Ground Cover Ideas For The Garden
New landscapes can face a number of planting challenges. Sometimes after the landscaper leaves you can have a bit of a moonscape of mulch to look at. Plant some ground cover! And a lot of it. Use ground cover to help fill in between plants, fountains and garden decor, or around stepping stones.
Before you start planting just anything you need to choose your ground cover based on the light, water, and traffic conditions in your garden. These are some great ground cover suggestions to fit just about any northern garden need.
A full sun garden will benefit from some sedum. It comes in a variety of color shades and growth habits. Sedum is great for a garden that does not receive a lot of water as it is drought tolerant and actually thrives in poor soil conditions. Sedum is used on “green roofs” which are very inhospitable to highlight the kind of conditions it can take: hot, dry and horrible. Hot, hot and hot! It is not a great ground cover choice if there is going to be a lot of foot traffic, though.
Another good choice for a sunny garden with a path and some stepping stones, is the kitchen herb called thyme. Thyme is great for an area that gets some foot traffic because it smells good when you step on it. Give your landscape a cottage garden feel with this herb that also comes in a variety of growth habits and color choices such as creeping thyme, woolly thyme or lemon thyme…to name a few.
Pachysandra can be a great ground cover for your shady landscape. Pachysandra is a good deep shade ground cover that can handle some partial sun. Pachysandra is a good choice under a walnut tree which can be difficult to plant under. Pachysandra always looks good and is easy to maintain.And it is less invasive than it’s popular nemesis called vinca: vinca is a garden no no because of its rampant invasiveness into woodland areas-so when in doubt choose pachysandra.
If you are a fan of native or woodland plants and your are looking for a shade loving ground cover consider wild ginger. It has handsome dark green circular leaves and forms a dense matte with little ground hugging flowers that are popular with toads and woodland critters. Plant it around the base of a bird feeder to hide the cast off seeds. There are even some evergreen varieties for more mild climates.
The right ground cover choice is always going to enhance the look of your garden. Ground covers help cool the roots of plants in your garden and hide unsightly looking detraction. Ground cover can be a unifying element in your garden design for many years to come. Put some recycled glass gazing globes in a patch of ground cover for an easy garden decoration idea and just enjoy!
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