IAM THINKING OF SIMPLIFYING SOME OF MY BIGGEST GARDEN BEDS this year—spots where the shrubs have grown in and are just crying out for a simple groundcover or two at their feet. In a slideshow, then, some of the tried-and-true choices I’ve got plenty of here to choose from come spring (including Geranium macrorrhizum, above). Divide and conquer, right?
Hover your cursor on the right side of the big photo to reveal the navigational arrows (or if you prefer, double-click the big image and the show will display on your darkened screen). When you’re done looking at photos, don’t forget to go read the full profiles of any that interest you, at the links below the photo gallery. Enjoy. And remember: Order multiples!
One of the first plants that I learned to rely on to cover swaths of ground beneath shrubs, unifying the look of things while thwarting weeds and making garden maintenance easier, was the big-root Geranium, Geranium macrorrhizum.
All I do to G. macrorrhizum is cut it back once a year, just as it goes out of bloom. An ugly moment, but after a few weeks of rebound I get compact, fresh-looking foliage the rest of the year. Performs in shade to half sun here; evergreen (though beaten down here by snow).
Another sturdy groundcover, and more persistently evergreen here: the barrenworts, or Epimedium. Tiny, orchid-like early flowers appear before a new crop of foliage emerges…
…and even though last year’s Epimedium foliage may still be intact by then (as this was), I cut it down to the ground before the flower stems start to poke through. Epimediums grow in shade to part shade, and even dry shade — the toughest of conditions.
The same treatment — end-of-winter removal of the old (though evergreen) foliage — is applied to my many hybrids of Helleborus orientalis, like this chance bicolored seedling.
So that I can appreciate the many flowers per clump as they emerge in March here into April…
…I remove last year’s foliage, right to the ground, being careful to try to time my haircut to before the flower buds start pushing.
You can see them starting to show in this old clump in March; the leaves are lying flat on the ground after a snowy winter.
Once the leaves are removed and a few sunny days occur, the buds start to color up and stretch…
…and then bloom for weeks in early spring. I grow hellebores in the shade of old apples trees and elsewhere in low-light conditions.
The hellebores make great companions for early spring ephemerals like trilliums, Hylomecon japonicum (gold flowers) and minor bulbs.
Trachystemon orientalis is not evergreen, but it is tough as can be (maybe to a fault, as it spreads enthusiastically). In early spring delightful blue flowers signal its wakeup, and then…
…its foliage, which gets very large, begins to push up and expand, covering great masses of shady ground, including in dry conditions. This one would be great along a roadside bed, or under a hedge and so forth. Don’t mix it with more timid things; it will swamp them.
I have loved the red lungwort, Pulmonaria rubra, since first sight, despite its plain green leaves (many other Pulmonarias are beloved for their splashed and spotted foliage). But red flowers in late March through April? I’ll take it.
Pulmonaria rubra forms loose mats in the shade; I cut it back after bloom to renew the planting a bit.
The many species and varieties of low-growing sedums, or stonecrops, make easy, textural groundcover as well, and I often mix them into mosaics of multiple varieties. This is Sedum spurium (right) and finer-textured Sedum kamschaticum.
And look at the colorplays, like that of S. cauticolum ‘Lidakense’ (blue) and the rose-colored blooms of S. spurium ‘Fuldaglut.’ Yum.
Otherwordly blue Sedum cauticolum ‘Lidakense’ is a favorite.
So is golden Sedum Angelina (which can color up to orangey tones in cold or certain light.
I love ‘Angelina’ as a “groundcover” in my big pots, not just in the real ground.
I use almost-too-enthusiastic golden moneywort, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea,’ at the edges of other groundcover plantings, or peeking out from under trees like this gold Chamaecyparis, to catch the eye.
There are many choices of groundcover in the world of ferns — some that are evergreen, or deciduous, ones for shadier and sunnier spots, damp or dry. My two flashy favorites are the autumn fern, Dryopteris erythrosora, top, and the Japanese painted fern, Athyrium niponicum ‘Pictum.’
Low-growing grasses are another possibility, and I am hooked on shade-tolerant Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold,’ the yellow one here with shiny European ginger (a great nearly evergreen groundcover) and painted fern and Hosta ‘June.’
The Hakonechloa is good for me from May to December…going through a great fall phase…
…and even standing up to the first few snows.
For a perennial groundcover of a taller stature (2+ feet high), I love the Rodgersias, including R. podophylla.
Rodgersia podophylla is supposed to grow in damp spots, but mine has been thriving for about 20 years (with many divisions taken from it) in a tough dry place. Go figure.
When I first started growing this stunning shade plant, which makes a dramatic 3-foot-tall stand with leaves almost that wide, it was called Rodgersia tabularis. Now it’s Astilboides tabularis.
A detail of the leaf of Astilboides tabularis. Both the Rodgersia and its close cousin Astilboides have Astilbe-like creamy-colored summer flowers.
Of course, low-growing conifers are another possibility, and more than the ubiquitous junipers I like Microbiota decussata, on the hillside beyond the statue.
A detail of its fine-textured foliage…
…which colors up to bronze in the cold weather. Grow it in part shade.
