When Barbara Peters moved into her Fenwick Island beachfront home in 1996, she dubbed the expanse between her deck and the beach “the Sahara desert.” Ten years later, it’s fair to say Peters has made that desert bloom.

“People think you can’t grow anything in the sand,” says Peters, a longtime gardener and one of the founders of the Fenwick Island-based Barefoot Gardeners Club, a member of the Federated Garden Clubs of America. “I’m here to say you can.”

Indeed, from April to October, a mix of perennials, succulents, and annuals thrives in Peters’ yard against a backdrop of blue, blue sea. Far from banishing the native yucca and beach grass, Peters welcomes them, cutting the dried yucca stalks and spreading the seeds each fall. Come June, her efforts pay off when the spiny plants send up stalks bearing dozens of bell-shaped ivory blossoms. “The yucca is beautiful when it blooms,” she says. “And it and the beach grass really hold the dunes. Anything that holds the dunes, I like.”

Peters also has an affection for the out-of-the-ordinary and outrageous, which is reflected in her garden’s casual, playful aesthetic. “I wanted it to be really beach-house looking, full of whimsy, happy, and fun,” she says.

In April, the yard explodes in a profusion of color, thanks to a collection of a thousand bulbs, which include orange tulips, narcissus, blue muscari, and fritalaria, a two-foot-tall black-blossomed plant. “I just wanted to try planting bulbs,” she says. “It’s unheard of at the beach, but it works!” How did she know it would work? She didn’t. But she’s always game for a gardening adventure, and in the decade she’s been experimenting, she’s learned a lot.

From then on, most of the color comes from perennials. Yarrow and cotton lavender provide bolts of yellow, while rosa rugosa, a common beach-loving plant, and ice plant sport bright fuchsia blooms. Purple-blooming lavender and Russian sage complete the festive spread. Artemisia, sedum, and blue fescue—all quite hardy—offer shades of silver and green. And in early fall, they turn shades of rust, gold, and maroon, making October a lovely time to be at the beach house, says Peters.

Even more than in the beach garden itself, Peters’ flair for the dramatic is represented by the abundance and variety of plants in containers that thrive on her home’s decks. She adores succulents because “they’re so crazy-looking”—and because they’re hardy. “Succulents are perfect for the beach because they need no water and no food,” she says. “I bring all the pots inside in the winter and give them no attention, and they do great.” One year, she filled the window box above her front door with plants that needed constant watering. Now she fills that box with succulents, including century plant, kalanchoe, and sedum “Donkey Tail,” which trails down around the doorway. “Never have I had to give them even a pitcher of water,” she says. “The more you abuse them, the better they do.”

Peters also plants the succulents in containers as solos—like kalanchoe, with its striking red-tipped leaves, which sits at the street entrance to her home in a turquoise planter—or in combination with others, like the black-leafed Aeonium Zwartkof surrounded by trailing ice plants. Also on her decks, generously sized planters are filled with Japanese black pines and miscanthus, while pink-blossomed loosestrife grows against the house. (It’s invasive in some areas but not in sandy soil.) A thriving moon vine bears flowers that open in late afternoon, perfuming the air throughout the evening.

In the portion of Peters’ yard that faces the street, daylilies, Shasta daisies, coleus, sedum Autumn Joy and coreopsis Moonbeam grow around a hand-painted birdhouse, given to Peters by a neighbor. Prickly pear grows in galvanized washtubs and in the ground by the telephone pole. It blooms yellow in mid-summer and bears an edible fruit late in the season—and its prickliness discourages dogs from “congregating” around the telephone pole.

Itching for a new project, Peters recently commissioned her longtime landscape collaborator Mike Carver to section off part of her gravel driveway and create a small patio, where she can sit when it’s too windy on the beach side of her home. Of course, she didn’t want an ordinary patio—no brick or paving stones. Instead, Carver sunk a wrought iron sun face into a disc of concrete, inlaid it with turquoise, green, and yellow glass tiles, and surrounded it with Tennessee fieldstones shaped like sunrays.

“No one has seen anything like this,” says Peters. “It’s wild.”

Barbara Peters’ Words of Wisdom for the Beach Gardener
‘Always add some real soil into the hole when planting in the sand. ’ Dig a hole and sink a lightweight planter (even the plastic pot the plant came in) into it if you don’t want to plant directly in the sand. ’ Consider an underground irrigation system. Peters’ is set to water every other day ’ After a violent rainstorm, water all the plants to rinse off the salt. ’ Buy from growers local to the area. Their plants will be more likely to grow in that environment. ’ Silver-leafed plants like artemisia and all kinds of sedum thrive in sandy soil. Pinch the sedum to keep it low and full (and plant the stems, if you like). Rosa rugosa and a newer type of rose called “knockout rose” also do well. ’ Try succulents. They never need water or food.

Laura Wexler is senior editor of Baltimore Style magazine.