These 15 Stunning Ground Covers Beat Grass
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Ground cover consists of vegetation (living and dead) and biological crusts in contact with the soil surface. A lush and functional landscape doesn’t always depend on traditional grass. If you’re designing a serene backyard oasis or optimizing a small patch of earth, versatile ground covers offer a creative and practical solution. These low-growing plants can transform spaces, adding texture, color, and interest while reducing the need for intensive upkeep.
Incorporating ground covers into your exterior design allows for dynamic landscaping that can meet today’s sustainable and beautiful demands. Unlike the traditional lawn, which requires regular mowing, fertilizing, and watering, most ground covers do quite well with little care. They fill in naturally, creating a continuity of visual appeal and adding to your garden’s biodiversity.
Wild Thyme
Thymus serpyllum, Wild thyme, forms a nice ground cover with dense growth. It carries small, rich green leaves and tiny purple-colored flowers. It likes well-draining soil and sunny areas, so it can grow well in diverse climatic conditions. When well-spread, it produces a beautiful, low-growing spread that makes a verdant, nearly carpet-like effect.
Wild thyme is a sensory element of gardens; some varieties bear aromatic foliage when subjected to rubbing or stepping over the plant. Besides that, wild thyme attracts pollinators such as bees and butterflies, adding biodiversity to your space.
Bellflower
Bellflower charms with its star-shaped, delicate blossoms in blue, purple, and white shades. It is a very aggressive ground cover that will give quite a display of flowers over rocky or uneven areas. It thrives in full sun to partial shade and adjusts to various soil types, from clay to sandy.
Bellflower flowers from spring into summer, making it a long-flowering addition to garden designs. Robust and spreading, it suppresses unwanted growth, reducing the need for constant weeding.
Pennywort
Pennywort is a ground cover containing round, succulent leaves in a deep green that add a playful and serene feel to the ground. It does best in moist conditions, ideal near ponds, water features, or damp garden beds. This plant spreads rapidly and forms a dense mat to hold the soil in place and prevent erosion, thus retaining moisture.
Being low maintenance means gardeners need not go to great lengths to take care of this plant. Its bright, shiny foliage adds brilliance to areas with shade that most other plants shy away from.
Felt Hornwort
Felt hornwort has soft, felt-like leaves with silvery-green hues, adding texture and color contrast to gardens. It does well in dry, sandy, or rocky soil, perfect for xeriscaping or low-water landscapes. This ground cover spreads moderately, creating a neat and orderly appearance without becoming invasive.
Felt hornwort’s drought tolerance ensures that this plant will stay lush and healthy, even in hot and dry conditions. Its dainty flowers add to the overall appearance, combining so well with other drought-tolerant plants.
Common Soapwort
Common soapwort provides clustered, soft pink or white flowers that add charm and subtlety to groundcover plantings. It succeeds in full sun with well-drained soil and tolerates drought when established. This plant bears historical significance in soapmaking due to the natural saponins found in its roots.
It forms a lush green mat that suppresses weeds while offering visual interest throughout much of the growing season. Common soapwort is a workhorse that draws in pollinators, making it a practical and pretty choice for the eco-conscious gardener.
Phlox
Phlox is an excellent ground cover that produces myriads of flowers ranging in color from pink to purple, white, and even red. It thrives in full sun to partial shade and tolerates a wide range of soils, provided it drains well.
Its spreading, low-height habit makes it perfect for rock gardens, slopes, or borders. Phlox flowers from early spring color the garden when other flowers are scarce. Sweet-scented flowers attract butterflies, bringing life and movement into the garden.
Woolly Hedgenettle
Woolly hedge nettle’s unusual soft, fuzzy foliage and small purple flowers make it a unique and interesting ground cover option. This tough plant tolerates poor soils and thrives in partial to full sun with minimal maintenance.
It is deer-resistant, making it ideal for gardens prone to wildlife disturbances. Woolly hedge nettle spreads steadily to form a dense mat, effectively suppressing weeds. The plant’s unique texture and resiliency add functional and aesthetic value to outdoor spaces.
Stonecrop
Stonecrop provides a versatile and hardy solution for ground cover. Its succulent, fleshy leaves have clusters of star-shaped flowers. It does well in sunny, dry areas and is perfect for rock gardens, rooftops, and gravelly soil.
It is a low-growing plant that covers the area quickly with variegated foliage in shades of green, red, or gold, depending upon the variety. It’s convenient in low-care landscapes because it is drought-tolerant and can handle poor soils. Blooms attract pollinators, further increasing their ecological value.
Evening Primrose
Evening primroses open their flowers in the evening and close them in the afternoon. Their pale yellow flowers enchant. They flourish as a ground cover in full sun and are poor soil tolerant, beautifying challenging garden areas. The plant has a spreading habit, which will stabilize soil on slopes or other areas prone to erosion.
Evening primrose flowers carry a light, sweet scent, attracting pollinators such as moths and bees. This adaptable plant is easy to care for and fits many garden plans.
Lampranthus
Brightly colored orange, pink, red, and purple daisies lighten the landscape with their flowers. Lampranthus is a great evergreen, succulent creeper for arid and coastal gardening. Its greenish-gray, fleshly leaves store water, enabling it to remain healthy for several days without rain.
Lampranthus forms a dense, colorful carpet that requires minimal care, adding year-round interest to outdoor spaces. Its showy blooms and hardy nature make it a favorite for low-water landscaping.
Armeria
Armeria, a sea thrift, has clusters of small globe-shaped pink, white, or purple flowers on wiry stems atop tufted foliage. It is a full-sun-loving, drought-resistant ground cover that thrives with well-draining sandy ground. Suitable for coastal, rocky land, it tends to produce a neat clump with evergreen leaves for additional visual interest after it’s stopped flowering.
This sea thrift is generally tolerant to dry conditions and requires only low maintenance. Its resilient behavior is parallel to its beauty. Its compact size and tidy growth habit make it perfect for borders or edging.
Dwarf Periwinkle
Dwarf periwinkle is a classic ground cover known for its glossy green leaves and delicate blue or violet flowers. It thrives in shaded areas, making it a great choice for under trees or along shaded pathways. This plant spreads rapidly, forming a dense mat that suppresses weeds while retaining moisture in the soil.
Dwarf periwinkle is highly adaptable, performing well under various soil types, even poor or compacted conditions. Its evergreen foliage and seasonal flowering provide interest throughout any area’s growing season.
Woodruff
Woodruff lends grace to shade gardens with its whorls of delicate green foliage and star-like white blossoms. As a woodland ground covered with moist, well-drained topsoil, it creates a soft look of carpet beneath trees or in a shady woodland setting.
Its flowers give off a sweet, light fragrance, further enhancing the sensory experience in the garden. Woodruff grows steadily but is not aggressive and should be an easy, workable choice for hardscapes. This groundcover has attractive foliage all year round, ensuring constant beauty.
Speedwell
Speedwell offers an abundance of small, bright blue, pink, or white flowers in clusters that often flower throughout spring and summer. This low-growing ground cover is excellent for full sun to partial shade and tolerates a wide range of soils. Its trailing stems quickly spread out, forming an attractive and functional dense mat.
Speedwell attracts bees and butterflies, adding vibrancy and an eco-friendly touch to your garden. Its cheerful blooms and hardy nature make it a reliable choice for enhancing borders, slopes, or rock gardens.
Shrubby Milkwort
Shrubby milkwort is an evergreen perennial that offers year-round interest with its foliage and clusters of pink, purple, or white flowers. It does best in full sun in well-drained soil and is drought-tolerant once established.
It is compact in growth and most suitable for small areas, rockeries, or even container gardens. Shrubby milkwort flowers attract a number of pollinators, which adds an ecological element to its aesthetic appeal. It is also resistant and beautiful, serving practical and ornamental purposes as a ground cover.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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