Banish Bare Soil With These 8 Gorgeous Groundcover Gems That Spread Beautifully
This creative pick of low-growing, low-maintenance cultivars will quickly fill empty garden patches with the prettiest flowers and leaves.
Tired of looking out of the window and seeing bare soil in your borders or beneath shrubs and trees? Act now and come spring, these forlorn patches will be the prettiest parts of your garden! The trick is to add some low-growing groundcover for a carpet of color and texture that will thrive beneath your bigger, established plants.
But don’t just pop to the garden center for a dime-a-dozen groundcover plant that’s available pretty much everywhere. There are lots of more uncommon cultivars – many of them recently introduced – that will cheer up your garden with plenty more panache, adding a modern tone, unusual leaf-shape or striking color. Newer cultivars are typically bred to be better behaved and more disease-resistant than their older counterparts, too, bringing all of the benefits without any of the drawbacks.
Many of these varieties aren’t so widely available, however, so buy them while you still can. All our pretty picks are easy-to-grow perennial plants so they’ll sort that bare soil for years to come.
Our Pick of the Prettiest Varieties
Here’s a glorious groundcover option that your neighbors will covet! Rosa ‘Meijocos’ is a rebloomer, covered in deep pink roses from early spring to the first hard frost and, while it only ever reaches 1–2 feet tall, it naturally spreads up to 3 inches. Worried that a rose growing so low to the ground will be susceptible to disease? Don’t sweat – this cultivar has been bred to be disease-resistant, including black spot, mildew, and rust, so its glossy foliage stays green even in a humid summer. Like most groundcover roses, it thrives in full sun, and a dense root system means it’s a great option for a slope where erosion might be an issue. Suitable for USDA zones 4–11.
Lungwort is a common go-to for well-behaved groundcover, but why plant a common-or-garden variety when you can choose these showstopper leaves? Pulmonaria ‘High Contrast’ has been bred for its dazzling variegated leaves, which are dark green overlaid with an almost iridescent silver hue. These light up a shady spot, turning a dull corner of your garden into a delightful display. Great for a smaller space, it grows to 9 inches tall and is naturally clump-forming, to around 12–18 inches wide. Early-spring flowers add to the show, emerging a pretty pink and maturing to a rich blue. Suitable for zones 4–9.
Ajuga reptans is a familiar groundcover plant, but how about this handsome ‘Black Scallop’ variety with purple leaves so dark they’re almost black? The glossy scalloped leaves have an upright habit, which means they catch the light at any time of the day, and the luscious deep-toned mat they form will accentuate bright blooms around it. With dark-lavender spring flowers, this stunner is fast-growing and tolerates light foot traffic, so it’s a useful option for a tricky garden spot. Happy in sun or shade – though more sun brings out its best color – it grows to 1–2 feet high and wide and is suitable for zones 4–9.
You’re probably familiar with the heart-shaped leaves of barrenwort as groundcover, but this quirky cultivar has fabulous spiny-edge leaves that are a real talking-point. The young leaves of Epimedium ‘Spine Tingler’ have beautifully bronzed tips before they mature to a deep green, too. It’s a smart option for planting under shrubs and trees as it loves a shady spot, and will tolerate dry shade once established. A profusion of spidery yellow flowers will light up the space in spring, and it grows to 8 inches tall and 24 inches wide. Hardy in zones 5–8, it’s evergreen in warmer climates.
This oh-so-cute variety with petite, rounded leaves in an appealing blue-green hue grows to a neat 8 inches high and wide, and it’s a smart groundcover choice for a compact shady space where you need to control the spread. Hostas increase in width by growing new shoots at the base, and plants can be lifted and divided every 3–4 years, so you can easily dictate their expansion. And don’t worry that those lovely leaves will be gobbled up by slugs, as they’re resistant to slug damage. This cultivar also boasts lavender flowers in summer that butterflies and hummingbirds adore. Suitable for zones 3–8.
Love creeping phlox and all the pollinators it attracts, but not its wishy-washy pastel palette? Then eye-poppingly bright ‘Scarlet Flame’ is for you. This vibrant sun-lover brings hundreds of tiny crimson blooms with darker eyes through spring, then sporadically reflowers: encourage this by snipping off the spent flowers with shears. Non-invasive, it grows to a sensible 1 foot high and wide, so you don’t have to worry about it running riot in your backyard. Because the evergreen foliage forms a dense mat, this is a useful plant to stabilise a slope, too. Suitable for zones 3–8.
Lots of us have cottoned on to the easy-fix of planting creeping thyme as low-maintenance groundcover, but have you seen the joyfully floriferous Thymus praecox ‘Coccineus’? It’s smothered in rosy-red flowers from late spring all the way through to late summer, which butterflies adore, adding to the color. This easy-grow plant is evergreen in most zones and the teeny-tiny leaves boast a heady herbal scent, too. Well-behaved, it grows to a tidy 4 inches high and 1 foot wide, but is super-easy to propagate (just divide and replant in spring or fall) so, if you're patient, you can save money by buying just one or two plants. Suitable for zones 3–9.
Lilyturf has earned itself a bad rep on account of its fast-spreading, untidy nature. But don’t dismiss this incredibly useful plant that will thrive in sun or shade where little else wants to grow: just choose the far-less chaotic cultivar, Liriope muscari ‘Royal Purple’. While this variety will still happily spread, it has a more compact growth habit and produces denser, more uniform blades for a tidier appearance. The flowers are a deeper, more intense purple than regular varieties, too, and it’s highly disease- and deer-resistant. If you’ve got an impossible garden spot, here’s the solution! Suitable for zones 5–10.
Which is Best for My Garden?
As well as considering the usual selectors such as planting for your zone, and sun, shade and soil preferences, when you’re buying groundcover plants it’s vital to match their rate of spread to the space you’ve got. Most of these plants are spreaders by nature – that’s what makes them great groundcover plants – but some are more aggressive than others. Lilyturf muscari spreads rapidly via rhizomatous roots, so it’s really useful if you’ve got a large area to cover, but it’ll be a nuisance if you only want a small patch cheering up. In this case, Pulmonaria would be a better option as it has a clump-forming habit and slowly spreads, by self-seeding as well as root expansion, into a 2–3’ patch.
Plenty of our picks are evergreen in most zones, so think about whether you want the benefit of that bare soil being covered through winter. Spreaders are often naturally rabbit- and deer-resistant, too, so be sure to check if these critters are a pest in your garden.
Some plants marketed as ground cover can be invasive, so be sure to steer clear of these.
