Park Seed Garden Journal

Ground-Covers: A Smart Landscaping Decision

Perennial ground-covers can make life in the garden easier. Ground-covers offer a beautiful, organic method for handling many common garden problems. Understanding and properly applying ground-covers can significantly improve your overall landscape design.

• Most popular ground-cover plants spread vigorously - they can be used to bare spots in your yard, even hillsides and dry spots under trees.
• Deep-rooted ground-covers can help you contain an erosion proble, holding the earth solidly in place. Short-rooted ground-covers break up the ground, allowing trees and shrubs to receive moisture and nutrients more easily.
• Ground-covers regulate soil moisture and temperature, reducing the need for mulch. They also crowd out and smother weeds.
• Short, tread-able ground-covers can be used as a low-maintenance, interesting alternative to traditional lawn grass.

Browse through Park Seed's full selection of ground-cover plants to find what works best for you. Not only do they solve man practical garden problems, but lying down a nice leaf background to your beautiful blooming plants can really tie the whole garden together adding depth, creating strong finished look that you might expect in a professional botanical garden.

Ground Covers Make Landscaping Easier

You are certainly welcome to spend the rest of your life mulching.  I love the look of freshly-spread mulch, and it is satisfying work.  However, it can also be an exercise in deep frustration, especially if your area is prone to heavy, sudden rain or if you have animals that like to redistribute your mulch.  That level of upkeep is a big part of why I try to avoid having more mulch than is necessary, especially in areas in which it is more difficult to spread and keep mulch.  My preferred alternative, of course, is ground cover perennials. 

Ground covers have a lot of advantages.  The most obvious is beauty, of course.  A swath of foliage or flowers can create a stunning effect.  It is the much lower maintenance that we are less likely to consider when we're thinking of planting ground cover.  They help to maintain soil and prevent erosion, and are much easier to grow on hills than grass (they usually require less water, too).  Ground covers can also be planted around larger plants to help keep the soil cool, meaning less evaporation and less watering.

There are ground cover perennials available for almost any purpose.  Check out our collection of sun-loving ground covers, such as Blue Star Creeper or Wild Sweet William, as well as our ground covers for shade.

Dianthus 'Cranberry Ice' is a Great, Colorful Ground Cover

Many gardeners, myself included, are always looking for a really great ground cover.  I need something with great color that can be planted out toward the ends of my garden, where the waterings come a great deal less often (hey, I'm a gardener, not a workhorse).  Most importantly, I need something with a low habit that won't overwhelm my border plantings.  Dianthus 'Cranberry Ice' is the perfect solution for me.  It's drought-tolerant and deer-resistant, so it won't have a problem out at the drier fringes of my garden.  It'll also bring in a lot of pollinators, which is always a good thing.  Each plant grows to only seven inches high, but it spreads to about a foot wide, so it's great for mass plantings.  It does well in containers, too, so it's great for a container planting that won't need to be watered as often as most.

For all of its easy care, this Dianthus doesn't skimp on color at all.  These brilliant cranberry-red flowers have interesting hear-shaped pink markings that really draw the eye.  They're also fragrant and profuse, blooming, in late spring and early summer.