Mulch, soil, leaves, river rock are all ground covers. Each have there own place in Earth’s landscape with river rock probably best located at the river.
The ground covers honored by this article are the ones which produce flowers and the coniferous evergreens that like to spread.
Have you ever seen a Japgarden juniper over fifteen feet wide. You’ve missed a beauty if you haven’t.
Ground covers provide the negative space among upright forms in the garden to allow those form to show their best shapes and features.
I have about a half acre of landscape garden, which includes my house and garage. About one per cent of this space is lawn…..which is a ground cover that does not produce a typical flower, nor is it coniferous. Well, what did you expect? Lawns are in the grass world. Lawns can be walked upon. Most flowering and coniferous ground covers cannot.
There are several sizes to ground covers, used here not in the meaning of space they may occupy, but in their height…divided into four levels of growth….ground hugging, low growing, medium height, and tall ground covers……in all the plant world covering the soil in masses of about knee high height and lower.
As a guide, use garden thyme, chocolate chip ajuga, most sedums, creeping jenny (lysimachia), creeping phlox, Wilton carpet and Mother Lode junipers, and the tiny veronicas as the ground hugger; sweet woodruff, ajuga, white arabis, wild ginger, the smaller leafed lamiums, or Japgarden or Prince of Wales juniper as low growing; microbiota, Hughes juniper, Mayapple, and the larger leafed lamiums as medium height, and Buffalo, Gold Lace, and Broadmoor junipers, and some ferns as tall ground covers.
You will notice, that by ground covers we refer to plants which increase their domain horisontally.
It is in the idealized Landscape Garden where ground covers perform their most attractive roles in their performing. Most of these plants gain character as they increase their space.
The sedums flower later in the season, but nearly all of the other ground covers show their very best in Spring. The “best” might be the flower shape, the tightness of cover or the pattern of cover or foliage, the fragrance, the color, either of foliage or flower, or the rhythm of foliage, its texture, its patterns of foliage.
Clients and clients-to-be are welcomed to visit some of Masterpiece’s landscape gardens to learn more about ground covers. Call us at 952-933-5777 for an appointment. We shall be looking forward to showing you the important role ground covers play in the art of landscape gardening.
For a description of the Landscape Garden please go to our home page at this web site.