Smother nature
GROUND-hugging plants do smart work in the garden.
They suffocate weed seedlings by blocking out the sunshine so they don’t get a foothold. And they they are particularly useful for replacing lawns in hard to mow areas.
Lady’s mantle is a favourite no-mow solution, tolerating all soil types. It is happy in full sun or partial shade. An attractive herbaceous plant, it selfseeds easily and spreads itself about.
It produces clumps of light green foliage and frothy sprays of tiny greenyellow flowers throughout summer.
You can also rely on hardy geraniums to smother weeds – especially the variety Johnson’s Blue.
The plant produces dense clumps of finely divided leaves topped by violet-blue flowers up to 5cm across at their best from mid-summer.
Cut back the foliage after flowering and the plant will regrow and produce late blooms. In autumn, foliage takes on brilliant orange and red tones.
Cosy
For year-round impact, heucheras top the bill. While the tiny blooms, which give rise to its common name, coral bells, appear in June and last until the end of August, it’s the foliage that makes this plant a winner.
Purple, black, red, orange, brown, silver, chartreuse – you name it, you will find a heuchera in that colour.
Dark- leaved varieties such as Chocolate Ruffles look especially good underplanted with t he ground-hugging dead nettle, Lamium ‘Beacon Silver’ and the golden blooms of Lysimachia ‘Aurea’, creeping Jenny.
If you have a fad for foliage, you will definitely find the soft furry leaves of Stachys lanata irresistible. They make a cosy flowering rug that weeds can’t easily penetrate. Cut off the flower spikes to encourage foliage.
Another striking evergreen that gives a dense mat is the trouble-free bugle, which spreads aggressively by runners. Blooms are blue to purple, rising 15cm above foliage that can be blotched copper, purple or green.
If you need to stabilise soil on slopes, look to periwinkle and pachysandra. These fast- growing evergreens make a blanket over bare soil in full sun, shade and semi-shaded areas and in dead zones, where little else will grow.