The decorative way to keep your soil weed-free

 

BARE earth isn't attractive. Keeping weeds at bay is like painting the Forth Road Bridge. Even if you manage that, your borders are left looking "gappy", plus moisture can evaporate faster, meaning you have to water more frequently.

Ground cover plants are an invaluable tool, but so often underused, or used wrongly, as 70s-style 'rockery' plants. A ground cover plant is one that knits together with its fellows, is low growing, sets off its bigger neighbours and acts as a weed suppressant. Not a bad CV.

Check out stands of alpines in the garden centres - don't stint on numbers. These are small plants, so you're going to need a minimum of three, probably five or seven in a bigger garden to make an impact.

One low grower is Arabis ferdinandi-coburgii Old Gold, with a name bigger than itself! Its green and gold-streaked leaves bear small white flowers and each plant will grow to 6" high, with a spread of 12".

Alongside this, I have a tiny Sedum album Coral Carpet - the leaves look like tiny coral berries, flush redder with the cold, and get tiny pink/white flowers in summer. This too grows to 6", speading to 16".

With all these plants, make sure you plant them close enough so they knit together.

There's a Euphorbia for every occasion and for this one, it's E. myrsinites. They're tough as old boots, with striking leaf structure and colour, plus lime flowers/bracts in spring. Don't get the sap on your skin (it can cause a rash).

 

Heucheras and heucherellas are a lovely group of ground huggers. My favourites are Plum Pudding (deep purple leaves, sprays of white flowers), Marmalade (golden pink upper leaves, purple underneath), Obsidian (almost black) and Silver Blush (silver/purple).

For shade, two of the best are Pulmonaria (liverwort) and Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle). Both come in tones of blue, pink and white.

Ivy works well in shade, although variegated varieties will have stronger colours in sun. Ivy only flowers and bears fruit growing upright.

One trick of Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst was to grow clematis as ground cover, in a similar way to Monet's nasturtiums trailing over the paths at Giverny.