🍃 My TOP 5 ▪️Favorite Ground Covers | Linda Vater

[Music] [Applause] well it's cold outside but that's because it's winter and it's also a great time in the winter garden to kind of assess your landscape and ground covers and how they're used in your landscape in particular and that's what i'm doing today i thought i would share with you five of my favorite ground covers which ones i really like which ones i have kind of cast aside because they didn't work so well for me and maybe some ground cover alternatives so let's get started with number one a plant in my garden that you guys frequently ask about and this is mondo grass in contrast to monkey grass that's leriope mondo grass is a cushiony ground cover it grows very short it really likes good drainage it's hardy down to about minus 10 degrees and if you don't have a hard winter then it will stay pretty much evergreen through the season and it looks really beautiful right now i think now one of the downsides to mondo grass as attractive as it is as a ground cover is that it can be kind of expensive so if you're able to share some of that or get someone to share it from their landscape with you that is great i also have found that a way to kind of mitigate that expense a little bit is to tuck it around flagstones that serves kind of a dual purpose you don't have to have as large a quantity of it and you're also not stepping on it so these pavers that go into my protege make wonderful little stepping stones and i also love the way this cushiony mondo grass kind of frames each stepping stone now it comes in this variety is dwarf mondo grass there's a variety that's a little bit taller it also comes in black there's a black mondo grass that's beautiful by the way in container arrangements and i've even seen mondo grass used as a house plant because it really is pretty easy it doesn't require a ton of light and it's uh i think it's just maybe something that you might want to try as an option i myself am going going to try it i'm sorry it's cold out and i'm having trouble getting my mouth to work i'm going to try it as a as a house plant myself now one other thing about mondo grass is that it will tell you if you look at different kinds of literature or websites it will tell you that it can handle full sun to part shade but i have found definitely in the south where it's a popular ground cover that it really wants afternoon shade otherwise in the dead of summer in july and august this will turn kind of brown it almost it's like it goes dormant or something the areas that are in part shade where i've got it planted they can really handle the heat and the strong sun a lot better but does it always bounce back absolutely it's really tough and it would be number one on my list of ground covers now let's move on to another area of my garden now on to number two which is ajuga but before i talk about bugle weed or ajuga i want to talk a little bit about my garden bench that was damaged in the ice storm i told you that this arm rest on the right hand side had pretty much been demolished i did however save the bits and pieces of it and a number of you said well i could do a template and i could then have it repaired and yes because i don't like to throw things away that still have value definitely i will have it repaired but i also know that sometimes things get pushed down on my list of priorities and i may not make it around to this for a while so it will easily be obscured by this hydrangea if i'm not as quick on the mark as i should be about getting it repaired before spring so thank you for all of you guys that reminded me that i could get it repaired by a woodworker and a template okay so back to ground cover i love ajuga it turns this gorgeous gorgeous purple in the winter time now it can come in different colors this is just the classic form of bugleweed that will put out a dainty lovely little spire of a blue flower in spring it looks especially beautiful at that time i think with golden fever few or anything else that's golden and low growing but i like it because it will grow in areas where grass doesn't want to grow so if the you have spaces where lawn just doesn't want to get established then you might consider growing ajuga now ajuga can be a little bit finicky i found i'll have it in some areas and it will be there for years and it will be just fine and then there might be a particularly cold wet winter or a hot summer and it will kind of fade out though it never seems to fade out completely so what i do then is i just allow it to scamper and grow wherever it will it transplants very easily so i can move it around if one area does get to be a little bit too sparse but it's a great alternative where you can't grow grass and in an area that's got good drainage and really doesn't stay too wet or too dry now it has a reputation of really liking to grow in the shade and it will grow in the shade but anecdotally i have found that it does pretty well in lots of sun too so i definitely think you should try one of the different varieties there's a variegated kind of a cream and green color that is beautiful but i found it's not nearly as vigorous as just this standal standard common type there's also one with a slimmer more strap-like leaf that's called chocolate chip it also is beautiful and does pretty well but when i want just a really great performer with good vigor then i always just go to the standard standard ajuga now you may also find that if you get one of those varieties it will ultimately revert back to the standard ajuga anyway it's a great plant to ask for a start of from your friends that already have it growing in their landscape so again it transplants easily it's not too demanding and it's really beautiful and like the mondo grass i think it looks great when it starts to kind of creep over a hardscaping or in this case a soft hardscape of gravel and brick which is my number three favorite ground cover this entire area used to be nothing but vinca minor and some golden money wart and there would be times when it would be very vigorous it would be dense and it made a beautiful tapestry a lovely montage with stepping stones in it that walked up to the garden bench but i found that over time it just didn't persist it wasn't reliable and so in an aha moment i just decided that i would do a combination of herringbone brick and gravel here i didn't have to worry then about maintaining anything i didn't have to water it and more importantly it didn't kind of come and go unreliably plus i found that this solution was just far more beautiful what i also like about it is little things that will come up and go to seed in the gravel so i've got lots of lark spur that's gone to seed it will bloom in the spring and when it's done i just pull it out now you say well what about weeds and as you can see here i've got a little bit of poana that's coming up through here i also have some mesos reptons that's gotten a little bit too vigorous in here and all i will all i have to do with that clover sometimes is a problem all i do with that is just pour boiling water on it and it just goes away and in the winter time it's a great chore to tackle come out here with a hot tea kettle pour it on any little weeds that are coming up through the brick now you may ask me is this on a bed of like a does it have a weed barrier what is the underskirting to all of this nothing it is just very flat dirt that i made sure was extremely level and then this brick and the stones were just set into that so that they would be level and on grade with the turf after that all we did was sprinkle gravel in into them they're not concreted in that way if any of them become disrupted i can easily fix it myself it was i think an afternoon of work this area i did myself but there have been other areas in the landscape that someone else did for me so it is an inexpensive job to do you can get the brick at lowe's you can get pieces of flagstone also at a home improvement store so it's a quick and easy solution another advantage is it makes a wonderful ground cover or a wonderful path and a great solution if you've got a muddy area that leads up to your faucet or any area that really retains water so this is a brilliant solution so that is my number two ajuga and my number three a combination of stone brick and gravel now let's go to number four now number four is actually a broad category and that is using herbs as ground cover i love to use herbs and in particular too i love various forms of time creeping time wooly time any kind of time i think it's absolutely beautiful i love its scent it attracts pollinators and it's especially good in gardens that have more of a mediterranean vibe and are a little bit drier and more arid so if you're in california it would be perfect for you i also love using oregano as a ground cover and for many many years right in front of the studio i had a huge patch of golden oregano that very much looked like golden money warts a great doppelganger for that but i think very much prettier and a little bit more unusual it also tended to grow in a more clump like fashion rather than in putting out tendrils so in terms of it being a ground cover i find it a little bit superior to golden money wart which i do like to use in hanging baskets by the way now i don't have any to show you right now because after about 15 years it died out i do have a little bit of just regular culinary oregano here which also makes a good ground cover and it also makes a great container plant now i'm going to get more of it and where will i get it well i'm going to check at some of my better uh local independent nurseries here to see if they have it but i'm also going to put a link below to a place called mountain valley i believe it's out of california i've checked out their website they have it for sale in addition to lots of other herbs that they grow organically because i just love the fragrance that they impart i love the fact that they oh they just kind of channel that edible landscape vibe that i love so much and they're just beautiful so as a broad category look into different kinds of low-growing herbs in your landscape one thing if you find that they kind of come and go as time does in my garden then you want to make sure it gets really really good drainage add lots of grit to the soil to amend it before you plant it but then like i did with the mondo grass just plant it in between stepping stones which will always look good in case your creeping time kind of you know doesn't always look its best so there you go those are creeping herbs to use as ground cover now let's go to the front yard and i'll show you another one now i guess it would just really be an omission not to mention just regular old monkey grass when i'm talking about ground covers and why i can't say it's necessarily one of my favorite it is invaluable i think in growing in areas where you just absolutely can't get anything else to grow and in about two weeks i'm going to be cutting this back because it's going to start putting out new tufts of growth and when i weed eat it back i don't want to weed eat that fresh growth that's coming through so if you need a cheap very effective ground cover for a problem space though it's not one of my favorite you definitely can use uh monkey grass so now let's come around here now remember this would be my last and my favorite ground cover and i discovered this through much trial and error now some of you may say oh there's so many other ground covers that are great why isn't she mentioning pachysandra and why isn't she mentioning this and money wart and that well it's because i garden in oklahoma and some of those things um they may be great where you garden but they for one reason are or another are kind of problematic for me and i have found some of that out again just through experience in my own garden by all means if you have a ground cover that works for you it's beautiful and it's effective then by all means put it on your favorite list so let me talk a little bit about my last category and that is using shrubs as ground cover so voila i tried growing vinca minor and golden money war and all sorts of other things in front of my hundred-year-old oak tree for years and i never could get it established probably because there was just too much competition from the tree itself i just couldn't ever get a really homogenous filled in good spread good carpet of ground cover so i decided to just use something that was mindlessly easy to grow and still beautiful and that is this just dwarf nana nandina i planted them densely they filled this space beautifully they look great in the wintertime they are practically fuss free they don't require a lot of water i periodically if they get a little bit lanky all i have to do is just break off a piece and they will put out new growth at the point of either pruning or breaking it i can prune it pretty much any time of year at any point along the cane including cutting it all the way back to the ground and it will come out just beautifully so in terms of a really easy care shrub as a ground cover i highly recommend using this nana nandina i also love flirt the tiny little finely finely bladed nandina from the southern living plant collection but for me when nothing else would grow this made a brilliant backdrop it's handsome in and of itself but as a as a foil upon which all of the other things that bloom in front of it can play it's exceptional so those are my five favorite ground cover solutions for my garden and you might want to try giving them a try in your own gardens by the way if you have some that are just spectacular that i didn't mention by all means place the comment below so others can read them and try to share your suggestions in their gardens

Channel: Linda Vater

Views: 363,076

Keywords: potagerblog, Linda Vader, garden life, garden designer, garden landscape design, garden design, garden media, gardening, Linda Vater, southern gardening, mondo grass ground cover, mondo grass lawn, gardening tips, gardening ideas, ground cover plants, ajuga ground cover, bugleweed ground cover, brick grond cover, flagstone ground cover, ground cover between flagstone, creeping herbs, oregano plant, oregano ground cover, nandina ground cover

Id: ABnJ9mNHuoM

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021