The amount of daylight we have each day is slowly lengthening, and those gardening catalogs are arriving in the mail. Many coastal communities, as well as some further inland, will be assessing more damage from Storm Sandy as salt spray damage to plants becomes evident. As people think about replanting lost or damaged plants, take a look at the Connecticut Coastal Planting Guide. Here you’ll find a listing of native plants that can tolerate salt spray and flooding as well as information on their growth preferences. Climate change research states that the northeast United States is likely to experience more intense coastal storms and possibly more frequent ones. So it makes sense to plan your gardens accordingly. UConn’s Connecticut Sea Grant and the Dept of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture have teamed up to create cross sections of how properties might look with coastal plantings, and what native plants make sense in different areas. These will be available on-line in the Spring of 2013.

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