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Most gardeners are familiar with the benefits of using ground cover on hard to grow areas. Unfortunately, most still consider its primary use to be for camouflage. Don’t be limited in your thinking. Instead of only utilizing evergreen ground covers, consider a ground clover flower to add beauty and texture to those hard to landscape spots. Most types flower in the spring or summer, but some bloom all season, providing a vivid backdrop to your ornamental plants and grasses.
Consider an early flowering ground cover to provide some color before your gardens hit their fulltime summer blooming period. Creeping phlox is one of the most popular ground cover flowers available. It blooms in mid-to-late spring and comes in a variety of colors, including white, pink, and lavender. It will stay evergreen throughout the rest of the summer. If you’re looking for something a little more unusual, the sterile strawberry is a creeping ground cover that produces small yellow flowers backed by dense green foliage.
If you’d rather plant a ground cover flower that hits its peak in summertime with the rest of your garden, check out these summer flowering varieties. John Creech Sedum forms a low, tight mat of bluish-green leaves and pink flowers. It is not aggressive and can easily be controlled with judicious pruning. Or, look into the new species of flowering carpet roses. Although not as low to the ground as many traditional ground covers, these hardy flowering shrubs will grow only 2’-3’ tall and cascade over hilly terrain and low walls, providing masses of blooms all summer long.
Finally, there are a number of ground covers that bloom throughout the year, providing color and texture through all the gardening seasons. The Hardy Ice Plant comes in a variety of colors, prefers sun to light shade, tolerates drought well, and is a perfect addition to a xeriscape garden. Periwinkle is another common, easy to grow ground cover flower. At only 6” tall, this extra low ground cover works well as an edging to flower beds or along walkways and will produce masses of blue to lavender flowers from spring through fall.
The astonishing color and variety available in the new ground covers can be used to your advantage. Don’t get stuck thinking of ground covers as the way to hide trouble spots. You can do more. Don’t camouflage; spotlight those areas with a ground cover flower for highlights, accents, or as a stand alone ornamental.
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Author Bio Box: Patricia Wainwright
Get all the facts about landscape gardening and gardening articles at GreenThumbArticles.com!
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