Ground covers hide your yard's flaws

The flaws in your landscaping are probably brutally clear to you each spring. The snow finally stops covering the places where your lawn is thin and miserable, for instance, and you have to face the fact that you don't have a lawn worthy of a magazine cover.

This is probably a good time to consider new options for beautifying those trouble spots.

Dean Strom, president of Land Escapes Inc. of Barrington, says ground cover options include everything from grass and other plant materials, to mulch, stone and gravel. It depends on the circumstances — both the natural environment and the way you wish to use the area.

“It is usually pretty apparent when an area is just too shady, too wet or too dry for things to grow,” Strom says. “That is when you might want to consider a rock garden or mulch or something like that. There really are fixes for everything and what you do just depends on your budget.”

With an abounding variety of living ground covers today, you don't have to have a yard that looks like your neighbor's yard.

Strom likes to use packasandra or periwinkle (vinca) in shade situations where trees or buildings cast a lot of shadow and make it hard to grow grass.

“Both are pretty hardy and once they are established, you can even walk on them,” Strom says. “In sunny situations, I usually opt for phlox, which has either pink or light blue flowers and definitely prefers lots of sun. These are much more delicate and cannot be walked on.”

Mary Cunningham, perennial specialist at Lurvey Garden Center in Des Plaines, touts ground covers for not only the fact that they can replace turf in troublesome areas, but also for their low maintenance, weed suppression abilities and the fact that they keep coming back for years.

“We see many customers now who are not only using them under trees and in extremely sunny areas, but even in their parkways (between the street and sidewalk),” she says. “We carry 40 different ground covers, including many unusual options you can use in areas where you don't want to do regular maintenance like cutting and weeding. We even have some that are not damaged by dogs.”

Cunningham regularly offers suggestions to customers seeking ground cover advice. For instance, English ivy thorndale grows well under trees of all types, even pines, and often climbs trunks for a unique look.

Vinca and bugleweed (ajuga) work in somewhat shady areas, too. Bugleweed is a creeping evergreen plant that quickly fills in empty areas, smothering out weeds while adding exceptional foliage color and blooms. It's also good for erosion control. The flowers of bugleweed come in blue, purple and white. Some bugleweed varieties even offer gorgeous copper or purple-colored foliage, beyond the standard green foliage, making it great for adding year-round interest.

She also suggests both Canadian wild ginger, which grows densely in some shade and close to the ground, and red barrenwort with its heart-shaped leaves and yellow and red flowers for wet areas. Barrenwort prefers some sun and moist soil containing large amounts of organic matter. It is a good choice for shady gardens because of its shade tolerance and its ability to hold its own against competing trees and shrubs. Both need no maintenance once they become established, Cunningham says.

For full sun situations, she often recommends nepeta, which grows thickly and quickly, as well as yarrow, which blooms in many different colors, works well in full sun and grows rather tall. It is great for a border in a sunny area, Cunningham says. Sedum is also appropriate for dry, sunny areas and it grows close to the ground.

Nikki Melin is the sales operations manager for Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles, which has been selling plant material to scores of garden centers, wholesalers and landscapers around the Midwest for the past 50 years. It grows more than 80 varieties of perennial ground covers hardy to Zone 5, which includes the Chicago area. They are sold under the brand name Hocus Pocus Groundcovers.

Melin has plenty of suggestions for homeowners who want to plant ground covers around their homes. In addition to the packasandra most gardeners like for shady spots, she suggests Japanese spurge, which flourishes in full shade and has both glossy green leaves and white spring flowers. She also recommends pensedge, which works well as a lawn substitute and can be mowed to 2 inches.

For wet shady spots, she agrees with Cunningham and recommends wild ginger, which is native to Illinois, smells like ginger (but is not edible), has heart-shaped, fuzzy leaves and grows well in wet soils.

Mini hostas, which come in four different colors, are also well-suited to the shade. They are only about 4 inches in diameter and produce purple or white flowers.

Phlox is a great option for sunny areas, Melin says, because it is tidy, comes in many different colors, blooms early and then is green during the summer. She also recommends delosperma (also known as ice plants) for sunny, dry areas. This succulent is very drought-tolerant and has fleshy foliage, as well as yellow, pink or orange blossoms.

The culinary herb thyme also thrives in full sun, as can Irish moss and Scotch moss. Both mosses work well when planted between steppingstones because they are not hurt by people walking on them. Irish moss is dark green while Scotch moss is more of a chartreuse color.

Someone who is looking for a fast-growing, full coverage ground cover that is rather aggressive might consider waldsteinia. It is easily grown in average, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. While it tolerates a wide range of soils, it prefers slightly acidic soils in climates like ours.

If you have an area that gets both sun and shade, you might consider blue plumbago, which has green foliage with red tips, as well as blue blooms each fall. Don't plan to walk on this one, however, Melin cautions.

And if you are a fan of the succulent sedum and have an area that gets lots of sun but is sometimes shady, she suggested you consider sedum Angelina, which has chartreuse foliage with orange tips in the spring and fall and yellow flowers in the summer.

Finally, if you have a dry, rocky area in your yard, consider sedum (which you can plant by just tossing cuttings onto nearby soil and it will generally take root, Melin says) or hens and chicks, a plant which also thrives in dry areas with a shortage of soil.