Ground cover plants??

easyhome

Hi all,

In my back garden I have a lawn surrounded by empty beds approx. 20" wide with a 6' fence behind those.

I would like to be able to plant something that will grow and provide cover and then save me from having to weed all the time!

The only problem is that our house is directly south facing so 2 sides are very sunny and dry whilst the back "bed" is shaded nearly all the time and stays mostly damp.

Can anyone advise?, I live in Folkestone, Kent if that makes any difference regarding soil conditions etc.

TIA

James

I_have_spoken

http://www.crocus.co.uk/plants/_/vid.4/vid.6/vid.40/numitems.100/

Play about with aspect and soil moisture options

Davesnave

Crocus is a good resource/tool. There are cheaper places to buy. The RHS site is good for research, and you have to do some.

Under 2' isn't much to fill, but it will still look naff if everything in there is the same height and form, so you want a backbone of different, unfussy, mainly evergreen shrubs up to around 3' tall and an infill of ground hugging perennials, some evergreen, some just early risers, to fill most of it.

Some shrubs, like hebes and euonymus, can be naturally small, but others will need pruning. Obviously you wouldn't buy something with an eventual height and spread of 8'.....would you?

The ground huggers you are looking for would be easy care, like smaller geraniums, tiarellas, osteospermum (not the annual type) sedums and maybe tough rock plants like aubretia, pinks etc. You could do it all in woodruff but it would be terribly boring!

If you buy easy perennial plants, a few can become many by division in just a year or two, so if you do it in stages, it'll be cheaper.

Even if your aspirations in garden design are limited to a bit of lawn with a bed round the outside, if it looks good, you might be tempted to widen the beds a bit. If you eventually do that and have a bit of shaping, the garden could look quite pretty with minimal effort; certainly better than the horrible apologies for gardens I see daily on Rightmove.

GonzoAston

What about Ferns? Lots of different varieties and most like the shade and damp soil.

moneyistooshorttomention

There are edible groundcover plants. Two bites of the cherry there = visual appeal and something for the stomach.

I am starting to accumulate details of that. Right now...wild strawberry comes to mind (being one I rather have in mind myself).