by Janette Peel

Created on: May 21, 2009

Plant a carpet of colorful ground-hugging plants as a low-maintenance alternative to cover hillsides, brighten shady areas and replace areas of your lawn with easy-care decorative plants.

A groundcover is any plant that is planted in significant numbers over an area with the intention of covering bare soil.

While almost any low-growing plant can be used this way, certain ones are particularly useful for this purpose because of their ability to spread rapidly and knit together into attractive mats of interesting texture and color.

There are many low-maintenance, colorful alternatives to lawn grass that are adaptable to difficult conditions in your yard.

Groundcovers are usually low-growing plants. Many grow as individual clumps that become wider as they mature. Some are creeping plants that spread by way or runners under the soil. Perennial creeping plants are particularly useful in holding the soil against erosion.

Groundcovers that have colorful flowers either all or part of the growing season are decorative without requiring you to manage a flower garden. Colorful flowers host beneficial insects, which contribute to the well-being of all your outdoor plants.

Plant blooming groundcovers to reduce the size of your lawn. Use them in problem areas in the yard to mask surface tree roots, replace lawn on difficult-to-mow slopes or ditches, or suppress weeks in undeveloped areas.

Groundcovers can also cover unsightly drainage pipes, downpipes, rotting stumps and other eyesores in the garden.

Take advantage of the many colors that blooming groundcover plants offer. Choose colors to coordinate with the outside of your house. Colors that match or make a pleasing contrast with your house trims, mailbox, or fence, unify the whole garden.

There are groundcover plants suitable for almost all site conditions. Some thrive in sun and in dry, poor soil, as on exposed hillsides.

Others prefer partial shade and moist, acidic soil, where they will add a bright spot of color to the green landscape. Adding diversity, liveliness and, in many cases, fragrance to areas of your yard, groundcovers need little fertilizer or extra water.

To plant your blooming groundcover you will need:

Groundcover plants in containers

Organic matter

Rake

Trowel

Watering can

When you are planting groundcovers on slope, stagger the rows of plants to retard water run-off. Set each plant into soil vertically, as if the ground were level.

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