Groundcovers

Lawn grass is the dominant ground cover plant in American yards, but there are areas where it just isn’t practical. Shady areas, steep slopes, and small spaces just aren’t appropriate for a lawn. These ground cover plants offer an alternative way to cover large areas of the garden with living plants that bring beauty and function to those tricky spots where the grass just won’t grow. Groundcovers can be used for their aesthetic function too. Many of these choices offer color and texture that help to create visual interest in your garden design.

White African Iris

A bulletproof plant that adds the vertical element to mixed containers and garden beds. Long, pointed, gray-green leaves rise 2’-3’ tall from evergreen clumps. Flower spikes form in spring and summer to reveal white and purple iris-like blooms. Full sun is best.

Arborvitae Fern

This spreading fern creates a solid mat of fresh green foliage that carpets the ground in shady gardens. Mature patches are thick enough to exclude weeds. Low-maintenance, requiring just one cut back per year in the early spring to remove winter damaged fern. Grows in average or moist soil.

Foxtail Fern

Long puffs of fuzzy green foliage emerge from a central point. This plant grows well in partial sun, but looks its best in full sun. A great textural element in containers because it requires very little care and is drought tolerant. Cut back winter damage in spring if it freezes.

Blue Pacific Juniper

A low, vining evergreen that reaches only 2’ tall but spreads up to 4’-5’ wide. The steel blue foliage loves hot, full sun and grows well in poor dry soil, making a beautiful and low-maintenance groundcover. The vines will drape down the side of a pot or wall too.

Holly Fern

Hooray for a fern that doesn’t need wet feet! Holly Fern looks fantastic in average soil with partial sun or shade, no special care required. It even does well near the coast in sandy soils. The dark green, glossy leaves grow in clumps roughly 2’ tall & 3’ wide. Evergreen.

Lomandra Grasses

These evergreen grasses solve all manner of tricky garden problems. The rich green foliage does not have to be cut back, they are salt-tolerant, drought-tolerant, pest-resistant, shade-tolerant, and they stay pretty all the way through winter. What more can you ask for? Breeze is mounding, Katrinus Deluxe is upright, Platinum Beauty is variegated, and Tropic Belle has a bold texture.

Cast Iron

So tough you couldn’t break it even if you tried, just like everyone’s favorite cornbread pan! Large, upright, evergreen leaves spread slowly to form clumps or masses of dark green. The bold-textured plant thrives in partial sun to deep shade, requiring very little care, and thriving where other plants die.

Spektacular Cast Iron

A variegated form of that most durable garden gem. Spektacular offers all the same shade and drought tolerance as regular Cast Iron, but adds pretty speckled leaves to the mix. Makes a lovely border, mass planting, or container plant.

Muhly Grass

One of the most popular native grasses in our region. The wispy, evergreen foliage sends up clouds of ethereal, pinkish purple blooms in the late summer and fall. These plants love hot, full sun. You’ve probably noticed them along highways in the fall.

Aztec Grass

This white variegated border grass will brighten up a shady spot in your garden. The evergreen clumps of white and green foliage grow roughly 1½’ tall & wide. While they tolerate full sun, they tend to look their best in partial sun to bright shade with rich soil.

Giant Liriope

Border grass is one of the strongest, easiest, and most useful garden plants around. You can plant them in mass to create a pool of green, plant them in a line to border a path, or pack them in tight on a slope to stop erosion. We carry both ‘Emerald Goddess’ and ‘Super Blue’, both grow roughly 1 ½’-2’ tall & wide, they form non-spreading clumps, and produce purple flowers in the summer.

Golden Pacific Juniper

This low, spreading evergreen brings bright, lime green color to your landscape all year. Just 2’ tall & 4’-5’ wide, this creeping juniper thrives in full sun with well-drained soil. Fun as a ground cover or as a cascading element in a container.

Coontie

A strong native plant that produces arching, evergreen fronds. The dark green mounds look like little palms that grow in bright shade to full sun. A lovely textural plant for borders or mass plantings.

Dwarf Mondo Grass

Fine-textured, evergreen foliage grows just 2”-3” tall. This very slowly spreading grass should be planted thickly as it takes so long to spread. Dwarf Mondo looks so cool planted between and around a path of stepping stones. Only plant in shady spots.

Mondo Grass

Fine-textured, dark green foliage creeps along the ground to form mats of the prettiest grass you’ll ever see. A full patch of Mondo Grass reminds me of a pool of water, the evergreen waves overlapping each other. Plant Mondo in shade or partial sun (no afternoon sun), takes up to 3 years to fully fill in, so plant it as thick as you can to begin with. Grows 8”-10” tall.

Blue Agapanthus

You can’t miss these large globes of rich blue flowers that rise 3’-4’ in the air above thick, strappy, bright green 2’ tall clumps of slowly spreading foliage. Plants prefer super full sun and well-drained soil. The summer flowers form best when the roots are constricted, so plant them thickly and don’t separate your patch even when it grows full.