Easy to grow and to care for, ground cover plants have many uses in the garden.
Muehlenbeckia Complexa, also known as Australian Ivy or Maidenhair Vine, is one of the most attractive ground cover plants.
Whether evergreen or deciduous, low-growing plants can add colour and texture to bare patches in your garden, act as a living mulch and help control those pesky weeds. If you are gardening on a slope, fast growing ground cover plants will prevent soil erosion and introduce visual interest. Ground cover plants are generally very low-maintenance, and they will not need any special care to thrive and spread. No mowing, pruning or seasonal fertilising- there is very little (if anything) these plants require to be content.
Depending on your personal preferences and the landscaping role you have in mind, here at Paramount Plants and Garden we can offer you a number of lovely ground cover plants. From evergreen ground cover plants to flowering creeping cultivars, you are certain to find something lovely for your own garden.
Evergreen Ground Cover Plants with Showy Foliage
If you want year-round colour, texture, and visual interest in your garden starting from the ground up, you cannot go wrong with these evergreen ground cover plants. They will blanket your garden with their vibrant foliage throughout the seasons and insulate the soil from winter to summer.
Low-growing Juniper
For slopes or unsightly bare corners of your garden, creeping Juniper varieties are an excellent choice. The slow-growing evergreens will stay close to the ground as they mature and offer spectacular texture and a pop of colour, especially in winter where there is usually not much of interest in the landscape. Choose Juniperus Horizontalis Golden Carpet or Juniperus Pfitzeriana Old Gold for vibrant, warm tones in the garden, or the striking Juniperus Squamata Blue Carpet for a dramatic contrast.
The lovely Juniper Blue Carpet is ideal for draping slopes and adding a tinge of silvery-blue to the landscape.
Spindle Harlequin
If you want a hardy evergreen cultivar with variegated foliage, Euonymus Fortunei Harlequin is a wonderful choice. Its speckled leaves will create a breathtaking carpet over a bare patch of land in no time, and the colourful fruits it produces in autumn will only enhance the charm of this relatively fast growing ground cover.
Cotoneaster
The Cotoneaster Suecicus Coral Beauty is one of the showiest evergreen ground cover plants. It flaunts lovely glossy green leaves that can take up a reddish-brown hue in the winter. It also produces gorgeous scarlet red berries that persist throughout the winter.
It is hard to decide if Cotoneaster Coral Beauty has prettier foliage or berries.
Although semi-evergreen in UK areas where winter temperatures are on the lower side, the Muehlenbeckia Complexa is one of the most popular ground cover plants. After all, it is hard not to be in awe of the striking round leaves this plant features. In southern parts of the UK, this lovely cultivar can retain its foliage even during the winter.
If you are looking for a grass ground cover that is strong enough to be walked on, Ophiopogon Japonicus Nana is the cultivar you need. This clumping, mat-forming evergreen boasts leathery arching leaves that create a dense living green carpet that requires no special maintenance to stay in perfect shape.
Flowering Low Maintenance Ground Cover Plants
While pretty foliage can certainly offer interest on its own, there is nothing that can top having a lavish tapestry of blooms enveloping your garden. Gracefully draping the slopes or cloaking the soil with thousands of tiny flowers, these low maintenance ground cover plants will transform any dull landscape into a sight to behold.
A fast growing ground cover, Vinca Major will produce a profusion of purple, star-shaped flowers, whether planted in full sun or partial shade.
Lydian Broom
Yellow flowering Genista Lydia broom
The yellow-flowering Genista Lydia is another lovely choice, especially if you want to create a bright, sunny display in the landscape. For the whole summer, this hardy perennial will adorn your garden with clusters of yellow, pea-like flowers.
Stephanandra Incisa Crispa – aka The Lace Shrub
Stephanandra Incisa Crispa is the perfect plant for covering ground quickly and has attractive lacy cream coloured flowers, the maple-like foliage is also a lovely feature, emerging bronze coloured in the Spring, turning a rich green for the summer with a firey finish of bright orange in the Autumn. It propagates via runners so will cover difficult areas very quickly, this is a tough shrub and a superb choice for shrubby covering of a difficult bank or slope as long as there is sufficient water.
Stephanandra Incisa Crispa – perfect cover for slope or bank
Creeping Blue Blossom
The soft blue blooms of Ceanothus thyrsiflorus Repens
leave no one indifferent.
Ceanothus thyrsiflorus Repens is undeniably one of the more popular flowering ground cover plants. The soft blue to lilac button-shaped blooms look stunning in any type of garden, and if the soil you plant it in is fertile and well-drained, you can count on it being a fast growing ground cover, as well.
Moss Pink
For a south-facing slope or a sunny spot in the garden that is in need for a bit of colour, pick the charming Phlox Subulata Candy Stripe. This mat-forming cultivar will impress you with its pink and white striped blossoms that will offer weeks of interest in the summer. If paired with one of the lush evergreen ground cover plants, it will create a truly spectacular display of year-round colour and texture!
Tips on Choosing Best Ground Cover Plants for Your Needs
As a rule of thumb, most of the low maintenance ground cover plants in our collection are tough and adaptable. This means that they are suitable for planting in a variety of soil types, and they tend to be tolerant of conditions other plants find harsh; such as salt sprays typical for coastal gardens, dry or poor soil, or subzero temperatures. They can be grown in shady corners of the garden or thrive on a sunny slope – yours is just to choose the variety that will complement the overall style of your garden.
Make sure to take a look at our vast selection of low-growing plants for more inspiration. In addition, if you have any questions or need advice on choosing the best ground cover plants for your garden, feel free to contact us!
