New landscapes can face a number of planting problems. A new garden can be a little sparse sometimes as you wait for the young plants to mature-which can take about three years when you live in a northern climate. Plant some ground cover! You can never have too much ground cover. Use ground cover to help fill in between plants, fountains and garden decor, or around stepping stones.
Choose your ground cover carefully by considering the water, shade/light, and foot traffic in your landscape. The following are some excellent ground cover suggestions that should reconcile most garden needs.
Sunny and hot gardens will find that sedum thrives and beautifies. Sedum comes in many different colors. Sedum will thrive in hot sun and poor soil. It is often used on a lot of those new fangled green roof tops to give you an idea of what kind of environment it likes. Hot, hot and hot! It is not a good choice around a path, though, as it can not take being disturbed at great length.
Thyme, the popular kitchen herb, is another great ground cover plant for a sunny landscape. It is great for an area that gets a lot of foot traffic, such as a path, because of it's aromatic qualities. Your landscape will have an English Cottage feeling with this kitchen herb that comes in many different varieties to suit your needs...to name a few.
If you have a shade garden you really should consider some pachysandra. Pachysandra is a good deep shade ground cover that can handle some partial sun. Pachysandra is a good choice under a walnut tree which can be difficult to plant under. Pachysandra always looks good and is easy to maintain.It is always better to have an easy to control ground cover than an invasive ground cover, like vinca for example which has been implicated in destroying woodland areas.
The shaded woodland garden will be improved by using some wild ginger. It has handsome dark green circular leaves and forms a dense matte with little ground hugging flowers that are popular with toads and woodland critters. Plant it around the base of a bird feeder to hide the cast off seeds. Supposedly there are some evergreen varieties.
No matter what the conditions in your garden, the right ground cover can enhance the look of your garden. They cover up all the unattractive areas in your landscape and also improve the health of existing plants by shading their roots. Use ground cover to pull all the elements of your garden together. Put some recycled glass gazing globes in a patch of ground cover for an easy garden decoration idea and just enjoy!

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