Perennial Ground Covers

February 19, 2015 Kathy

True Blue Perennial Ground Covers

Leslies daffs 1024x768 Perennial Ground Covers — *Leslie’s Golden Daffodils*

I went round to my friend Leslie’s house yesterday afternoon and had a look around her garden. Even now, in late winter, she has quite a bit of color in her garden – some early Irises, lots of Daffodils and a host of spent Snow Drops (Galanthus), some of which she generously dug up and gave to me because they like to be split “in the green”.

In between all these beauties the soil was covered with perennial ground covers of different types. She showed me some prostrate Veronica and a ground cover with leaves just like Rosemary called Lithodora. Her Geraniums are already blooming too. Mine are still thinking about it. The thing was, all of these perennial ground covers were blue.

And I started thinking that, while the first spring flowers seem to be bright and sassy, blue seems to be one of the the predominant colors for ground covers, sun or shade.

Veronica ground cover 1024x768 Perennial Ground Covers — *Creeping Veronica perennial ground cover*

For the sun there are Thyme, Geraniums, Rosemary, Veronicas, Lithodoras, Lupines and, of course, my old favorite, Vincas, which grow equally well in sun or shade. Felicias are fabulous perennial ground covers with blue daisy flowers with yellow centers and you can also get Creeping Phlox.

For light shade there’s creeping Ceanothus with its mat of blue flowers (which I’m still waiting to see), Ajuga, Plectranthus, Liriope and Virginia Bells. I’m sure there are many others too which will probably come to mind sooner or later.

Creeping Rosemary 1024x768 Perennial Ground Covers — *Lithodora is a new discovery of mine*

All of these perennial ground covers are easy to grow. They all need to be coddled when you first plant them but, after they settle in, they just get on with it. I think I could make a tapestry of them all, inter-woven and inter-flowering with the different hues giving the appearance of light and shadow. I think the Vinca could take over though so would probably have to leave him out of the mix.

My local nursery, Mostly Natives, gave me a list of plants which are gopher resistant and this is the link to their list: http://www.groundcoversandgardening.com/gopher resistant plants and f you want to buy plants that deer probably won’t eat, look here.

Happy gardening and don’t forget your sunscreen. There’s so much skin cancer about, you must protect your skin.