Country

Saint Martin: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Saint Martin's French side sits wholly within the Caribbean shrublands, the dry xeric ecoregion shared across the low islands of the northeastern Caribbean. The classification tells the essential truth about the island: rainfall is modest and seasonal, there are no mountains high enough to generate a wet forest zone, and the native cover is drought-adapted scrub, thorny woodland, cacti, and coastal vegetation. Gardening on Saint Martin works best when it accepts that starting point - the unirrigated palette is agaves, frangipani, sea grape, and the tough shrubs of the natural cover, with lusher tropical effects reserved for watered ground. The ecoregion rates Nature Could Recover, and native dry-scrub species remain the most resilient backbone a garden here can have.