Evergreen And Ground Cover Plants

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

On the garden plot, ground cover grasses occupy a special place, since in some way they help to get rid of weeds. These plants grow rapidly, so they do not allow weeds to grow. They are very unpretentious in care, and will create additional bright spots in garden design

Evergreens

These plants are distinguished by the fact that the foliage is renewed gradually. Old leaves do not die off at the same time, but one by one, so the plant always looks green. These include haulteria with light pink flowers that bloom almost all summer, periwinkle, pachisandra. They fight the growth of weeds all year round, as they seize free areas for their own reproduction. Creeping conifers, such as horizontal juniper and cushion yew, can also play this role.

Winter green ground cover plants

These plants include mainly perennial grasses. They are distinguished by more vibrant colors than evergreens. But their foliage is renewed for the second summer and this should be taken into account when forming compositions.

Many of these plants reproduce by creeping rhizomes or shoots that take root quickly. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the number of plants if you do not want them to take over the entire garden.

Plant selection

Choose different ground cover plants for different locations on your site. Many such perennials prefer the most shady places on the site. The choice is quite extensive here. A European hoof with glossy dark green leaves, a creeping tenacious blooming with blue-violet flowers from May to the end of June, a woodcutter, a multicolored mountain goat with pale yellow flowers or a decorative strawberry, which blooms from May to August with pink flowers, is very suitable here.

You can revive such a carpet with sedges. For example, road sedge has wide bright green leaves or Japanese variegated, in which the leaves have longitudinal white stripes. These sedge species are spread by creeping shoots.

Many evergreens do not like the sun, so the choice for sunny places is much less. An eight-petal dryad is best suited. It is an evergreen small shrub that is adorned with large white flowers. Evergreen sedum will delight you with a carpet of yellow flowers, and Dubrovnik with purple flowers from May to August.

There is one plant that tolerates both the sun and the shade well - this is the large-rhizome geranium. It has interesting leaves that resemble a carved open fan. In the fall, they come in a variety of colors, from pale pink to crimson red or different shades of yellow. This deciduous carpet will be a bright spot in any corner of the garden. The special charm of this plant is in its aroma. It is no coincidence that this plant is successfully used in perfumery.

In order for the carpet not to look very monotonous and boring, you can plant perennial herbaceous plants that have a more powerful root system that goes much deeper. In this case, the hosta, foxglove and daylily are very suitable. Bulbous plants such as hazel grouse and daffodils will also look good among ground cover plants.

How to plant ground cover plants

These plants can be planted at any time. It is only important to prepare the landing site. It should be well loosened and weeds thoroughly weed out, because after the growth of ground cover it will be very difficult to do this. Further, the planting site must be fertilized and well moistened. After planting the plants, they must be watered regularly for better rooting.

When planting, the distance between the plants must be strictly observed if we want to create a continuous weed-free carpet. It depends on the type of plant selected. Fast growing perennial grasses plant four plants per square meter. And the slow-growing ones should be planted on the same square meter already 16 plants. Then after two years you can expect a dense weed-free cover. Of course, ground cover plants will in any case tighten the soil, no matter how much you plant them, but in order to achieve the best effect in the shortest possible time, you must adhere to the proposed number of plants per square meter.

Ground cover plants are completely unpretentious. The main care consists only in watering during especially dry times. It should be remembered that the growing season does not stop during the winter, so they constantly need water. If the autumn is very dry, then the plants need to be watered until November.