Changyi National Marine Reserve lies on the south coast of Bohai Gulf, which was established to preserve the biggest Tamarix chinensis Lour. community in China. However, human over-exploitation of the underground brine caused sea-water intrusion, whereas the annual evaporation capacity gradually increased because of the global climate changes, thereby aggravating the soil salinization and degradation. The population of T. chinensis gradually degraded under the conditions of high soil osmotic pressure, poor aeration and moisture, low nutrient availability, and high soil salinity. Therefore, the effects of salt stress on the eco-physiological characteristics of T. chinensis cuttings became very important for the ecological restoration of the coastal wetlands. In this paper, we studied the effects of different salinity (0%, 0.4%, 0.8%, 1.2%, 1.6%, 2.0%, and 2.4% NaCl solutions) on the eco-physiological characteristics of T. chinensis in the greenhouse. The survival rate, chlorophyll content, activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD), and malondialdehyde (MDA) content were determined. The results showed that the survival rate of T. chinensis cuttings gradually decreased with increasing the salt stress. The survival rate was 100% in the control group. The difference of the survival rate between the control and the treatment with 0.4% NaCl was not significant, and the survival rate was about 80% in the treatment with 0.8% NaCl. The survival rate decreased significantly when the salinity increased to more than 0.8%. With the increased salt stress, the chlorophyll content initially increased and then decreased. We conclude that the seedlings were able to adapt to lower salt stress conditions by increasing the chlorophyll content, which was used to enhance the photosynthesis. However, the chlorophyll content decreased under higher salt stress conditions because the concentration of salt stress exceeded the threshold of the plant adaptation. The activities of SOD and POD increased and then decreased with the increasing salt stress conditions. The seedlings were able to eliminate the reactive oxygen species accumulated through the increasing activities of SOD and POD under lower salt stress conditions. With the salt stress increasing, the activities of SOD and POD decreased because the membrane lipid peroxidation damaged the stability of the cell membrane. MDA is an important indicator of injured cell membrane, and its content increased with increased salt stress conditions. The absence of significant difference between treatments with salt concentration less than 1.2% and significant increase in the content of MDA in the treatment with 1.6% NaCl solutions indicates that the seedlings were less influenced by the membrane lipid peroxidation when the salt stress was less than 1.2%. This phenomenon may be explained by the regulation of the antioxidant enzymes.