Ground Covers That Perform in My Garden

hello everyone i thought i'd do a video on some of my ground covers i know i'm always looking for great ones that will work um so i thought i would show you some of mine and how they're doing for me here i have two ground covers that are working out great um this is in front of my bunny's barn and um i needed something for the stone path to go between the path and also just to dress it up a bit it needs a little paint job but i just haven't gotten to that yet but this is this has really been successful here it looks gorgeous and you can see i've um i've planted beside it some impatiens and some begonias i think they're double play begonias not sure i think double play pink baby so in front on the sides i have a creeping thyme so that is an herb you can actually eat it and that is working out really great i have a growing up in an old tree and on the ground it there's nowhere that it doesn't seem to do well and then this blooming is blue star creeper and that actually filled in in a month's time it it goes even between the smallest crevices now you can see um well yeah a little bit has gotten out onto the onto the lawn so this is kind of the stuff i wanted to show you by their nature ground covers are all potentially invasive um and the clue is they're called ground covers so it's meant that's what they do they cover the ground so always remember that i see people putting that this or that is too invasive um i think if you're gonna remark on one being invasive please put your zone and your you know where you're at your region because it's very helpful to know what what works in what areas so i'm imagining that this this i mean you can see it has really a dense matting habit and then sometimes it grows a little higher it has a beautiful bluish white flower on it and it just fills in great and doesn't really go over the rocks too aggressively that it's not easy to maintain so this has been here um about a year and like i said it is coming over the rocks so you will have to take a spade if you don't want it in your recognize this one this is creeping jenny um and she is definitely a love-hate relationship she likes moist soil uh so and i don't think uh creeping jenny is very tolerant of dry conditions um i love that the glowing yellow color and the more light the creeping jenny gets the more yellow but even under this this maple tree which shades it most of the day it's still a really beautiful yellow to chartreuse green color this is the one i'm probably in my yard the most worried about um because she does seem very happy here so what i usually do to control is i set some rocks like i'll do a line of rocks and you'll see under under here i have a line of rocks and that is that is where she's not allowed to go beyond so this is her section and she's allowed spread around i just don't know very much about how she gets along with other plants that's my main thing with um with ground covers i like to know how do they intermix with other plants do they strangle them do they grow on top of them it does appear the creeping jenny is fine around most most plants um and doesn't take them over that she kind of makes such a mat to the ground that um it seems like the other plants aren't cut off by another one obviously most people will recognize and this is english ivy very aggressive this is one of those the first year it sleeps the second year creeps and the third year it leaps so you have to really understand where you can put it where not to put it and the final result of what you're gonna get now what we do with the english ivy is we no longer put it in beds this is kind of a perfect situation for for english ivy if you want it as an accent it's one stone it's easy to cut back i just will grab this as it gets too long and it starts to leave its parameters and i'll just cut it throw it in the compost bin and then also english iv is fine on trees as long as you don't allow it to get into the canopy where it can kind of choke off the tree so what we do is we get up on a ladder and we cut it and i will show you um what it looks like after you cut it we've cut it off our front tree completely because it was taking over our creeping flocks this is what it will look like after you cut it off a year later and then eventually that's just going to shrivel away the the tree is just going to push it out so this is our big oak in the front well it's big for new jersey new jersey does a lot of big trees our sandy soil does not promote really big tree growth so anyway this brings us to another ground cover and this is creeping flocks or moss flocks excuse the traffic um yes so moss flocks this um i know a lot of people um don't there's mixed feelings about it because it um it it blooms for a period of time in the spring and then it just sits and it's green but i love it it's awesome for erosion control it's low maintenance it really requires nothing of me except maybe twice a year i have to get in there and the grass seeds will get in there and you'll just see little spiky grass seeds poking up through but most i don't there's no other weed that seems to grow with it irish and and um i don't want to say spanish moss but it's irish and scotch moss this is scotch moss back here i believe scotch is the lighter version they're the same it's just denotes the color irish is really dark green and scotch moss is the lighter chartreusey green as you can see this is part of what the problem is with the clovers and the things getting and you see there's a lot of weed in it you i have seen people this is one of my favorite ground covers if it's constantly tended this is a high maintenance ground cover i i just can't keep up with it you have to get in there constantly because it does not grow dense enough to suppress weeds so everything grows amongst it so if you're tolerant of that it is a beautiful ground cover if you have an area that you want ground cover in that blooms um and has a great foliage texture then you can't really beat lamian dead nettle this gets beautiful purple flowers i think this might be purple dragon um it is a thug and if it's happy it's very happy so i which i was aware of when i put it in i also do find it's not that hard to pull out so um most of it is is throwing out runners like like a strawberry so you just cut it or yank it how it's not it's not hard there's another herb like creeping time that makes a wonderful ground cover and that is golden or yellow oregano like all oreganos i believe they are part of the mint family and it will spread but there are all types there's green types there's that you can put in but the golden is i think a really good replacement for creeping jenny if um you don't like the look of creeping jenny but you like the color of creepy jenny but warning it's a thug it will spread everywhere alpine violet with its green and burgundy leaves and purple purple flowers in the spring is a really nice choice i've had it in my garden for probably about 15 years and have never had any problems with it i lifted this up and put it in a pot but i'll show you it in the landscape and in this space for about 15 years this was the original plant and it's growing amongst my clematis vine which is growing on a gate and under a hearty hibiscus and next to arboreta sedums they make amazing ground covers the one thing though i will tell you about sedums is you have to prepare to control them because of their nature and their ability to go anywhere meaning you can pluck that off stick it in the ground it will grow anywhere you don't need to pot it you don't need to harden it off you just stick it in the ground it will grow contrary to what everybody says about sedums and succulents i find they grow best if you give them a lot of water so i'm not exactly sure why here i don't know if it's because we have sandy soil but these get ordered every single day by the sprinklers overhead watering and you can see they are extremely happy um you can't step on it but the thing is is if you do step on it and damage it those pieces just regrow so it you know i guess you could really put it in obviously it's in this path this path gets used and it doesn't seem to mind at all it will get tall at times um and particularly if it's going to bloom but you either pinch it back or just take shears the big blopper shears and just take it down as low as you want it to grow and it doesn't harm it at all you can grab it if you don't want it to bloom and it's pretty simple and then keep it as tidy and as tight to the ground as you would like it so if you have a problem area sedums are excellent excellent choices just remember take the pieces and put them in the bin where they cannot grow because they will get everywhere but it's it's the great thing about ground covers and it's the bad thing about ground covers so it's because they are so hardy and wonders of nature that they can become invasive and it's also really good to look on you know look up what is invasive in your state in your county and find out before you put something in you might recognize this this is paccasandra it's evergreen grows probably about 10 to 12 inches tall so it's not great for walkable areas it's an awesome woodland garden plant and i would say that for as aggressive as this plant is it's really easy to control with a weed whacker or any kind of edger um it it you can just take that weed whacker right along wherever you don't want it and knock it back and it kind of just just sits there this is bell flower birch hybrid bell flower and it's going out of bloom but it gets these really dainty pretty purple flowers on it it's habit this was one can is you put it in and you can see it splats out so it quickly spreads so you can see that this is what actually look like when it stands up but that's kind of how it spreads belfast it just kind of kind of lays down and looks like it might be dying or lacking water but that's actually how i find it spreads here's another sedum um it's commonly used um to replace uh proven winners uh lemon coral sedum this is angelina and it does better in the colder climates looks very similar um it is slow to come back so most of the time when i have this in my beds it ends i end up digging it up because it takes so long to come back that it it you know i don't even know it's there because it goes positively completely dormant so you don't see it but that does make a nice ground cover and it will it will spread about as you see in here and that's one of the plants we have in our butterfly bath area this is this is lemon coral sedum and this is not hardy in our area i've occasionally gotten it to come back i'm in 6b zone 6b but for the most part it dies off and it is annual here so that angelina is a good substitute ajuga this is a ground cover people either love or hate i absolutely love it um it's just going out a flower now but once it's out of flower it it revives back from the energy of producing flowers it gets beautiful burgundy flat leaves it travels on runners like strawberry plants so it's easy either to pinch back cut you can mow over it and mow it i've we whacked it you'll see in my bowl video i just we whacked right over it it comes right back um i don't have a problem it's easy to pull it's easy to lift to it it plants anywhere like a strawberry plant you just pick it up put it anywhere it grows just like sedums it stays flat it does not interfere with other plants um you know choking them out it doesn't do any of that it will get in your grass um so you will have to lift it if you if it jumps um so there have been a couple incidences where it's gotten in the grass that i've had to lift it yeah so feel free to share your thoughts on what ground covers work for you i think it's very helpful if you have a lot of rockery and pathways like i do or just don't want to have to mulch every year ground covers make a wonderful mulch it is naturally how a plant grows out in the wild with with understory plants so it helps keep the soil moist so if you can find ground covers that work together with your plants and that can take trial and error what works in my garden might not work in your garden so make sure you you know you you test them out in small areas and see and if it starts to spread more than you'd like take it out immediately don't let it languish there and become a problem i've been very successful ground covers because i stay on top of them and particularly when i first plant them until i know their behavior in my garden so i hope this was helpful um i i hate i mean that's the one thing the money that i spend on mulch each year it gets very expensive so these ground covers help me to not have to mulch quite as much so it it's really a win-win thanks for watching and i hope to see you in the next video so so bye

Channel: PlantTastic Cooking & Gardening

Views: 31,211

Keywords: gardening, ground covers, groundcovers, invasive ground covers

Id: PLJ9wTXeE5w

Length: 20min 9sec (1209 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021