It is not an uncommon fantasy – relaxing amidst breathtaking views of the open ocean from the deck of your home overlooking the Atlantic. And in Maine not an unreachable one. Many of us live and garden within breathing distance of the ocean. It is part of what Maine should be.
For gardeners, alas, this is not the unblemished pleasure one might imagine. The seaside environment is harsh, demanding and an enormous challenge to gardeners who have visions. Splashing sea-spray, fierce winds (often unremitting), sandy soils that are at the mercy of those winds and the ever-present threat of violent storms – summer and winter – with the risks of erosion and flooding. Gardeners must contend with all of this and choose plants that can tolerate these exposures. 
Exposures have been organized into three categories that will help you determine how vulnerable your site may be to the weather.
Exposure Belt 1 – land immediately adjacent
to the water. Only the toughest plants will survive.
Exposure Belt 2 – land is further back from the water and slightly protected by rocks or trees.
Exposure Belt 3 – land is even further away from the water, but still affected by ocean weather.
How Weather Forces Affect Our Gardens
Wind, when gentle, can be a welcome visitor to seaside gardens – but when it is fierce, it steals moisture from the plants, it breaks their branches and deforms others. Fragile plants cannot survive this onslaught and must be protected, if they are used at all.
Temperature is usually more moderate along the coast – both winter and summer – with earlier spring and longer autumn. Being warmer during the winter is not a blessing for many herbaceous plants, as they would prefer to stay completely dormant all winter. Alternate freezing and thawing is frequently fatal to them. On the other hand, this additional warmth may enable us to successfully overwinter plants that would be impossible a few miles inland.
Fog sets up the conditions for fungal diseases to attack vulnerable plants. The moist salt air will wreak havoc on beebalm, aster and summer phlox. Roses, too, may suffer.
Gardeners who have lived with and managed these climactic forces in their gardens have also developed great experience in the selection of the best (and worst) plants for their sites.