Choose the best plants for your garden design and climate. Watch the video tutorial. Think through landscape design considerations. Explore ground cover options such as flowering, evergreen, drought resistant, erosion control and more. And learn how to plant from seed, seedling or pots successfully and sustainably.
View full blog post at: https://readyandthriving.com/gardening/flower-gardening/ground-cover-design-choose-and-plant-the-best/
Ground Cover: Design, Choose and Plant the Best
A ground cover, whether plant, mulch or stone, sets the foundation for a garden design. It is often the floorboards on which our feature plants and trees can take center stage. It also has important practical benefits, such as retaining moisture in the soil, keeping unwanted weeds at bay, and even helping to stop or slow erosion.
A well thought through ground cover can make a feature of difficult slopes, bring color into a heavily shaded area, and make a standard garden spectacular.
Best Ground Cover Plants for You
With all the choices out there, what are the best ground cover plants for you? Consider these three areas:
What are your garden focal points? And what role will the ground cover play?
In what function and climate must the ground cover thrive?
With full creativity in mind, what specific ground cover should I choose?
And then, once the design and ground cover is chosen, implementing for long-term sustainability is key to its ongoing beauty and health year after year. What tips should you know if you want to plant from seed? From seedlings or plugs? Or from bedding or sod?
1. Landscape Design Focal Points and Role of Ground Cover
Critical to great landscape garden design is having key focal points. This can change throughout the seasons, so it is important to think about the garden and how it changes throughout the year.
Ask yourself, what will the role of the ground cover be? Will it be a neutral backdrop to dramatic focal points? Will it draw the eye to your focal point? Or perhaps will it be a focal point all or part of the year?
Your answer to those questions, will determine the type and features of your ground cover. A neutral backdrop may lend it self to a mulch or lawn. A feature lends itself to a flowering ground cover or even thinking creatively about how to cover a large area, such as using a mass of flowers.
Another key consideration is the height of your focal point and other plantings. You may require very low lying ground cover to ensure small flowers or plants can be seen. Or alternatively, a flat planting bed may need plants with some height to be able to be seen and appreciated from viewpoints around it.
2. Best Ground Cover for Function and Climate
3. Explore Ground Cover Options and Choose
Growing Ground Cover Successfully
Most cultivated ground cover is designed to spread and fill an area. This is a great benefit for your garden. It does, however, mean that you need to plant it to allow it to have the space to spread and thrive.
With the exception of grasses and lawn, most ground cover is best planted with a good amount of spacing between seeds, seedlings or plugs. You will be rewarded with healthy plants that fill in and thrive year after year. Be patient the first year with small patches that are yet to fill in.
Grasses and lawn are the exception. They like to be densely seeded and grown close together. The lawn will be dense and healthy if planted this way. It also can help to blot out weeds when planted densely.
For all living ground covers, you can choose to plant from seed, seedlings / plugs, or mats / sod.
Growing Ground Cover from Seed
Seeds are normally the most cost effective, but generally require patience and attention to ensure success.
Growing ground cover often means spreading seeds evenly across a wide area. This can be tricky.
To plant a lot of seeds very densely, it can be good to use a lawn seeding tool. It helps to spread the right amount of seeds for a dense and healthy lawn.
For other ground covers, I recommend combining your seed with dry soil, sand or fertilizer. This will extend the seeds across a larger volume, helping you to spread it more evenly. Below is a one minute video tutorial on how I did this for my mother of thyme ground cover, which worked beautifully.
Planting Ground Cover from Seedlings or Plugs
Seedlings or plugs work exceptionally well for creeping, vine or other spreading ground cover, as they provide strong healthy plants from which to radiate from.
Choosing Sod or Full Mat Ground Cover
Sod for lawn grass and seed mats for other ground cover can be an easy way to cover an area densely the first year, usually at higher cost but with quickest impact.
What’s Next?
Complete Landscape Garden Design can be broken down into 3 steps. Follow these and develop healthy, beautiful, sustainable gardens. Find the 3 steps and follow them through fruition in a bulb garden design under a tree.
1 Comment
Great presentation. I love the sustainability.