Plants for sandy soil

Plants that cope with sandy soil, with size and aspect for each.

Free-draining sand warms early and is easy to dig, but water and nutrients drain straight through, so plants dry out and starve unless you intervene. Bulk it up every year with garden compost and well-rotted manure to build moisture-holding humus, and mulch generously to slow evaporation. Plant in spring so roots establish before the next dry spell, and water new plants regularly until they settle. The mistake is treating sand like loam and expecting it to hold a feed. Many Mediterranean and coastal plants positively prefer this sharp drainage and resent richer ground. The plants here are chosen to cope with quick-draining soil and the drought it brings.

Border Builder is a garden border planner for iPhone and iPad. Pick from the 561 plants below and it works them into a full plan: how many of each, where they go, and how the bed reads through the seasons.

561 plants for this

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