These Plants Have Your Back!
Wild stonecrop groundcover. https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/woodland/photos/wild_stonecrop3.jpg
Year after year, you seed a space or lay down sod. You’ve tried this type of turfgrass and the next one.
You’ve attempted every trick in the book to get the grass to grow in a certain spot of your garden and yet…it doesn’t. Don’t despair! You don’t have to succumb to patchy grass or allow plants you don’t want to take over a space. Groundcovers have you covered.
Groundcovers are perennials that are typically short (less than a foot, although some may be taller) that spread to form a carpet of “living mulch” in the landscape. They may be deciduous or evergreen and many showcase flowers during the growing season. Groundcovers provide numerous benefits: they slow weed growth, prevent soil erosion, provide habitat for overwintering insects and are low-maintenance once established (no mowing, edging or fertilizer applications needed).
These plants come in a variety of textures from waxy to feathery and, depending on the groundcover selected, can grow in shady or sunny locations and in different moisture conditions. Native groundcovers that succeed in shady spaces include woodland phlox, wild stonecrop, dwarf-crested iris, wild ginger, alumroot and a variety of sedges. For the gardener who wants the “grass effect” underneath trees or in other shady spots, sedges should be your “go to.” Among the native groundcovers that enjoy sunny locations, native strawberries, common cinquefoil, early buttercup, fragrant sumac, Jacob’s Ladder and Virginia creeper are just a few of the many that do.
So don’t give up on the tough spots in your garden. Take a note from Nature (where nonnative grass is not found growing underneath trees) and put some plants in the ground that have you covered!
Resources
Choose Natives. No date. “Plant Native Groundcovers and Make America Green Again.” https://choosenatives.org/articles/plant-native-ground-covers-make-america-green/.
Prairie Nursery. No date. “Groundcover Plants.”
https://www.prairienursery.com/plants-seeds/native-plants/groundcover-plants.html?p=2.
Prairie Nursery. No date. “Native Sedges.” https://www.prairienursery.com/plants-seeds/native-plants/native-sedges.html.
University of Illinois Extension. 2008. “From the Ground Up: Groundcovers To Know and Use.” https://web.extension.illinois.edu/groundcovers/index.cfm.