Ground Covers

Golden Irish Moss is by far one of my favorite ground covers. It will grow in sun or shade, but I think it prefers light shade to blazing sun. This is the golden version of Irish Moss (Sagina) and grows on the ground, but will also 'crawl' across rocks and is wonderful between the stones on a path. It will take a little foot traffic, but I always feel guilty walking on plants. Flowers in midsummer are miniature and white.

This is Hydrocotyle 'Crystal Confetti'. It was terrible to get started, but now is happy. The Hydrocotyles are usually edge of the pond or shallow water plants and much larger than this one which has leaves much smaller than a dime. As with the rest, mulch is not a good idea since they are very shallow rooted and need to get down into the dirt. As most of these are only an inch or so off the ground and dense, they make their own mulch and will tend to cut down on weeds.

Lysimacchia numularia 'Aurea' is one of my favorites. This picture was taken in light shade. In full sun the leaves would be absolutely bright yellow. It will grow sun or shade, damp or dry and just kind of wanders around. I haven't had it smother things, though I keep it away from small plants. It seems to work well under shrubs.

Kenilworth Ivy is another one I had trouble getting started, though it is now a nice sized patch. The leaves are tee tiny as are the lavender flowers. This is in half day sun.

Saxifrages are a large family. This one is stolonifera. Leaves are veined silver and backs of the leaves are reddish. Flowers are tiny and white and held on fairly tall scapes. Shade is preferred.

Sorry about not getting up the promised cactus pictures, but I need to spend some more time sorting them out. They will appear in a day or so.

Jane