IAM THINKING OF SIMPLIFYING SOME OF MY BIGGEST GARDEN BEDS this year—spots where the shrubs have grown in and are just crying out for a simple groundcover or two at their feet. In a slideshow, then, some of the tried-and-true choices I’ve got plenty of here to choose from come spring (including Geranium macrorrhizum, above). Divide and conquer, right?
Click on the first thumbnail to start the show, then toggle from slide to slide using the arrows on your keyboard (or the ones beside the captions). And when you’re done, don’t forget to go read the full profiles of any that interest you, at the links below the photo gallery. Enjoy.
Profiles of the Pictured Plants:
- Geranium macrorrhizum
- Epimedium
- Helleborus orientalis hybrids
- Trachystemon orientalis
- Pulmonaria rubra
- Sedums, low-growing types, plus ‘Angelina’
- Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’
- Ferns, colorful ones
- Hakonechloa ‘All Gold’
- Microbiota decussata
More Helpful Stuff:
- My tips for underplanting
- The toughest of groundcovers (dry-shade survivors)
- Browse all groundcover-related stories in the archive
- Browse the shade-related stories in the archive
- Hostas I love
Oh, great post! I need some of these.
Welcome, Wendy. Me, too. :) Time to chop them up and move them around!
Very impressive blog you have here….I’ll have to take digest a little bit at a time. I certainly do not have the experience you have…I love to garden though.
Welcome, Darla, and thanks for your kind words. All that matters is the passion, and the happiness you derive. It could be one flower pot, one houseplant — at least, that’s what I believe. People+plants=happier lives. :) See you soon again.
Ah, a nice reminder to put more groundcovers on the To Do list…..great mix of plants not usually thought of for such garden tasks….thanks, Margaret!
Awesome post Margaret! Thank you. Now to track down a bunch of these for spring. Woo hoo!
Thanks for this timely post. We lost an ancient maple last fall and now have a roadside bank to landscape. Will any of these groundcovers tolorate salt or can you suggest something that will thrive in an area that is full sun, dry, and, and salty in winter? Thanx
Bless your heart for giving us eye candy (it is delicious eye candy to gardeners). Sedums are invaluable…such a range of leaf colors! Plus they give a tropical flavor to the gardens and you don’t have to dig them out in the fall like cannas, begonias and dahlias, etc. Love your blog!
Candylei
Your groundcovers always look so lush. I wish my garden was located in a wooded area. I live in Delaware along the South Coastal Plain in a subdivision carved out of a huge farm field. The soil’s so poor from industrial agriculture that it literally eats all the compost I put on it. You’ll dig a hole through sand then hit clay bottom. No organic matter at all. For the past three years, I’ve been hauling leaf mold from one of our tree-filled historic cities to amend the soil, but I still can’t grow many herbaceous plants during our hot dry summers.
I can talk first hand about the wonders of primary succession trees though. The river birch next to our downspout is huge and creates a nice cool area along the side of the house. The soil still dries out too fast to grow groundcovers underneath of it though.
Thanks for sharing this super useful info and all your amazing pictures. I have a shrub border that’s been underplanted with mulch for too long, and your suggestions over the seasons have given me lots of great ideas for enlivening the border.
Great photos and useful information. Thanks.
Great informative post! Would any of these willing to live under a spruce tree? Must look for that pulmonaria.
Welcome, Chen. Conifers are tricky, because they cast shade all year and beneath them the soil can be (is) very dry. I don’t know your Zone/location, but this situation is one of those where people often resort to Vinca minor (which thankfully comes in some better flower colors these days, including white). How cold do you get?
@Patrick: Welcome, and thank you. I am trying in my chaos over here (book coming out in three weeks, egads!) to get some of these needed big posts up for people to refer to in spring. Glad it helps.
Margaret -
only two things entered my mind after this: Stunning display and a HUGE thank you. Keep up your fantastic efforts, please.
Wonderful pictures and great ideas. We had a taste of spring here in Virginia today and I found myself poking under leaves to check my Hellebores . Delighted to find some buds showing color! Still a little early to cut back the foliage but wont be long. I love the way they pop up in unexpected places . I also have been a fan of Epemediums and was glad to see some new varieties in the Plant delights catalog. Always on the lookout for plants that will tolerate dry shade here in zone 7.
I have vowed this year to plant more shrubs and groundcovers to cut back on some of the work. As I get older I really need to think before I plant and low maintenance is of primary importance. Sometimes our gardens become all work and we have no time to sit back and enjoy them. I think you wrote that we gardeners are our own worse enemies.
What a nice pick-me-up after all of the snow we got on the east coast last week! As I scrolled through your photos of ground covers that I should take advantage of in my own garden it made me feel like spring was here- for a little while. I sent this article to all my friends so they could have a nice pick-me-up too. Thanks Margaret!
Thank you for the timely hellebore post. Our many days of 90 plus heat last summer killed off most of my ground covers. The only healthy survivors were my hellebores .
I love them and are planting many more to restart my beds.
Welcome, Audrey. Same here — wow, what a hot dry summer that was. Waiting to see what makes it…but the hellebores are here, thankfully. So tough. See you soon again, I hope.
Just discovered your blog via http://comstockferre.com/. (I’m a devoted customer of Baker Creek Seeds), I feel as though I’ve found the Gardener’s Vulcan Mind Meld here, and am reeling from all the great info and gorgeous photos. I see many happy hours of perusal here in my future . . .
Welcome, Cattfrancisco. They have wonderful seeds, and what a catalog! A feast unto itself. Glad you feel right at home; not surprised. Seems like we like the same things. See you soon again, I hope.
Thank you for the beautiful pictures. I love the groundcovers. Some years ago I made a big mistake when I planted Vinca minor. It took over my gardenbeds and I am fighting it ever since. Every piece of root that’s left in the ground will grow and grow and grow. I am close to having it all removed this year, what a relief! My next task is removing the Mondo Gras along my garden boarders.I find it very agressiv.The underground runners send up shoots between the bricks in my walkways and in plants close by. I love Geraniums, Ferns and Hellebores as groundcovers and would like to purchase European Ginger this year. Margaret, you are an inspiration to me.Thank you for the information on plants. Love your slide shows and your books.
Margaret, we garden on 10 acres here and are just beginning. I am working on an area that is mostly shade and you have given me a lot of ideas with this post. About 10 years from now who ever is the owner will be surprised at what is showing up in the back 40.
Have a graeat evining,
John
Great post Margaret,
Thanks for pulling it together.
You are welcome, Anne. Sounds like you have some beautiful plants there (not including the vinca, tee hee). See you soon I hope!
Hi, Margaret. II have been thinking about using Angelina sedum in a specific place in my small RI garden but am afraid to ,because it looks so much like a sedum stone acre that Someone gave me years ago in my last garden ,and I could never get rid of it .Is it really , really invasive, do you think.? Jean