Ground Covers: What To Do with Your Garden’s Bare Spots

by Carol Bales

This is the eighth of a series of Cape Fear area native plant articles to appear in Going Green. The articles will include stories about common native plants that would enhance any coastal North Carolina garden or landscape.

Our lawn is full of bare spots where nothing seems to grow. To remedy those spots, we use native plants that love to grow in areas inhospitable to ornamentals. The native plants we use as ground cover provide color and variety to our flower beds.

What is considered to be a ground cover? Plants that hover close to the soil, no more than 8" tall, trailing or vining, perennials that require little in the way of pruning, fertilizing, insecticides, and protection from foraging animals. Oh, yes, we only use those plants that are native to North Carolina and our coastline areas. Here are a few examples of ground covers that we have tried successfully in our landscape.

Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum): We first saw this plant in the New Hanover County Arboretum’s native plant demonstration garden, and fell in love with the intense color of this native ground cover. We looked for it in plant catalogs, nurseries, and in the woods but were unable to find it. Fortunately, Joyce Huguelet, proprietor of Going Native Gardens, had a handful of plants to sell. We bought four straggly plants that honestly looked questionable, but in good faith, we planted them in an area where nothing else grew. Two years later, that bed is covered with dark green foliage and bright yellow flowers, and is trying to creep past its border into our lawn. This plant can be easily propagated from runners. It grows in partial to full shade, in sandy well-drained soil, and looks lovely in the spring when it blooms.

Wild ginger (Asarum canadense): Woodland perennial, in the family Aristolochiae (like Dutchman’s pipe). This plant has interesting veined, glossy, dark green leaves no more than 3" wide and long. It grows only about 4–5" tall, and could be used as a potted plant placed on a deck or patio. We started ours in a pot, where it bloomed happily for two years until we transplanted it into our bed of Green and Gold. The flowers can be found in the spring by looking under the leaves for tiny brown bell shaped flowers that hug the ground—thus the nickname, “Little Brown Jug” plant. It has also been called “Piggy ginger” due to the shape of the leaves that resemble pig feet. The plant requires little in the way of watering, weeding, fertilizing or pruning. It spreads slowly by stolons* and vines. In the wild, the plant grows well in the shady forest with sandy soil. Herbalists used to use the plant as a labor inducer, but due to its toxicity that use has been discontinued.

Frog fruit (Lippoa nodiflora): We first saw this darling little plant in Austin, Texas, where it was planted as a rock garden plant in the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I fell in love with the tiny white flowers, and after hearing its common name, I could just envision little frogs coming to eat a bite of the plants. I never saw the frogs, but I was delighted to find it growing like a weed here in New Hanover County. It grows well in poor, sandy, well-drained soil. It is in the verbena family, and is native to our county (New Hanover County). The foliage is dark green in the spring and summer, turning dark purple in the fall. It is easy to propagate from its runners that root readily wherever you want a rapidly growing ground cover. It dies back to nothing in the winter, but reemerges in the spring when the soil is warmed up. There is a patch of this plant growing in the Arboretum’s Native Plant Demonstration Garden, happily creeping along its stone paths.

Woodland or White Stonecrop (Sedum ternatum): This lovely little perennial ground cover is native to the Eastern United States. It grows close to the ground, and is usually 3–5" tall. True to its name, it will grow happily on top of rocks or boulders, providing a colorful mound of white to lavender flowers in the spring. The petals of the flowers are jagged and toothy with little yellow centers. It is easy to grow and requires little maintenance.

Creeping blueberry (Vaccinium crassifolium): For those of you who love to eat freshly picked berries, this is the plant for you! However, you will need to get up early to beat the birds, squirrels, bees and snakes away from your blueberries! They love the sweet berries, but will not eat them when they are green. We actually had to rescue a poor little grass snake that was tangled in our bluebird netting while trying to catch the other foraging insects on our blueberries. This plant grows in a mat-like manner, covering the ground, and not growing more than 8" tall. It is an evergreen trailing shrub, with beautiful little bell-shaped white and pink blooms in early spring. The berries start out as tiny light green buds, turning to blue then glossy black when they ripen. It grows best in the sun, but will tolerate partial shade, sandy or rocky and very acid soil. We have not tried to grow this plant, but are planning to try it in a large container this fall.

Trailing phlox (Phlox nivalis): Native to our area, this perennial flowering vine produces lovely showy pink tubular blooms in the spring and summer. It is heat tolerant, and can be used as a companion plant in lawns, since it is only 4" tall, and likes to be pruned often. Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh is conducting trials of this and other phlox varieties. As with other nonnative phlox plants, this can be grown as a container plant or as a rock garden plant.

No doubt there are many other native ground cover plants that we could try. You could consult with the Arboretum’s plant clinic director, Matt Collogan, who will be happy to help you with questions about these and other ground covers.

* Stolons: In botany a stolon—also called a runner—is a slender stem that grows horizontally along the ground, giving rise to roots and aerial (vertical) branches at specialized points called nodes.

Reference

The Plant Clinic at the Arboretum/ Cooperative Extension is open Monday–Friday from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. (910) 798-7660

Matt Collogan, Extension Agent - Consumer Horticulture New Hanover County Center mecollog@ncsu.edu (910) 798-7660

Sedum ternatum, or Stonecrop

Carol Bales is an avid gardener and seed saver, and grows several kinds of milkweed in her yard.

Top photo: Asarum canadens, or Wild Ginger.