HELP !!!!!what about ground cover plants- does it work?
granma
Posts: 1,929
I read in a gardening paper that planting ground cover plants will supress weeds , Since I have a bigger than average garden and getting on in years I am all for ANYTHING that keeps weeds to a minimum. I have borders and flowerbeds at least 2 meters wide around most of the garden which I do not want to do away with as some non- gardening friends have suggested .
I also plan to add more shrubs to the borders putting them closer together than advised - to keep weeds from seeing daylight thus dying off .
I also wondered ......if I plant ground cover plants ?- the idea to fill and carpet any spaces which are left that look attractive with plants .
I have also tried the covering material but with a half established garden it was more trouble than it was worth.What do you think ?
I would welcome your views/ experiences
Posts
You could try ajuga, available in a number of leaf colours. This forms a dense mat that nothing can get through but, like all ground-cover plants, it will crawl over low plants, too, so you have to keep an eye on it. It is no problem with shrubs, though, and easy to remove.
Whatever you do, don't be tempted to use ivy, as that will kill everything in its path, including shrubs, as many commercial plantings will testify.
Thanks Alina W, This sounds just the sort of thing , I will try the ajuga and if this works with not letting anything grow through it then maybe their are other plants that I can go for so I get a good mix I shall scour the gardening pages.
Ground cover certainly works.
I thnk that plants would work for you depend on your soil, and other factors. You need to ask yourself what plant really grows vigourously on your soil.
I'm on a clay soil, and the more vigourous varieties of hardy geraniums form a very effective cover. It is impossible for any other plant to seed itself among them. They also make an impressive show when in flower, and they flower for a long period. The single little pink flower is the first bloom just about to flower...
Hardy geraniums need to be watched, because they self-seed readily, and if one is not careful, they will take over the entire garden. But it's easy to keep them in check.
I believe that some people use Alchemilla mollis as a ground cover. That doesn't work as well for me because it's not sufficiently vigourous on my soil.
Thank you Gary, my soil is sandy and peaty we live on the edge of the moors . Azaleas and the like grow well on my soil so think this makes it acidic ?
Sorry, but ground cover does not suppress weeds. If it did then there would be no weeds in our lawns. We have plenty of places where desirable plants cover the ground, but the weeds still come up and because there are lots of leaves and plant stems and flower, they are even harder to pull out. And don't be fooled into using low growing shrubs, they are even worse as weed suppressers. We have an area with Cotoneaster Coral Carpet or some such name. It is a nightmare getting the weeds out from among the branches.
Ground cover might work in a Urban setting where every surrounding garden is reasonably weed free, but definitely not in a rural setting where weed seeds can arrive from all directions.
Please don'y ask me for a solution, I have not found it yet, will let you know when I do
I agree about ivy, it's a bit of a thug. Vinca (periwinkle) will cover the ground but it will also cover just about everything else, so it's another one to be cautious about. Pulmonaria is pretty and spreads quite easily. Campanulas and aubretias might work. I never had much luck with ajuga but it's worth a try.
You're right about shrubs, many of them are very easy to manage and soon fill up the space, leaving little room for weeds. Evergreens such as photinia, euphorbias and hebes need little attention and give you colour all year round. You could also consider a creeping, spreading juniper towards the front of the bed.
Lamiums are good for groundcover, particularly around shrubs, they spread easily and you can get some with silvery leaves and pretty flowers
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I always stuff my flowerbeds full to bursting and don't have a weed problem, apart from one bed where a buttercup ran from the edge of the lawn into a bed with a hardy geranium in it. The leaves looked very geraniumish so I didn't spot it until it had got established. There are generally no bare patches of earth for weed seeds to grow in. My lawn is a different matter because the grass stops growing in summer when it dries out and then seeds can get in.
Sometimes ground cover plants can become a problem in themselves. I have a well behaved low growing campanula when does its job perfectly. My father has got a rampant campanula which shoots out all over the place and tries to smother the roses.
Here's a snap of my hardy geraniums, taken last Summer. This is a border alongside a lawn. I never have to do any weeding in it. The plant is so vigourous that it encroaches on the lawn, and will easily smother the grass. I keep it in bounds by strimming it...
I have some other varieties of hardy geranium that are not as vigourous, and not as successful.
Kate mentions campanula. I have some campanula, and for me, this is a long way from effective ground cover. That's partly due to my soil, campanula is not rampant im my garden. I find that campanula can become infested with grass, and grass is very hard to remove from it.
Dove mentions lamium. Many people consider lamium to be an invasive weed. It's a pretty weed. I can believe that lamium might be very successful.
Alina mentioned ajuga. I don't actually have any of that. But I can believe that could be very successful too.
Alchemilla is worth a try too.
There's a very close boundary between 'invasive weed' and effective ground cover.
You could try a few plants of each, and see which one romps away. One of them would come to dominate the others, depending on your soil and conditions.
Well all I can say is, you are luckier than us. I have just spent an hour of more weeding a patch of Geranium macrorhizum (?Rose root I think) of about 6 feet by 2 feet and it definitely covered the ground. I only managed to remove a 2 gallon ucket of weeds from within it. Dandelions, goosegrass, groundsel, poppers, an annual grass and ragged robin, plus the usual for this garden Ash tree seedlings. tp name but a few.