Gardening

If you own a home or just live in one, having a nice lawn can not only make your home look more beautiful but it can also be great to walk on and if you have children, great to play on. But maintaining a beautiful lawn requires a lot of time, money and water. And with many areas today in a drought, water use is most often restricted just when a lawn needs it the most.

But there are ways to still have a beautiful lawn for less money, less work and less water.

Yes I did say clover. The same clover most homeowners are always trying to pull out, dig out, or poison out. You see clover requires little water, hardly any time to maintain and actually gets its own fertilizer right out of the air. And if you don't want to mow, it doesn't grow very tall and even produces pretty little yellow flowers that attract butterflies, honey bees and birds.

There are an amazing variety of ground covers that you can plant that will grow in many places grass won't. Groundcovers can control weeds. By covering the ground with a carpet of vegetation it prevents the germination of weed seeds. When established, it prevents the ingress of perennial weeds. It protects the soil from erosion and water loss. This can be particularly useful on steep slopes. It acts as an insulating cover for the soil, keeping it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. It is a living mulch that helps to build up humus levels in the soil. It provides habitats and cover for beneficial insects and other predators. It can be very attractive. It can provide us with various other commodities - food, medicines etc.

The following is a list of plants that might work for you as a quality groundcover:

Barrenwort: perennial that blooms in spring. Partial Shade.

Bishop's weed: spreads readily. Its leaves are plain green or variegated and works well in both sun or shade.

Cotoneaster: hardy low growing, tiny leaf shrub that handles dry slopes.

Heath and Heather: low-growing plants with tiny flower spikes in spring (heath) or fall (heather). Sun or shade.

Bugleweed (ajuga): purple-tinged, green, or variegated leaves with white flowers in the spring.

Cinnamon fern: grows well in shady areas, spreads slowly.

Hostas: foilage plant that has delicate flower spikes in mid to late summer that does well in shade and some variegated varieties can handle some sun.

Irish moss (baby tears): forms a very low cover with a tight mat of tiny, hairy green leaves. Grows well in moist shade areas.

Ivy: the classic groundcover has tough triangular evergreen leaves. Handles both sun and shade.

Wild ginger: neat low patches of patterned leaves. Spreads slowly in shady spots.

Lungwort: likes moist soil in partial shade. Comes in a variety of colors and shapes.

Maidenhair fern: spreads slow and grows about 2' tall. Likes shady, cool, moist soil.

Lady's mantle: grows well in sun or partial shade. Has distinctive, ray-green scalloped leaves.

Lily-of-the-valley: spreads evenly in shady areas from tiny bulbs. Leaves die back by late summer.

Pachysandra: another classic groundcover that grows 3-4" with a tiny flower spike in early spring. Remains green throughout the winter. Spreads evenly, likes shade to partial sun.

Prickly pear cactus: thrives in any soil in Zones 6-8.

Periwinkle (myrtle): low growing with small, narrowly oval, glossy green leaves year round.

Sedums: succulent leaves on straight 2' stems. Rounded flower heads mature over the growing season and then dry out and remain in place through the winter.

Snow-in-summer: very easy to grow and creeps over sunny sites with poor soil.

Sweet woodruff: weaves a web of fine roots, leaves are topped by delicate, white spring flowers.

Thyme: low-growing woody, evergreen plants. Tiny lavender-pink flowers in late spring.

Spotted dead nettle: has crinkled, variegated leaves on 6" stems. Likes shade and has tiny lavender flowers if left unsheared.

Variegated lilyturf (liriope): forms neat clumps 8 - 12" high. Grows in both sun or shade.