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Ground Covers (Groundcover) & Vine Landscape Plants

Resource for ground covers (groundcovers), cover crops and vines. Introduction to soil management, info on issues such as companion planting with ground covers, and information on flowering vines. Requirements for specific ground covers, their maintenance and propagation, as well as the use of ground covers in problem areas. Soil preparation, fertilization and selection for cover crops.
Creeping Phlox Plants
Creeping phlox plants (P. subulata) do best in full sun. A slope with well-drained soil, rich in humus, can be covered with creeping phlox plants as a groundcover to prevent erosion.
Vinca Minor Vines
Vinca minor vines are a popular choice of plants for with dry-shade areas. Vinca minor vines bear a bluish flower in spring.
Ajuga or "Bugleweed"
Ajuga ground cover is widely grown, despite its invasiveness. In fact, for some people, its aggressive tendencies may make ajuga that much more attractive, as it is tough and really "fills in" an area. Folks also enjoy the flower that ajuga puts out, and some varieties are sought for their dark-colored leaves.
English Ivy Plants
Information on English ivy plants, including a picture. English ivy plants are traditional groundcovers, but have fallen out of favor in North America due to their invasiveness.
Blue Rug Juniper Plants
Blue Rug juniper plants and their relatives are sturdy evergreen groundcovers for sunny slopes. Using juniper groundcovers controls erosion and weeds, and also eliminates your having to mow steep slopes.
Rock Cotoneaster Plants
Rock cotoneaster plants (or "rockspray") are popular rockery plants. Low-growing shrubs, rock cotoneaster can function as ground covers.
Pachysandra Terminalis
Pachysandra terminalis plants are popular ground covers for shady areas. Also known as Japanese Pachysandra, these perennials do flower but are grown primarily for their foliage.
Perennial Ground Covers Used in Deer Control
Ground covers offer landscape solutions for problem areas. But when deer pests come to snack on ground covers, you need to refine your landscape solution strategy. This article tells you which ground covers are effective in deer control -- plants that deer pests won't eat. And these deer-resistant ground covers have many other fine qualities that will give you plenty of reason to grow them.
Winter Jasmine Plants
Winter jasmine plants can be grown in zones 6-10 and can either be trained to climb or allowed to sprawl across the earth as a groundcover. The yellow flowers of winter jasmine plants measure one inch across.
Angelina Stonecrop
Angelina stonecrop plants are golden sedums. A drought-tolerant groundcover, Angelina stonecrop flowers in yellow clusters.
Moss Ground Covers as an Alternative to Lawns
Moss ground covers can be used as an alternative to lawn grass in shady spots, where grass refuses to grow. Considering how often moss ground covers grow in lawn areas problematic for grass, it readily suggests itself as just such an alternative.
Companion Planting With Ground Covers
Centuries before books came to be written on "companion planting," the Iroquois and other pre-Columbian denizens of North America were practicing a version of companion planting, including companion plants that were ground covers. Learn how their companion planting techniques improved the soil for their crops and obviated conventional mulching.
Climbing Hydrangea Vines
As their name suggests, climbing hydrangeas are more often seen growing skywards; but they can serve as flowering ground covers, too. Hydrangea vines solve a problem for homeowners with shady areas to plant, being shade-tolerant vines.
Growing and Carving Gourds to be Jack-O'-Lanterns
Are the features of your jack-o'-lantern starting to cave in already? Or perhaps the pumpkin that you carved is now being carved up by rodents? Make a better jack-o'-lantern: use a gourd, instead.
Alternatives to Lawns: Ground Covers
Lawns are costly to maintain, in terms of both landscaping labor and money. Discover landscaping alternatives to the traditional grass lawn, including ground covers and clover. Clover is also used as a cover crop to improve the soil, and as a living mulch in gardens.
Diseases in Ground Covers
Ohio State U. Extension's guide to ground cover pathology. Leaf blight and stem canker of pachysandra, canker and die-back of vinca, bacterial leaf spot of English ivy and crown rot of ajuga are covered.
Ground Covers for Rough Sites
Ground covers that establish readily, grow in poor soils and require little maintenance. This extensive list of ground covers composed by the University of Minnesota Extension describes the height of plants, shade and drought tolerances, pH preferences, and how to propagate.
Resources on Ground Covers at Greenwood Nursery
Greenwood nursery carries many types of groundcovers, for all of which they provide information and photos. To make it easier to select the groundcover right for your landscape, their groundcovers are divided into the following categories: evergreen groundcovers, groundcovers for full sun to shade, and groundcovers for part sun to full shade.
Moss Acres: Specializing in Moss Ground Covers
Moss Acres is a supplier specializing in live moss for shade gardening and landscape applications.
U. of Nebraska's Introduction to Ground Covers
How to select a ground cover and prepare the soil for it. When and how to plant ground covers. Maintenance advice: watering, weed suppression and controlling insects and plant diseases. Practical information on landscaping mulch. Detailed advice on when and how to prune.
Virginia Tech's Introduction to Ground Covers
This introduction to landscaping ground covers is especially helpful in detailing considerations for the placement of ground covers. Creeping juniper, moss pink, Baltic English ivy, hosta, Pachysandra, yucca, liriope, sedum, and ornamental grasses are featured, as well as invasive ground covers.
Gourds: Arts and Crafts on Hardshell Gourds
Tutorials from J.K. Stacy Designs on arts and crafts projects with hardshell gourds. Replete with stunning photos of the finished artwork (the images load slowly but they're worth the wait!). These step-by-step tutorials will be useful to the gourd art veteran and inspiring to novices just catching "gourd fever."
Trumpet Vines - Ground Covers for Sunny Areas
Do-It-Yourself.com's look at trumpet vines (Campsis radicans). The article stresses the vine's ability to take both cold and heat in stride. These ground covers bloom all summer, and their only requirements are a sunny exposure and a good pruning in winter.

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