Garden Talk with Janine Winlaw
The more plants in a garden the better, as far as I’m concerned. And while a solid path or stepping stones through grass have their place in garden design, a lovely and attractive alternative is to have stepping stones surrounded by gorgeous ground cover plants. This softens the look of a path and creates a greener, more immersive effect.
You’ll need to consider how tall the plants get – a few slightly taller flowers poking up at the edges of a path is fine, but you don’t want to feel you have to step over planting. Ideally you want plants that hug the ground and create a carpet. Also consider how tough the plants are and how much traffic they’ll get. There’s a lovely range of low growing, spreading perennials to fill the spaces between stepping stones.
The kind of soil and amount of sun and moisture they’ll receive is important to think about. For a sunny spot with well-drained soil, creeping thymes (Thymus serpyllum) and woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus) will spread neatly, smell aromatic when stepped on, and have a mass of tiny pink flowers in the summer. Short creeping sedum will also form a neat mat and have pretty flowers in the summer.
For areas with part shade, blue star creeper (Pratia pedunculata) with neat, low-growing foliage and tiny star-shaped blue flowers is an excellent creeping groundcover that likes part shade but copes with sun if the soil doesn’t dry out. Irish moss (Sagina subulata) forms a uniform bright green carpet, a little like moss, and is sprinkled with the tiniest white flowers in the summer. Mentha requenii (Corsican mint) is a vigorous, mat-forming perennial with rounded, peppermint-scented,bright-green leaves and lilac flowers in short spikes. Dainty alpines such as armeria and one of the gorgeous dwarf saxifrage, such as Saxifraga Apple blossom Pixie, should spread around nicely as long as they don’t get too wet in winter.
For shade, native viola varieties such as V. hederacea are attractive, low-growing spreaders with a mass of tiny flowers in spring and summer. Mind-your-own-business (Soleirolia soleiroli) will spread vigorously if it has enough moisture. Dwarf mondo grass (Ophiopogon japonicus) looks fabulous when planted on mass. Sweet woodruff (Gallium odoratum) spreads easily and is a little taller than some other options, but it works well in a woodland setting where it’s contained. Ajuga creates a matt of dark purple foliage with short spires of blue flowers in the spring.
This article first appeared in the May issues of SE Magazines.