Covering Some Ground

Cooking can be similar to gardening. For me, I love slow cookers and the whole “set it and forget it” mentality. You do the prep work and place in the ingredients, and leave the slow cooker to do its thing. Then voilà - dinner is ready! A little input, for a lot of output. That’s how I feel about groundcovers.

For those who garden more out of necessity than fun, groundcover type plants can be a great route to explore. While they won’t typically give you that instant landscape in a month, many of them are pretty low maintenance and cover a space that would otherwise be bare mulch or, far worse - weeds! Groundcovers aren’t just for those daunted by gardening, they’re even for the avid gardener! With a number of options out there, let’s take a look at some that I find to be great choices.

Common Bugle (Ajuga reptans ‘Burgundy Glow’ and ‘Binblasca’ (Black Scallop))

Common bugle is a wonderful plant to include in a shade to part shade garden. Two cultivars, or cultivated varieties, that are worth highlighting are ‘Burgundy Glow’ and ‘Binblasca’ (Black Scallop). I find ‘Burgundy Glow’ to be a great addition to a shady area, as its foliage, as seen below, isn’t overly dark and can brighten up a space. I also love the great variation in color!

Black Scallop is velvety black and shines beautifully. Since it’s already a bit dark, I think it stands out better in some partial shade, where it won’t get lost in the limited light of the full shade. Both common bugles are great spreaders and can fill in a space quite nicely. A tip for even better success? If you have a lot of leaf build up in the fall, try to keep these uncovered so they don’t wind up getting smothered out!

Powderpuff (Mimosa strigillosa)

I’m all about all things strange, especially botanically! Powderpuff fits the bill. While the flowers, that do indeed resemble a powderpuff are whimsical, they pale in comparison to this sun loving plant’s unique quirk.

The foliage is sensitive to touch! When you rub against it, especially on younger leaves, the plant appears to recoil. The image below very well represents this. A plant that has a fun flower, a peculiar mechanism, and spreads with ease? If that’s not all that and bag of chips, then I don’t know what is!

Before we close the book on powderpuff, we need to address the elephant in the room. Powderpuff has the unfortunate fate of looking a whole heck of a lot like a plant that’s anything but wonderful. Powderpuff can easily be mistaken for a most loathsome weed - chamberbitter (Phyllanthus urinaria). Yuck! Just saying the name makes me want to get a bottle of soap to wash my mouth out with! Despite the very similar appearance, don’t be fooled. All of the delightful attributes you can expect from powderpuff you can’t find in chamberbitter. While chamberbitter may easily spread through your yard, it is a wholly unwelcome garden visitor!

Hardy Gloxinia (Seemannia nematanthodes 'Evita' )

Okay. I know I say this a lot. But I love this plant! Hardy gloxinia is a novel shade groundcover. Semi glossy green leaves are present until frost, but this is one well worth growing for its fall flowers.

An abundance of red-orange flowers top this low growing groundcover and add an exciting element to the shade garden. The overall flower form is balloon-like and sure to grab the attention of any passerby.

Strawberry Begonia (Saxifraga stolonifera)

Don’t let the name deceive you, this is not actually a begonia. Common names can be messy, and a bit misleading at times, and this one falls within those ranks. Despite the name confusion, it is another worthwhile groundcover for shade. It’s hard not to find the foliage attractive with its green leaf adorned with silver colored veins running across the top.

In addition to its excellent coloration, the leaf shape is also a little different than what you see elsewhere. For those looking for a little more subtlety from their groundcovers, strawberry begonia may be the way to go.

Dichondra (Dichondra argentea 'Silver Falls’)

I’m always touting dichondra as an amazing, mannerly groundcover. My experience has been that dichondra plays nice with the other plants in the garden. When dichondra grows near other plants, it typically grows gracefully around the bases of those plants, as opposed to on, and subsequently over, them. A little garden etiquette goes a long way in my book!

I particularly like the cultivar ‘Silver Falls’, pictured above, as it adds a bold pop of color to the landscape. While there is a turfgrass weed called dichondra, it’s a different species. This one is tame enough to put in a sunny spot in your garden, and well worth the space. Keep in mind, however, that this is not reliably cold hardy and may not survive a harsh winter.

Beefsteak Plant (Iresine herbstii 'Purple Lady’)

If you’re looking for a thick groundcover that will spread quickly, look no further than the beefsteak plant. This sun to part shade tender perennial will take off before you know it! While we just looked at dichondra as being mannerly, you can expect no such restraint here. Beefsteak plant is a spreader with no regard for anything else. If you have a big area you want filled and nothing else you plan to include in the bed, this is the plant for you.

Beefsteak plant was perfect for filling in space in our garden that would otherwise have been bare. It helped to suppress weeds and keep the garden area dressed up. It also showed us one very unique side effect - it made us grateful to have deer! With the speed that this grew and, again, the way it seemed to gobble up plants growing nearby, grazing deer that came to visit and chewed this back a bit wound up doing us a favor. If you have a few hungry deer that come through your yard, you will likely find this can hold up to their grumbling stomachs once it has had some time to establish itself.

For those that don’t mind if their flora spread with reckless abandon, groundcover plants may just be the ones for you! For those who want a little more order, be prepared to head out to the garden on occasion to keep them in check. With a little effort up front, you may find that groundcovers are worth the wait!

See you in the gardens!