W HEN I AM GONE, SOME OF THE PLANTS HERE WILL PERISH, TOO; any finicky or timid ones will get swamped by their more ambitious neighbors. But not the great groundcovers, not Geranium macrorrhizum (above) or the toughest epimediums and others content to keep growing whether I pay them any mind or not, even in the hardest spots like the dry shade of trees. To knit things together without a lot of fuss, I’ve come to rely on plants like these:
Geranium macrorrhizum, the big-root geranium: I wonder how many square miles of this plant I have grown. The bigroot geranium is so named because instead of a clumping habit, it grows from a ropelike rhizome that seems to barely need to touch the ground to thrive. Its attractive foliage has an aromatic, spicy scent, and is nearly evergreen even in my Zone 5B garden.
It will survive, I think, except in the wet; sun or shade, and even dry shade. All I give it is an annual haircut, and I do that when spring is turning to summer, the flowers have gone by and the leaves are stretching upward. Deadheading would be another option, but just shearing the whole plant is faster in masses, and also keeps it tighter and denser.
The straight species is pink (but not pastel); if Pepto Bismol isn’t going to work for you, there is the more prim ‘Ingwersen’s Variety,’ with nearly white blooms (and a less rampant overall demeanor, too, I think).
Epimediums, or barrenworts: Thanks in large part to the passion of Darrell Probst, the esteemed Epimedium collector and founder of Garden Vision Epimediums nursery in Massachusetts, a dizzying selection of the charming barrenworts is now in the marketplace. I have some choice ones, but two of the less rarified (and therefore less expensive) varieties have served me particularly well for groundcover: E. x rubrum (above, slower but steady, and very floriferous) and E. versicolor ‘Sulphureum,’ (more ambitious from the start, with early yellow blooms, a real do-er, as they say).
Shady locations suit epimediums, and once established they can really take it dry. In fact, their woody rhizomes will resent a wet spot, and rot. Like many woodlanders with these woody underground parts, I find they like an intervention every now and again: When a clump gets really full, I go in and divide it, and repeat my success elsewhere with the divisions.
Plan to cut back their nearly evergreen foliage in late winter, as we have discussed before.
I highly recommend calling or writing for a catalog from Garden Vision, now owned by Karen Perkins, who has worked with Darrell since the operation’s founding in 1997. A website is in the works, but for now: (978) 249-3863 or email to epimediums at earthlink dot net.
Hellborus orientalis hybrids: At the risk of repeating myself, the hybrid hellebores (massed above) are incredibly durable, increasing as their evergreen clumps widen and also by sowing themselves liberally around. The crash course on these toughies (and a slideshow of some beauties).
Trachystemon orientalis is a fourth great groundcover lurking here at A Way to Garden, one I’m about to press into wider service than I have until now. Trachystemon orientalis, with its blue early spring flowers and bold, heart-shaped foliage from spring through fall, will put up with almost anything. You may recall my saying so not long ago.
Do you have areas where a one of these would help thwart weeds, shade the soil, and just tie things together visually? Or do you have any other reliable great groundcovers to recommend?
Margaret the epimediums just make my heart flutter…and I’ve got a perfect spot that needs help sorely! I’ve seen more and more making their way into nurseries lately.
As far as other groundcovers, I think I’ve been in love with european ginger from the moment I saw my first clump. The price all those years ago almost stopped my heart too! But my two small pots from Allan Haskell’s several years ago have been divided so many, many times now that it was well worth the initial cost and so much more.
Reliable yes, great not so much but vinca is SO EASY. I’m moving it from the middle of my tiny garden, to the curb-side since it will take any amount of abuse. I don’t like it enough to give it prime real-estate though.
Welcome, Elena. I agree: It’s not front-row stuff but I am grateful someone decades ago left some behind in the outer reaches behind my office, for instance, where it would be all weeds otherwise. It goes and goes and goes. See you soon again, I hope.
@Bobster: You know, I almost included Asarum europaeum in the list, but unless you divide it, it can kind of stop dead in its progress (and if you divide you can have an infinite amount, as you note). I love the plant, as use it in mixed underplantings as you have probably seen here. I will do a profile all to its own…thanks for nudging me.
Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) is my go-to for shady spots that need groundcover up here in Canadian Zone 5b, which I think is approximately USDA 4.
It’s currently fighting with Geranium macrorrhizum for dominance in my shady “nothing grows well here” corner. The Geranium gets an earlier start and holds its own, but the Woodruff has completely surrounded it. For the time being, it’s a draw…
Margaret, how do you do it? Everyday you manage to get me excited all over again about plants I have had for years. You make my day when I can’t be in the garden and fill my head with ideas when I’m stuck in work.
This is such a timely article for me! Just last weekend we completed (well, the paid workers did) clearing a large shady area where ivy had run rampant. Totally my fault, no excuses except innocence — I thought it would be nice and green and wouldn’t need any tending. Hah! The space is about 40 feet long, and 20 feet at its widest, so I need lots of plants and I don’t have money to buy many after paying for the clearing.
I love g. macrorrizhum and I have lots of it as a groundcover elsewhere and I am going out to begin to transfer it to a large chunk of the new space. I plan too to check out the epimediums because they would work well too, I think. And I have a lot of woodruff which will work in well too. So many possibilities! So little time! OK, off to get to work.
Thank you, Margaret! I will take pictures as I go and put them up on my little blog. This is really exciting.
This post inspires me to get the great migration on the road to my Cape garden. Ground covers such as epimediums, gallium, lillies of the valley and even hay scented fern have been grand surprises in my garden. I love the swaths of them on the woodland edge and under trees. They give an architecture to the space and are a constant source of new plants to use as I reclaim garden areas from invasive ivy and underplant trees. Can’t wait to get there and play in the dirt once more. Love the new site Margaret.
I have a huge swath of the Geranium mac, including Spessart and Ingwerson, under sugar and silver maples and a dogwood and along a sloping streetside bank that gets tons of salt and road grit each winter. These guys are the energizer bunnies of gardening and look so good in a big sweep.
This spring my Epimedium perralchicum ‘weihenstaphan’ and also E. ‘La Rocaille,’ both from the late great Roslyn Nursery, have self-seeded. Amazing numbers of tiny little bronze leaves around the parent plants. I don’t recall this happening with my other Epimediums. I am disproportionately excited to the size of the leaves!
The epimediums are just what I need for a spot a did some pruning. They are fabulous. I emailed for a catalog.
Great post. You have inspired me to move beyond my safe carpets of vinca, pachysandra and that very invasive sweet woodruff.
Welcome, Donna Oglesby, and thank you for the encouraging words. Now get on the road to your garden! :) Yes, even hay-scented ferns are heaven in bis swaths, exactly. See you soon again.
@Linda: JEALOUS. Baby barrenworts!!!!!
@Susan: It’s a great catalog, old-fashioned and charming and each of the plants is a little treasure.
@50s Pam: I knew if I kept trying I could get even you to crack under the pressure. I know that you and Susan are nearby…anybody nearby can have some Geranium to take away anytime. .:)
**ATTENTION** Garden tour lovers. If you live in Southern Vermont, the Berkshires, North West Connecticut, or the upper Hudson Valley, The Lenox Garden Club is having it’s “Hidden Treasures of the Berkshires” garden tour Saturday, July 11, 2009. The tour this year will be in Sheffield and Ashley Falls, Ma. For more information visit http://www.lenoxgardenclub.net or call Mary Harrison at 413-298-3089. If there is a TRIPPLE CROWN for garden tours in this area it is Trade Secrets Ct. ,The Garden Conservancy Opening Day Program, and the Lenox Garden Club tour. The LGC premiers most Berkshire gardens, through it’s tour, before they go on to the Garden Conservancy. Most gardens are professionally planted and maintained, or the gardens of people who maintain gardens as a business. They offer gardens that might cover 1/4 acre to the multi million dollar estate. A must see!
Gardened for 29 years. Killed my share but eventually got the hang of it (somewhat) & learned on the job. Now in a condo with postage stamp space for some pansies, herbs & succulents. LOVE your site … it’s the stuff daydreams are made of. Thank you for so much pleasure whenever a new one arrives. Mimi
Welcome, Mimi. Glad to have the words of encouragement, thank you. And yes, I have killed my share, too. :) See you soon again.
I am wondering if you can do a bit about how to use shrubs to naturalize the garden into the woods. I have a beautiful view of 11 acres of woods and want to ease my gardening into it so that it looks more natural, less like a border. But I do not want to have the work of weeding the woods, so I’d like to use shrubbery that will pull your eye away from any unwanted undergrowth that will grow. Thanks…
@Cindy: The Lindera (spicebush) is a great transition into the woodland; I also grow a spiny, crazy thing called Devil’s walking stick (Aralia spinosa) that is comfortable in that kind of situation. Various of the viburnums can grow at the woodland edge (though they may be looser and have somewhat fewer flowers…but ask locally which ones are more shade-adapted in your area). The Fothergilla in the slideshow and even the Cornus mas will be OK without blazing sun…again, I use them at the edge of the woods…and so will the shadbush (Amelanchier). I could go on, as you can see…native azaleas (like pinxterbloom, etc.) can take half-shade…I will be quiet now. :)
I love the geranaium – I grow the Ingwersen’s. Also love the purple flowering vinca – it is a nice surprise.
MaRGARET, YOU ARE KILLING ME. I HAVE TO EITHER HIDE THE CHARGE CARD IN MY DESK MEANT FOR INTERNET SALES, or stop reading A Way to Garden!!. I now have Hudson Valley library seeds after I said I had no more room in the raised beds, and I am expecting some new clematis from http://www.growingvines while my summer budget is becoming fast depleted! You do instill a hard to resist enthusiasm!!
Hi, I use as groundcovers, Ajuga reptans, Tellima grandiflora & Symphytum grandiflorum. I like the Tellima specially, so simple and such a playfull flowering. Bye
Welcome, Irma. Thanks for the suggestions–the Tellima (or fringecups) is a Washington state native, and I never see it for sale here but a good idea. I have a lot of the Symphytum here; another good reminder. The bugleweed or ajuga goes a little nuts for me, but I do love those colorful spiky flowers just about now. See you soon again.
How do you think Trachystemon orientalis would do under willow trees in a consistently moist site? A friend requested groundcover suggestions for such a site, I garden in sandy soil and so have no firsthand experience with wet. Thanks!
My mother gave me a few buckets of scented geraniums, Geranium macrorrhizum, several years ago. I stuck them outside the back door in a shady spot where they have flourished.
What I love about them is they are one of the first things to come up, my honey bees love their flowers, and they are one of the last plants to leave, departing in a spectacular frost-nipped red. The best part is that I don’t have to do a single thing to them (well I do deadhead them).
Welcome, Cynthia. Yes, these are tough and easy creatures, these big-root geraniums. Not sure what I would do without them to carpet big areas that would otherwise be weedy and high-maintenance. Hope we will see you soon again.
Bishop’s Weed, Goutweed, Ground Elder ‘Variegatum’
Aegopodium podagraria.
This grew like mad where almost nothing else did, in a mostly shady, highly alkaline, very dry (11″ a year, nearly all in the form of snow) soil in zone 3. It barely rained in summer in the eastern Idaho high desert, but the Bishop’s Weed added an airy grace all around my little brick Tudor cottage. It was unstoppable.
Welcome, Eileen. Yes, grow goutweed will…maybe too much except in otherwise impossible conditions, as you describe. Not a good neighbor for other perennials, though, which it will gladly run right over. :) See you soon again.
What to do to get rid of invasive vines… Jeanne
@Jeanne: Do you know what they are? Annual, perennial, woody? Like grape vines and poison ivy or bindweed or ???
The Trachystemon orientalis is a new one on me. I’ll have to give that a try. Another plant that I would include on my list of tough groundcovers is Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum). It has been a reliable and gentle groundcover that prospers in many of our shadiest locations. I know that for some locations it is invasive but for us in Maryland it has always been very easy to contain — and with such lovely foliage.
what about euphorbia’s, some wonderful varieties that can travel quite a distance, and in the spring, those chartreuse flowers, that just go so well with the grape hyacinths and the for-get-me- nots, and there is the sweet woodruff, the european ginger, that has spread like a week here in my shade gardens, along walkways, at the ponds edge. just a few suggestions. the list goes on. L
I use Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris) (Alchemilla mollis) as ground cover. Good in sun and part shade, self sows in a reserved manner, and flowers are abundantly.
Welcome, Joyce. I like the plant, too; sort of a sentimental favorite. I have it near the edge of the vegetable garden and a couple of other spots. Thanks for the reminder. See you soon, I hope.
Margaret….can you use flowering thyme as a ground cover on a slope …….we have an area outside of our deer fence at the entrance to our property where grass doesn’t really grow as well as we would like and we thought of doing some kind of a ground cover……. we have some spirea bushes near the gate but other than that we would like to have something pretty that would thrive……the area gets some sun during the day and is on a dirt road….we live up the road from you in Old Chatham and if you were on the Hidden Gradens tour this past weekend , our garden was on it so you may remember the area I am referring to……thanks…..MaryAnn..
Welcome, MaryAnn. It is good on such sites provided they have lots of sun. When you say that grass doesn’t grow well there, it makes me suspicious that there is not enough light. Maybe browsing through a site like Classy Groundcovers (which sells plants in sort of a bulk fashion for jobs like this) would be helpful? The thyme wants good drainage and lots of sun.
Margaret, I love this blog!
I’m partial to Brunnera macrophylla “Langtrees.” In May, the flowers make the area under my lilacs look like fairyland, and it provides a nice thick cover of silver-speckled leaves through the summer. It’s great in dry shade, too.
Welcome, Jared. It’s a beautiful plant, thanks for mentioning Brunnera ‘Langtrees’. I have a few Brunnera here somewhere, but your thought of a mass of them sounds really nice…so I ought to divide this fall and make a mass. See you soon again.
I’d love to see more about tough ground covers, especially for full sun and drought tolerant. I’m always looking for more low growing types, like vinca, that will keep the weeds out and grow as easily.
Margaret, when I was at your September workshop, you mentioned you had the white form of Geranium macrorrhizum. Do you use it in a sunnier spot of the garden and do you find it does the same job of covering ground and keeping the weeds down? I have a white garden that really needs something tough to cover large areas and it is a sunnier spot than most of your garden.
@Terryk: The white one I have has never been as vigorous as the plain old hot-pink species, but maybe it does want more sun. It’s actually a little smaller in leaf and flower, too…but I see there are now many named white types (I got mine many, many years ago before there were choices). Maybe others are more robust (or as you suggest better with sun).
Thanks Margaret, really appreciate the feedback.
Another rampantly growing groundcover to consider is Lamiastrum, a.k.a. Yellow Archangel. It grows well in shade and tolerates dry conditions when the soil is rich. Its variegated foliage makes it a nice foil for dark green leaves of hellebore and hosta. It can become a bit invasive here in Philadelphia but its runners are relatively easy to yank out where they are unwanted.
We have despaired of our dry woodland beds because of the drought for the last two years but 2 shrubs that have done very well are Eleutherococcus sieboldianus ‘Variegatus’ (beautiful) and Euonymous fortunei ‘Kewensis’ (bizarre). The gound has been bone dry until last week. On the day that a hosepipe ban was introduced in our region, East Anglia (UK) it started raining and hasn’t stopped since…
Hi, Liz. Just int he kick, huh…all that rain! High-drama the last year here, too — all rain last year, none this year, snow till April last year, none this year…and so on. Crazy-mad. Nice to see you, and please come say hello again.
Hi Margaret, your groundcover slideshow is wonderful! I am looking for some groundcover varieties that would do well and grow fast under pine trees (only 1-2 hours of sun if at all) and acidic, mostly dry soil. The only one I have growing so far is Pachysandra. Which others should I go for (looking for a combination of 3 or 4)? Would much appreciate your response!
Also I am in MA north of Boston – zone 5 or 6.
Hi, Sonali. The shade of evergreen trees is the hardest — the least light, moisture, nutrients. Buy one or two small pots of epimedium and see if it will do it there, and certain ferns are also very tough (here, male fern, lady fern, Christmas fern and hay-scented fern all tolerate a lot of tough spots). Under two big dwarf white pines I have had success with hellebores (orientalis types), and also oddly the ostrich fern. The key is to start with SMALL plants and not try to have big things shocked into submission in dry/dark all of a sudden.
Love your site! The ground covers seem really tempting, however do they really keep out weeds, I mean reall? And what about fall clean up with all the bushels of maple leaves collecting all over them??? I have a very steep narrow bank under maple trees O have been trying to plant for years. Some shrubs are doing okay to keep. Everyone says plant ground covers now. But I gasp in horror when I think of how they would trap weed seeds, camouflage weeds, and how hard to mulch them then as I said before, the fall leaves! Am I missing out on a good thing by living in fear?
Hi, Beth. I think ones like Geranium macrorrhizum or epimediums can deal with tough spots and thwart weeds/require only once-yearly care. Compared to weeds….groundcovers you CHOOSE are a salvation.
I am using nearly all of the groundcover plants mentioned above in my woodland garden. Two new groundcovers introduced by Terra Nova this year are Heucherella ‘Yellowstone Falls’ and ‘Redstone Falls’ – both only 6″ high and trailing to 3 feet, rooting where they touch earth. Recommended for hanging baskets and groundcover in part to full shade. Both have beautiful foliage and the typical foam flowers and supposedly, moderate water requirements. Hardy in zones 4-9 ought to make them usable just about anywhere. Sometimes the hype on new introductions turns out not to be reliable so I shall see how good a groundcover they will be – I do love both the chartreuse and the deeper reddish green of both forms.
Thanks so much for this newsletter. I have a question -
About Big root geranium – you say
“It will survive, I think, except in the wet; sun or shade, and even dry shade.” I am confused. Do you mean that it will survive in anywhere dry?
Sorry, Debby. How unclear of me! :) In my Zone (5B) it will grow in sun or shade, and even dry shade (or regular — but not in a wet spot, where I think its big rhizomes would rot off).
Ever wary of the possibility of early snow, I have pulled my nasturtiums. Then, of course, I harvest the seeds for next year. My spouse calls my “harvesting” another sign of my thrift*. I call it conservation for future plantings; the same with Allium and the many varieties of CA poppies (lots of different colors
*this is not the term she uses. j