Ground covers are important plants in low-maintenance gardens. But they only suppress weeds permanently if they also have leaves in winter. Here are the ten best evergreen ground covers.
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In nature, there is hardly any bare ground – and that’s a good thing: the plants shade the soil and protect it from strong temperature fluctuations. They loosen the soil with their roots , keep it moist, provide humus and promote soil life. There are also many reasons to plant ground cover in the garden – not only to protect the soil, but also to keep weeds away. To make the garden easy to care for, evergreen perennials and dwarf shrubs are suitable as ground cover, as they form a green, closed plant cover all year round. However, most evergreen perennials only keep their leaves in mild winters or in shady, protected locations. Bare frost and winter sun can quickly put an end to the dense green carpet of perennials in the cold season.
What are ground covers?
Ground cover plants are not a botanical group of plants like woody plants, perennials or ornamental grasses . The horticultural term covers all herbaceous and woody plants that can be used to cover large areas of soil and are therefore easy to care for. The most important properties of ground cover plants: they are robust, grow in width rather than height and cover the ground so well that few weeds can get through. Many ground cover plants are also winter hardy .
When do you plant ground cover?
The best time for planting and transplanting ground cover is late summer. Reason: Weed growth slows down and the ground cover has enough time to take root before winter sets in. Make sure that the area is free of root weeds such as ground elder and couch grass and improve heavy or very light soils with compost .
How do you plant evergreen ground covers?
The optimal planting density varies greatly depending on the ground cover and also depends on your own ideas. If you want the carpet of plants to close completely in the first year, you will need up to 24 plants per square meter for small, slow-growing species such as hazelwort or yarrow. However, this also drives up the costs and often looks unkempt because the plants compete with each other for light and therefore grow too tall. If you want the planting to be dense after three years at the latest, you can get by with around 12 to 15 plants per square meter. Fast-growing, runner-forming species such as ivy do not need to be planted particularly densely – depending on the variety, four plants per square meter are enough. However, you should cut the shoots by half as soon as you plant them to encourage branching.
Hoeing between ground cover plants is generally taboo. The sharp metal blade damages the shallow root system and delays the plants growing together. Instead, a layer of bark mulch ensures that weeds are well suppressed in the first two to three years after planting. Before spreading the pine bark, however, work plenty of horn shavings shallowly into the soil so that there are no bottlenecks in the nitrogen supply. If individual weeds do grow, you should remove them by weeding on an ongoing basis.
