They've Got You Covered

I believe it was Ben Franklin’s gardener who said only three things are certain – taxes, death and weeds -  and we’ll all be pushing up the latter after death.  Abetting weeds is not a comforting thought, so after I’m gone, I hope to be fostering groundcover.  These low-growing plants, often spreading by stolons or rhizomes, can successfully hold the soil in place, conserve soil moisture, increase organic matter and battle weeds – all things I’ve spent a gardening lifetime striving toward.

Let me dispense with some obvious choices first.  Myrtle (Vinca minor) is tough but can get invasive; same for lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) and carpet bugle (Ajuga), which often ends up in the lawn.  Don’t plant goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) unless you want only goutweed, everywhere.  Pachysandra spreads politely but effectively, making a virtually foolproof evergreen carpet.  At least in my garden, it gets high praise.

For partial shade, barrenworts (Epimedium species) can’t be beat.  Their patches of heart-shaped leaves spread slowly, with tiny white, yellow or red flowers in early spring.  Wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) is a native woodland wonder, with pale blue flowers over a creeping mat of foliage.  The flowers of lungwort (Pulmonaria species) are deeper blue, and the green foliage is splattered with silvery spots.  Thought to cure pulmonary diseases in ancient days, its common name is no marketing asset to today’s garden center industry.  Sweet woodruff (Galium oderatum) has a more cheerful moniker and features tiny white flowers and whorled foliage all on a plant less than six inches tall.  It is said to the basis for Maitrank, the German wine traditionally imbibed on May 1.  Favorites for foliage of similar stature are the trans-oceanic cousins, European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum), with shiny green, kidney-shaped leaves, and Canadian wild ginger (A. canadensis), with a matte finish.  The tiny purplish flowers are so low only the slugs (their pollinators) and extremely curious gardeners can even locate them.  I’ll finish with the wee-est of all, Kenilworth ivy (Cymbalaria muralis), a lilac-flowered crack-filler which used to cover our old brick steps before the mason made them safe again.  It now resides on the greenhouse floor, where rules of horticultural sanitation say it must not remain, although pulling it out is as heartless as throwing an old dog off the sofa.

Need something taller?  Carex morrowii ‘Ice Dances’ looks like a spider plant, with its grass-like leaves edged in white, and makes a mass 18 inches tall.  From the same genus, Carex ‘Blue Zinger’ spreads faster but is a plain, dark green.  At two feet tall, Variegated Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) is lovely, with arching stems, pendant flowers and green-and-white leaves all on a tough plant.

In sun, low growing sedums, such as Sedum kamtschaticum, S. acre and S. reflexum survive in the worst soil and provide textural diversity with few maintenance needs.  Similarly rugged is big-root geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum), with pink spring flowers, evergreen foliage and a spicy fragrance.  Of course, don’t forget lamb’s-ear, thyme, catmint, moss phlox – I’ll be an old man before I can list them all.