Cape Cod, including all of Chatham's villages. We handle fall cleanup, tree service, hardscaping such as patios, walkways and retaining walls, and lawn care from mowing to aeration and overseeding.

We are insured, the estimate is free and there is no visit fee. Same-day service is available when the schedule allows, which helps after a storm, and if something is not right, we come back and redo it at no cost. If your yard needs a plan for salt, wind or storm cleanup, request a free estimate or call (774) 552-9202.