Ground cover plants

Ground cover plants are often wrongly sold or advertised. Before ground cover plants can do their work, there is some work to be done firstly.

In this and the following list of ground cover plants, we talk only about those that are true weed suppressing plants once established. Many such articles simply include space fillers. Different!

Not all of the plants that are sold as ground cover, are up to the job. There are two basic types of ground cover. The first is for creating a carpet of plants below which are important in the 'garden' sense. The second is 'Utopia' - so often sought, but rarely found - the complete smothering of weeds - without any added effort. Huh!

Ground-cover plants can be a useful means of controlling weeds, but it is important to remove existing weeds before planting. Do not think that you can simply plant 'ground cover plants' among them. The weeds can either be dug out, or treated with Weedol (Paraquat) or Tough Weed-killer (Glyphosate) and the area planted - once the weeds have died back.

If your ground cover plants are to smother the ground, then they will have to be quite vigorous growers themselves. Low growing shrubs are usually used, but there are not many weeds that grow beneath rhododendrons - or any other well established shrub for that matter! There are traditional favourites for this job i.e. the low growing Cotoneasters, Heathers, Hypericums, Lavenders, Ceanothus (Low varieties), Berberis, Euonymus Emerald Gaiety, E. Emerald & Gold, Hederas (ivies) Hardy Geraniums (Not the hanging basket types) Hebes, Hostas, Potentillas, Sedums, Senecio (Now called Brachyglottis), Helianthemums, Cistus, Winter Jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum).

Hosta Halcyon. Helianthemum 'The Bride' Potentilla 'Goldfinger'

Don’t forget the low growing conifers either. Junipers are probably best - Juniper pfitzeriana ‘Aurea’ , J. x media ‘Old Gold’ are 2 good yellow/gold spreaders, whilst J. ‘Blue Carpet’ and J. horizontalis ‘Glauca’ are good ‘blues’. J. tamariscifolia is also good; and don’t forget J. horizontalis ‘Hughes’ .
For something different, try the evergreen honeysuckle (Lonicera halliana) allowing it to spread along the ground; and don’t forget some of the shrub roses. Rosa Red Blanket, R. Frau Dagmar Hastrup and R. Rosy Cushion are often used.

The most important thing, is to get rid of the weeds first: Before planting!

Alphabetical list of low ground-cover plants.