Planting and garden beds in Biddeford, Maine.

Two of the most common in-town soils stay saturated in spring. Scantic, the glaciomarine silt-clay under much of downtown, has an April water table around six inches down according to NRCS data, and Naumburg sand, found in low outwash areas, is not much drier. Shrubs and perennials planted straight into either one tend to rot at the root. Beds on those soils are raised with screened loam and compost, and the plant list favors species that tolerate wet feet, such as winterberry, clethra and red-twig dogwood, for the lowest spots.

At the shore, the soil maps show dune sand behind Hills Beach and tidal marsh soils along the edges of the Pool and the Little River estuary. Beds there use salt-tolerant shrubs such as bayberry, beach plum and rugosa rose, and on lots within 250 feet of tidal water the state shoreland guidelines limit how much existing woody vegetation can be cleared to make room for new beds.

The Maine Forest Service lists Biddeford inside its quarantines for hemlock woolly adelgid and for white pine blister rust, which is spread by currants and gooseberries. Hemlock hedges and any Ribes species are worth a second thought when a bed is designed; the state has also proposed repealing its emerald ash borer quarantine in 2026, but ash is still a poor choice for a new planting.