These beautiful, spreaders cane be the accent to your garden or path, or the bane of your existence. Depending on how you look at it. There are a variety of ground covers to choose from, depending on your needs. For an accent to your rock border or wall, try things like, wooly yarrow, a deer and rabbit resistant ground cover, or hens and chicks, one of my favorite ground covers for rapid spreading, easy to control growth. Bugle weed is another pretty ground cover that is deer and rabbit resistant. Rockcress is deer resistant, with small white or pink flowers, and spreads easily with runners.
One of the things you may notice in reading the last paragraph, is that a lot of mat forming ground covers are deer and rabbit resistant. Also, they have a tendency to spread rapidly, with some being easier to control than others. You can find a ground cover for any soil type, water situation or sun need. Depending on the style you are looking for, you may have a lot of choices available. For a sunny, wet garden try most species of decorative grasses, or dwarf grasses. If you don't really like the grass idea, you could try mazus reptans, purple or white spring flowers with some in the summer, it works great for wet soils, or creeping jenny, which has beautiful foliage, even if the flowers are not too exciting.
Try to avoid the chameleon plant (houttuynia), most ivy’s, or even morning glory, as they are invasive even under the driest conditions, if given water they turn into the plants that ate the garden, and maybe the lawn too! For shady, moist gardens, ferns and Oregon grapes are great, salal takes some patience but the edible berries are worth it. Forget-me-knot are also a possibility to explore, the beautiful, dainty flowers reseed themselves and do good in moist to wet soils.
There are many things to consider with ground covers, as with all plants, and research should be done before you buy something that will just die anyway.
One of the things you may notice in reading the last paragraph, is that a lot of mat forming ground covers are deer and rabbit resistant. Also, they have a tendency to spread rapidly, with some being easier to control than others. You can find a ground cover for any soil type, water situation or sun need. Depending on the style you are looking for, you may have a lot of choices available. For a sunny, wet garden try most species of decorative grasses, or dwarf grasses. If you don't really like the grass idea, you could try mazus reptans, purple or white spring flowers with some in the summer, it works great for wet soils, or creeping jenny, which has beautiful foliage, even if the flowers are not too exciting.
Try to avoid the chameleon plant (houttuynia), most ivy’s, or even morning glory, as they are invasive even under the driest conditions, if given water they turn into the plants that ate the garden, and maybe the lawn too! For shady, moist gardens, ferns and Oregon grapes are great, salal takes some patience but the edible berries are worth it. Forget-me-knot are also a possibility to explore, the beautiful, dainty flowers reseed themselves and do good in moist to wet soils.
There are many things to consider with ground covers, as with all plants, and research should be done before you buy something that will just die anyway.