Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Weeds away! Using ground covers
Weeds a problem? Likely.. They are in my landscape.
But ground covers come to the rescue!
Ground covers can also enhance soil health, provide food and habitat for pollinators and other beneficial insects, and reduce soil erosion.
The University of Minnesota Extension has a great article “Ground Covers for Gardens”. There’s a list of ground covers in the article.
As many of you know, I have a new rain garden, however, there’s already been some erosion due to heavy rains we had earlier and the way it was planted.
I’ve decided to plant ground covers along the edge where the sidewalk meets the garden. I haven’t chosen what yet but I’m leaning toward sedum or creeping thyme.
Plants grown as ground covers can be ornamental or edible, herbaceous or woody, and perennial, biennial or annual plants. Of course mulch is a groundcover as well, but doesn’t work for what I want. So, that’s what you need to decide, what do you want out of your ground cover? For the area behind my garage, it’s mulch all the way. No one sees it but it’s where I place my larger garden tools.
I also wanted to protect my crabapple from the lawn mower and decided on planting Pennsylvania sedge, a native low grow grass that is beautiful and never needs mowing! It’s already taking over where the weeds were! This is it’s 2nd full year. (photo above)
There are a LOT of options. I’m also considering creeping thyme for the rain garden, there’s low grow sedum or ajuga or creeping cotoneaster. And the list goes on…
Check out this video of some more groundcovers: