When the Town of Hempstead’s Department of Conservation and Waterways completed a new building along the salt marsh, Spadefoot was brought in to design a foundation planting that could do double duty: look intentional and polished as a built landscape, while reflecting the coastal ecology that surrounds it.
The planting palette was drawn entirely from species that would naturally occur on an undisturbed coastal site. The shrub layer features bayberry, groundsel bush, and beach plum – salt-tolerant natives that anchor the bed and define its coastal character. A mid-layer of taller herbs, including bitter panic grass and goldenrod, adds height and movement. At the front edge, lower-growing species like little bluestem and butterfly weed complete the layered composition.
Bloom time was carefully sequenced across the bed so that color and ecological activity are distributed throughout every season – not concentrated in one flush and gone. The result is a foundation planting that performs like a designed garden and functions like a habitat, right at the edge of the marsh where it belongs.
Spadefoot completely transformed our backyard. They removed all the invasive plants and replaced them with beautiful native species.
