As an occasionally snarky-minded gardener, there’s a game that I like to play whenever I visit any of Ireland’s more picturesque coastal villages. Called Guess the Holiday Home, it is based entirely – and I admit, sometimes unfairly – on the state of a property’s garden.

A wildly overgrown and tatty lawn is, of course, the first and biggest give-away, but there are plenty of others. Paths filled with knee-high weeds, for instance. Salt-seared or defoliated shrubs, of species entirely unsuitable for coastal condition, and that look as if someone doused them in boiling water. Forlorn huddles of broken pots filled with the winter skeletons of last year’s summer-flowering annuals. Or much worse (at least to my mind), an absence of any plants whatsoever. Because where’s the joy in looking out onto an empty rectangle of paving or pebble?

Horticultural challenge

In defence of Ireland’s holiday-home owners, it doesn’t help that holiday-home gardening is a horticultural challenge, especially along the country’s wind-blown south-west, west and north-west coasts where these sorts of properties proliferate. If you first fell in love with that pretty seaside cottage on a balmy summer’s day, it’s hard to fathom the power and ferocity of an Atlantic winter storm where violent, salty winds can uproot established plants to toss them several fields away, or scorch their foliage so severely that they die.

Similarly, rather like getting to grips with a foreign language, it is also difficult to get to grips with a garden with an entirely different set of growing conditions to that of your main home. The sorts of plants that thrive in a sheltered, city plot with free-draining alkaline soil, for example, are not guaranteed to flourish in the damp, cool, peaty soil of an exposed coastal country garden.

There is also the simple question of time, that most precious of commodities. Even the keenest gardener doesn’t necessarily want to spend a precious Bank Holiday weekend working in a garden that is enjoyed only on a part-time basis. So what’s the answer?

Clever design

The trick, as always, is a mixture of clever design and thoughtful planting. Take, by way of example, Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, the home of the late English film director Derek Jarman, whose small and low-maintenance yet outstandingly beautiful seaside garden is entirely at home within the wilder, coastal landscape of vast skies, sand dunes and stony, shingle beaches.

So, no high-maintenance lawns or borders. Instead, this poetic space is filled with sculptural pieces of driftwood, circles of ‘found’ stones, and soft tangles of salt and wind-tolerant plants – lavender, sea kale, mullein, santolina, valerian, sea campion, sea pea, sea thrift, broom, yellow horned poppy, and even gorse – content to grow and self-seed into its shingle-covered ground.

Jarman died in 1994, but his seaside garden at Dungeness remains, proving its 'rightness' within that wind-burned, salty, coastal landscape. So does the groundbreaking book that he wrote on its creation, Derek Jarman's Garden (Thames & Hudson).

"I am so glad there are no lawns in Dungeness," Jarman writes in its opening pages, adding that the worst lawns and ugliest gardens – the sort that "would give Gertrude Jekyll a heart attack or turn her in her grave"– are to be found in nearby seaside towns. If that doesn't inspire those of us with coastal holiday homes to think afresh about our gardens, I don't know what will.

Shining example

The shining example of Jarman’s seaside garden aside, there are other ways to make the job of maintaining your coastal holiday home’s garden easier. If the idea of no lawn is a step too far, then a modern alternative is a low-growing, pollinator-friendly, wildflower meadow filled with plants that thrive in seaside growing conditions.

Carlow-based Design by Nature supplies a meadow seed mix containing the seeds of a wide variety of native seaside flora that is specially designed for use in seaside gardens ( see wildflowers.ie). In exposed coastal areas, this won’t need any cutting, while in more sheltered seaside gardens, just top it a couple of times a year and mow an informal path through it.

If the idea of doing without a traditional lawn doesn’t appeal, then consider reducing its size. Fill that freed-up space with the sorts of shrubby, perennial and grassy plants that will provide shelter, are entirely content to grow in exposed, coastal conditions and ask for very little in the way of maintenance.

Along with the plants mentioned earlier, suitable species include Olearia, Ozothamnus, Leptospermum, Callistemon, Osmanthus, Dodonaea, Kniphofia, Tamarisk, Agapanthus, Hemerocallis, Stipa and Crocosmia. But bear in mind that coastal gardens vary greatly in terms of soil type and local climate conditions, so always take a look at nearby gardens to see which species of plants are thriving and ask your local garden centre for recommendations.

If you don’t like the idea of allowing plants to self-seed or are weary of weeding, then ease the chore of maintenance by using weed-suppressant organic mulches or laying a weed-suppressant membrane such as Mypex beneath gravel paths as well as planted areas. Finally, forget container growing. Unless, of course, you rather like the look of skeletal plants in a pot.

THIS WEEK IN THE GARDEN

If you sowed sweet-pea seed last autumn or earlier this year and are worried that the resulting plants look a little leggy, the answer is to nip out each of the plants' growing tips and then place them somewhere cool and bright. They'll quickly produce new shoots close to the base of the stem, resulting in much stronger and bushier plants that can be planted into the garden from late March onwards.

Now is a good time to start sowing seed of many half-hardy flowering annuals such as Cosmos, Nicotiana, and Rudbeckia hirta. Bear in mind that unlike their hardy cousins, half-hardy annuals need bottom-heat to germinate well (an electric propagator is ideal) and can only be planted out into the garden after all risk of frost has passed, meaning that young, spring-raised plants will need some form of protection between now and late May. A frost-free glasshouse or polytunnel is ideal but a bright porch or window-sill will also suffice. Protect young plants from cold night-time temperatures with a couple of layers of fleece.

If you own a glasshouse or polytunnel that you plan on filling with plenty of delicious food crops this summer, then it's time to get busy sowing seed of heat-loving crops including French beans, courgettes and basil, while there's also still just enough time for a late sowing of tomatoes, aubergines and peppers (but hurry). Recommended Irish seed suppliers include Mr Middleton (mrmiddleton.com), Green Vegetable Seeds (greenvegetableseeds.com) and organic seed producers Brown Envelope Seeds (brown envelopeseeds.com)

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Today (Saturday, March 11th, 11am-5pm): Woodville Walled Garden, Kilchreest, Co Galway, Spring Festival with guest speaker Hestor Forde (nursery, followed by heritage daffodil identification by Bartley Boyle, admission €15 including light refreshments, see woodvillewalledgarden.com.

Thursday, March 16th (8pm-9.15pm): Visitor's Centre, National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, A Plantsman's Pick, a talk by gardener and and plantsman Jimi Blake of Huntingbrook gardens on behalf of the Irish Garden Plant Society (irishgardenplantsociety.com).

March 25th-late August: IT Sligo, Certificate in Irish Wildflower Identification, a part-time, accredited course in identifying Irish wildflowers given by Dr Billy Fitzgerald, €250, see itsligo.ie, or email fitzgerald.billy@itsligo.ie