The right species for the Thanet coast, properly planted.

Species I recommend for the Thanet coast

Front line — full seafront exposure

• Escallonia (E. macrantha, E. 'Iveyi') — the reliable Kent-coast workhorse. Handles the N/NE salt-laden air better than Griselinia in a hard East-Kent winter. Twice-yearly cadence keeps density.
• Olearia macrodonta (New Zealand daisy bush) — the safest full-seafront evergreen; happier through a cold snap than Griselinia.
• Tamarix — the deciduous seafront classic; feathery, sculptural, handles salt spray directly.
• Elaeagnus × ebbingei — semi-evergreen, salt-tolerant, fast to establish.
• Euonymus japonicus — dense, dark evergreen, takes a hard clip.
• Holm oak (Quercus ilex) — the classic East-Kent salt-spray windbreak, tolerant of chalk. Slower to establish but functionally permanent.

Set back from the front line (not full seafront exposure)

• Yew (Taxus baccata) — native to the North Downs chalk, moderately salt-tolerant, contrary to the myth that yew hates the coast. Works well set back and behind a first-line windbreak. Drought-tolerant once established.
• Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) — the reliable native chalk-lover for boundary hedges out towards Reading Street or on the inland edge of St Peter's.
• Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) — a chalk-and-exposure specialist for tricky spots; suckering, so needs a boundary trench.
• Pittosporum tenuifolium — attractive, evergreen, works set back but not full seafront.
• Privet (Ligustrum ovalifolium) — fast, cheap, semi-evergreen. Fine for inland Broadstairs and St Peter's plots.

Myth-busting

Two beliefs that get planting decisions wrong on this coast:

• "Yew won't tolerate the seaside." Not true set back from the front line. Yew is native to North Downs chalk (which is why it's the species you see in every East-Kent churchyard) and it is moderately salt-tolerant. Just don't put it on the full-exposure seaward face of a Stone Bay clifftop.
• "Griselinia is bulletproof on this coast." Sold that way, and often is — until a hard East-Kent winter. Griselinia dieback after cold snaps is a common problem on Thanet. Escallonia and Olearia macrodonta are safer local bets.

What I do not recommend

• Beech on the seafront — salt-scorch will burn the leaves brown by July. Fine inland; not on the coast.
• Common laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) on the seafront — leaf-margin burn from salt spray. Fine set back and inland.
• Leylandii on clifftops — the killer is not the salt, it's the windthrow risk. Shallow root plates on chalk plus a top-heavy mature tree plus the N/NE gale exposure = root failure in a February storm. Better options exist.
• Rhododendron, camellia, pieris — ericaceous, need acid soil. Simply won't grow on Thanet chalk without permanent intervention.

Planting practice

Bare-root for the November-to-March window (cheaper, establishes faster, looks bare for the first season). Container-grown for spring or summer planting (more expensive, can plant any month). Either way: dig a trench not a hole, mycorrhizal fungi at planting, water in heavily, mulch deep with bark, and water through the first two summers. Manston records just 613mm of rain a year with 1,846 hours of sunshine — new hedges here die from drought far more than from pest pressure.

Pricing

Planted hedges are quoted including plants, planting, mulch and aftercare advice. Bare-root native mix is typically £25 – £40 per metre planted. Container-grown Escallonia, Olearia or yew at usable size: £60 – £150 per metre planted. Big variable is plant size — two or three options quoted so you can balance budget against visible-from-day-one impact.