THE PERFECT COVER-UP
Get your autumn planting right and you’ll be richly rewarded
Admiring a fine garden is easy. gorgeous flowers, emerald lawns and bountiful crops are all lovely. But it takes hard labour to achieve and sustain such excellence. if time is plentiful and you love horticulture, that’s fine. But if you’re hectic with other things and want an effortless garden, go for ground cover. it’s a simple planting system, which demands little but delivers much.
With ground-cover, plants do most of the work. Once established, they merge to create beautiful weed-proof carpets, often with flowers and always with foliage.
maintenance is minimal and with shrewdly- chosen plants, the effects can be magnificent.
ground- cover plants are permanent. But you can enjoy seasonal changes, create beautiful colour schemes and even gather flowers for the house.
For year-round interest, you’ll need distinctive seasonal features. Besides summer, include plants for autumn, spring and winter. Wild cyclamen, especially
C. coum and C. hederifolium carpet beautifully.
SPOILT FOR CHOICE
YOu’d be surprised at how many plants make great ground- cover. The best are fully or partially evergreen, noninvasive, but with a gently spreading habit.
Perennials and shrubs are best but you can also include selfseeding annuals such as poppies or honesty. These act as floral leavening agents, bringing dashes of seasonal colour.
For dense cover, prostrate conifers such as Juniperus
procumbens or J. Bar Harbor are excellent. Heathers make wonderful companions to low conifers but choose with care. Winter-flowering varieties such as Erica darley dale or darkleaved E. Kramer’s rote grow anywhere. Summer heathers such as Calluna or Erica vagans need acid soil. You can buy heathers from specialists such as galloway Heathers galloway
heathers.com. Other plants are available from most suppliers and garden centres.
Herbaceous groundcover includes big-leaved, evergreen bergenias, cranesbills such as Geranium macrorrhizum, carpet- forming Persicaria affinis and hundreds more. For shade, lily- of-the-valley, pulmonarias and epimediums team readily with ferns such as Polypodium vulgare or Polystichum setiferum. Be cautious about invasive plants such as periwinkles, comfrey or the yellow deadnettle, Lamiastrum galeobdolon. Try a few at a time, then bulk up those meeting your needs.
PREPPING WORK
BEFOrE planting groundcover, your soil must be weed-free. remove all perennial weeds — especially bindweed, creeping thistle, nettles or ground elder.
ground-cover plants are quick and easily multiply, so buy a few of each and propagate from those. Once the area is reliably weed-free, cultivate the ground and add compost.
On light soils and in dry weather, you can plant up at any time. With heavier wet ground, overwinter your plants in their containers until march.
Arrange your plants evenly across the ground before you put them in. You can underplant ground-cover with bulbs for a jolly spring flourish.
Over time, you may need to make small changes or replace casualties. But by next autumn, the results should be impressive and, thereafter, your groundcover will give years of value.