Last year, while I had the contracting team on site to work on the meadow, I had three new island beds carved out of the lawn. They were smallish, 50-100 square feet, and the contractor cut the sod, turned it over, and added a layer of compost to create a nice clean slate for planting. The intent for each was of course to add more native plants, including small trees and shrubs, which would be underplanted with a ground layer. This approach seemed appropriate for land that has been cleared (mostly for farming) for hundreds of years; this would keep the open feeling of the place. They were positioned to provide more organization for walking around the garden.

Here’s where the new beds are – they are the blue patches.

With the big meadow installation last year, I honestly didn’t have time to do much with these. I got the shrubs in the Winterberry and Statue Islands in, and a few other plants, and really nothing in the Witch hazel Island.  This winter was my opportunity to spend a good bit of time on what to plant in these areas.  The ground layer was going to be the trickiest, but the most essential. Larry Weamer in his book Garden Revolution explains why:

A multi-layered, densely planted groundcover layer will be far more successful at inhibiting weed invasion than any mulch. A planting with a succession of bloom and contrasting foliage of texture can improve ecological value and provide an artistic and colorful composition.

While I love the look of a monoculture, I wanted these beds to be more of a tapestry – a number of plants with different textures that would mesh and merge over time.  Each of the three Island beds got a slightly different version of this.

Statue Island

Two years ago, I had this wonderful Tom Odell statue installed as a key focal point and transition between the more traditional areas around the house and the more natural areas in the back. It would also serve as a way post, showing the walking path direction.  It was in front of a medium rhododendron (Rhododendron maxima) that would grow large, so I wanted a garden bed that would be worthy of the statue and the rhododendron. I landed on a rounded triangle, and planted a few shrubs, grasses, and perennials.

This picture was taken right after planting, so you can barely see the grass plugs.  Each prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepsis) will be about 18” across when full grown in about 2 years.  The shrubs get half again as big, and the perennials behind the statue should spread a bit.

This bed doesn’t need too much work this year.  It needs a good crisp edging, for sure.  The low perennial I put in as the front edge was barren strawberry (Geum fragaroides), but it didn’t grow at all and doesn’t seem to like this location. Replacing it will be Golden alexander (Zizea aurea), a lovely 1-2’ plant with divided leaves and yellow carrot-like flowers in May, before much else is out.  I planted this in the South Border a few years ago, and it has done well. After some tentative munching, the rabbits left it alone.  I think I will also add a few more prairie dropseed plants, especially around the front, to make sure there is a nice thick area of grasses around the statue. And I should be able to take down the fencing that protected the new perennials near the rhododendron.

Winterberry Island

This bed was created around an existing Stewartia tree, one I planted years ago in honor of a loved one. It was sitting there all on its own and needed some company.  When the Statue Island was created, I pulled out several winterberry (Ilex verticillata ‘Red Sprite’ and ‘Gentleman Jim’) shrubs from that spot – it was too dry and well-drained, and they were not doing particularly well. The area below the Stewartia is shadier and moist enough to grow a lot of moss, so they should work there.

Once the shrubs were in, it was clear there was a lot of empty space at the ground layer.  I did a bit of research at Native Plant Trust and BlueStem Natives, and selected a few to start with.

Two of these plants were elsewhere on the property and were transplanted here – the wood fern grows naturally on the north side of the house, and the barren strawberry was sulking in the woodland area. The foamflower and green and gold were frankly experiments, to see if the rabbits would leave them alone.  They ate the flowers, but left the plants, so I have my fingers crossed for next year.  The Allegheny spurge is the native version of pachysandra and did well this first year. The sweet everlasting came as small plugs, and I thought it would top out at 12”, but it grew to almost double that height. It’s a great plant, but probably too tall for this space; I will give it another year before I decide whether to move it to the South Border. Looking at the design now, I’m wondering if I need another winterberry up close to the Stewartia to make the design more unified – the shrubs and trees seem a bit disconnected.

For this year, I want to fill in a lot of the empty space and introduce some new species.  Here’s what I’m aiming for.

Sorry for the roughness of this composite, but I wanted to see all the textures together. We will see once this is planted if it is too busy or if the textures complement each other. The plan is to add more of the allegheny spurge since it did well, add some sedges directly under the Stewartia, since they require shade, and add a new plan, Heal all (Prunella vulgaris) on the sunnier end.

This bed mostly blooms in June, except for the heal-all, which is a bit later. The heal-all grows wild all around the Cape, including in my lawn. I haven’t used it as a planted ground cover before and I’m hoping it does well.

I will be most interested to see which plants spread and how much.  All of the ground should be covered, but I don’t want plants competing too much. You will notice there is no wild strawberry – that would take over the ground layer completely, climbing up on the lower plants and out-competing them. (I do like wild strawberry to cover the ground when you have taller plants.)

Witch Hazel Island

This area started out as completely shady, the home of six aging Norway spruce trees. First one fell over, than another, so I decided to have them all taken out rather than waiting for the inevitable. This made the area sunny, including the edge of the woodland garden.  Several ferns and black cohosh had crispy leaves the following summer and had to be moved back into shadier ground.

While somewhat puzzled by what to do with this area, I knew I needed trees, so I planted two good-sized witch hazels (Hamamelis virginiana) and a tiny whip of a red maple (Acer rubrum). I also have some chokeberries, but the deer have eaten them down to bare sticks and they are coming out. Here’s what this area looked like late last summer. The fenced-in area is a native anise hyssop (Agastache scrofularifolia), which was an experiment and an impulse buy from Blue Stem Natives. It looks like a lovely plant, but it turns out that the rabbits like it, too, so it is going up into the meadow behind the rabbit fence there.

You can see I have a blank slate to work with!  I have targeted four kinds of low shrubs for this area – red twig dogwood around the maple, black huckleberry planted densely in the center, Grow-low fragrant sumac along the pathway, and bayberry at either end. Around the edges will be grasses – my favorite prairie dropseed – and some patches of Golden Alexander. I’m not sure if I will need any more ground cover, but if so, it will likely be sedges. There is a lot of Eastern woodland sedge growing wild nearby, so it will be easy to transplant some to fill in any gaps.

What Makes a Good Groundcover?

After all this, the idea of what makes a good groundcover is getting clearer in my head. Originally my thinking was limited to very low plants that gradually spread, like pachysandra or wild strawberry. In reality, it can be any plant that covers ground so that seeds in the soil don’t receive enough light to germinate and so that there is little if any any open ground for a seed can fall into.

Groundcovers can be any height that makes sense for your space. The key is that they will spread, at hopefully not too aggressive a pace. Grasses and sedges can work well, as can most plants with creeping rhizomes, such as foamflower of creeping phlox. Low shrubs such as the sumac can work, too. Or plants that spread by seed, such as partridge pea or white wood aster. When you are adding groundcovers and replacing your bark mulch with a living mulch, a good imagination can help you create some interesting spaces.