HAVING to plant in an exposed position doesn't mean choosing trees or shrubs which are rugged but also dull.

First, though, it's important to recognise exactly what sort of conditions your plants will be exposed to.

Rhododendrons/azaleas are given as needing some shelter, but there are many fine specimens at Greenway, for example, where they are not protected from westerly winds.

The important thing here is that there is shelter from the north and east.

So, a combination of wind and cold demands a tougher plant — which makes sense, when you consider the wind chill temperatures given on weather forecasts.

The other factor to be taken into account along the coast, is salt in the air.

On a calm day, this would hardly be a problem, but onshore winds can carry the salt for a few hundred yards.

This makes all the difference for beech trees, for example.

Beech grows in some very exposed places, on Exmoor for example, where there are such magnificent beech hedges.

But you won't find it growing strongly near the sea.

Thinking of Exmoor and Dartmoor, if your garden is very exposed, and you want to play safe, one idea is to start with the some colourful moorland plants: heathers and gorse.

In time, the gorse could also provide a good windbreak.

A windbreak, by the way, is not a solid barrier — which creates damaging swirls and eddies — so a hedge is a much better windbreak than a solid fence or wall.

For smaller plants, the obvious thing to look at would be alpines.

Strictly speaking these are plants from above the tree line on mountainsides, though more generally, any rockery plants are called alpines.

Their natural habitat is a very well-drained soil, so this is necessary in the garden for them to do well.

You can add grit to the soil to improve the drainage.

These plants tend to have brightly coloured flowers, as the insects they need to attract are often scarce on the mountains.

There are hundreds of alpines to choose from.

Just as an example, take a look at helianthemum, which has a long flowering season, though it won't open on a dull day (its name means sun flower).

A smallish, colourful perennial that usually grows well in South Devon is the gazania, but the last two winters have killed many of them off.

Even though not completely hardy, they are not affected by salt in the air.

And, if you live near the coast, the frost is not likely to be a problem.

One of the most powerful blues is that of the lithodora, a very small shrub.

In fact, there is a cultivar 'Heavenly Blue', which lives up to its name. It prefers acid soil, but seems to be OK with the local mild acidity.

Going back to larger shrubs, whether you want them as a hedge or not, for all-year foliage interest, eleagnus ebbingei is unusual as it has leaves that are silvery underneath.

As a complete contrast, tamarisk has feathery leaves, and plumes of pink flowers, which you may have noticed in the summer alongside Preston Green, or the seafront near Torre Abbey.

Some fuchsias are suitable for exposed places, particularly fuchsia Magellenica, which comes from the southern end of South America.

Escallonias can also provide a good show of flowers — there are pink, white and red varieties — and they do like to be beside the seaside!

If I had to choose one shrub/tree for an exposed site, that would provide something in each season, high on my list would be the Glastonbury Thorn (crataegus monogyna 'Biflora'), which on first impression is a common hawthorn.

The reason it is named after Glastonbury is that there is a legend that Joseph of Arimathea came to this green and pleasant land, in the early years AD.

He is said to have put his staff in the ground at Glastonbury, and went to sleep.

He must have been surprised, to say the least, to find when he woke up that his staff had become a flowering tree, from which the Glastonbury Thorn is said to be descended.

What makes it different from other hawthorns, is that it comes into leaf in midwinter, and will often flower then, as well as in spring.