Ground cover plants are often underappreciated but could be the salvation for many a less handsome spot in your garden. Forget dreary cotoneasters on roundabouts and car parks and think instead about using attractive, usually evergreen perennials.
There are always places where we’d sooner not spend more time than is necessary – the driveway, a shady corner next to the shed or a bank too steep to stand on. There’s no shortage of plants to bring colour and interest to such spots.
Ground cover specimens must look after themselves because you won’t want to spend much time where they’re growing. They need to be tough, spread quickly and form a dense, living mat. You should only need to weed round them and water during a dry spell in the first year before hanging up your trowel and watering can.
These plants must grow thickly and quickly. Geranium macrorrhizum does exactly that as its seven lobed leaves shade out germinating competitors, turning brilliant shades of red in autumn. Most have bright magenta flowers but Ingwersen’s Variety has pretty pale pink flowers for several weeks in summer. It is happy in dry soil and sun or semi shade.
I normally rank deadnettles in my top 10 of pernicious weeds, but some lamiums are suitable ground cover for almost any problem spot. Lamium orvala produces a fine leafy clump with pinkish-purple flowers in spring and early summer, while Lamium maculatum, spotted deadnettle, comes with white, pink or purple flowers, and has leaves splashed with silver.
For deep shade you need a woodland specialist like sweet woodruff, Galium odoratum. Its whorled leaves and tiny, starry white flowers create an airy effect and its dense mass of roots repels invaders. For soggy shade a variety of Ajuga reptans will spread to cover the ground with dark green leaves. Some varieties have bronze leaves that can get lost in shade but all have spikes of blue flowers in late spring.
Ground cover plants solve so many problems, like planting up steep slopes, where there’s hardly any soil. On a sunny bank, Pachysandra terminalis Green Carpet quickly forms a dense mat of thick, glossy leaves and bears small white flowers in early summer. And Saponaria ocymoides Tumbling Ted demands hardly any soil and bears clusters of little violet flowers in early summer besides year-round foliage.
You should treat these plants like living mulches and let plant fight plant. The semi-evergreen, Persicaria affinis Superba – knotweed – quickly forms a wide, 20cm-high mat of dark green elliptical leaves. The small pink flowers deepen to crimson with age. In a shadier part of the garden, try dark green-leaved periwinkle Vinca minor. As a bonus, the variety Atropurpurea has purple flowers and is pretty drought-tolerant.
There’s no better edging mulch for a sunny bed than a variety of Dianthus deltoides like Arctic Fire. Its bright green foliage is almost smothered by flowers with strikingly fiery red centres offset by cool white outers. It softens the edge of a bed as well as reducing the need to weed.
Dianthus need very well drained soil, so for a damper spot try selfheal, Prunella vulgaris. It readily covers bare ground with a low mat of dark green leaves and in spring has short spikes of blue, pink or white flowers that are irresistible to bees.
Ground cover plants are also suitable in the middle of a bed, a spot that’s often hard to reach. Or underplant red or pink roses with Artemesia schmidtiana Nana – its fern-like silvery-grey aromatic foliage makes a fine backdrop.
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