Try These Great Ground Covers!

One of the many problems for a new garden is the glaring space between young plants. 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. So instead of looking at mulch for the next three years, get pro-active and plant some ground cover! Use it all over your garden. Use ground cover to help fill in between plants, fountains and garden decor, or around stepping stones.
Before you start planting just anything you need to choose your ground cover based on the light, water, and traffic conditions in your garden. These are some great ground cover suggestions to fit just about any northern garden need.
A full sun garden will benefit from some sedum. It comes in many different foliage and flower colors ranging from yellow and white and bright green to pink and burgundy. Sedum is a good choice for a sunny slope with poor soil conditions. 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! Sedum is not a good choice if it is going to get stepped on.
Thyme, the popular kitchen herb, is another excellent ground cover plant for a sunny garden. Thyme is great for an area that gets some foot traffic because it smells good when you step on it. Give your landcape a cozy feeling with thyme-which comes in many colors and smells…to name a few.
Pachysandra is an excellent ground cover choice for a shady garden. Pachysandr is a good choice for an area that gets very little sun or an area that gets some dappled sun. Pachysandra is nice because it will hide the ugly browning leaves of spring bulbs which you are not supposed to remove. Pachysandra always looks good and is easy to maintain.And it is less invasive than it’s popular nemesis called vinca: vinca is a garden no no because of its rampant invasiveness into woodland areas-so when in doubt choose pachysandra.
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 recycled glass bird feeder to hide the cast off seeds. There are even some evergreen varieties for more mild climates.
No matter what the conditions in your garden, the right ground cover will enhance the look of your garden. They cover up all the ugly areas in your landscape and also improve the vigor 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!