If you live on property that was soaked in storm surge, you may be searching for some more salt tolerant plants to replace those that turned black.

How does salt hurt plants? It actually dries the roots! When plants are flooded by salt water, their roots have less salt in them than the surrounding salt water. So due to osmosis, the water in the roots leaves the plant and goes into the salt water. Drying out the roots this way kills or damages the plant.

Many plants living on our coast are well adapted to living in spite of the salt water. Sea-purslane does a remarkable job. It often grows as a dune stabilizer not far from the water’s edge. It takes the salt and stores it in its tissues. Native Americans ate it raw or cooked as it is quite nutritious. It tastes like a salty, crunchy leaf. (I tried a leaf at Rotary Park.) Studies are working to determine if it can be used to remove the salt from soil, so that the soil can be productive again. It can handle dry conditions as well as wet and can live directly on sand as a ground cover.

Other native Florida ground covers – beach verbena, dune sunflower, frog fruit and blanket flower (gaillardia) – all tolerate salty soil and spray, but do not do well with surge, which would drown them for a time. Rinsing them off after a surge does help to lower the salt content of the soil, so that most survive.

Several small shrubs do not mind salty water. Beach creeper is a matt-forming 1 to 2-foot shrub that produces flowers and fruits for birds year round. Native sea-oxeye daisy grows in tidal flats and in our garden, too. It is a 2 to 3-foot bush with gray-green foliage and yellow daisy-type flowers. Button sage, a native lantana, grows 3-5 feet. Yellowtop, with its beautiful flowers, is 2-3 feet. All are great for butterflies. Coonties are my favorite. They maintain their round form without trimming. Indian hawthorn cultivars and dwarf pittosporum (Asia) are easy to grow and stay under 3 feet. Day lilies! I had no idea they were so salt tolerant, and will move some to the back to try out.

There are many possibilities if you are looking for taller shrubs or small trees. Horizontal cocoplums (to 3 feet) take a surge better than red-tip cocoplums (to 10 feet), but both tolerate spray and salty soil. Wax myrtle and Florida privet make excellent hedges or can be trained as a small tree. Jamaica caper has a tall cone shape. Marlberry can take salt, dry, sun or shade, getting 8-18 feet. Bay cedar is a wind resilient 10-foot evergreen shrub. Beautyberry has abundant purple berries on its stems, 4-8 feet. Necklace pod is 6-8 feet tall. Each of these shrubs may be trimmed to suit your needs. I prefer to find a space to allow them to grow to full size and let their personalities show.

Palms often grow near or upland of the shore. Cabbage palms, our state palm, contribute much to a beach habitat. Royal palm, paurotis palm, green or silver thatch palm are undaunted by storm surge.

Trees, gumbo limbo, lignum vitae, pigeon plum and Jamaica dogwood, performed well on Sanibel Island. Buttonwoods take on charming shapes as small trees. Green buttonwoods can be 30-40 feet and the smaller, silver buttonwoods reach 15-25.

Anyone may grow these plants. Salt tolerant plants also grow well in non-salty soil, too. Although this is not an exhaustive list, it gives us a place to start.

Sherie Bleiler volunteers at the Cape Coral Library Butterfly Garden and Sands Park Butterfly Garden. She is past president of the Garden Club of Cape Coral. Visit GardenClubofCapeCoral.com. Like them on Facebook.