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Everyone loves a beautiful environment, with a nice lawn and an excellent touch of nature.
This desire for unique landscaping is possible with the cultivation of flowering ground covers.
Did you not know that a good garden is the first requirement for an excellent landscape?
Since you cannot be growing gardens everywhere around your compound, the best option is the use of flowering ground covers.
You need to see flowering ground covers in full bloom. How they fill the surrounding with excellent and variegated colors that leave you amazed.
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Flowering Ground covers are also good weed controls, providing shade to the soil below, as well as controlling erosion.
You wouldn’t be having a second thought on growing flowering ground covers in your surrounding to meet landscaping challenges after you go through this list of fifteen best flowering ground covers.
This article is a careful outlining of the fifteen best flowering plants that serve as good ground covers for your landscaping challenges.
Read on to find out these fifteen and while you are at it, make sure you make up your mind on which of these flowering ground covers you are going to be getting for your home or office landscape.
15 Best Flowering Ground Covers
The following are fifteen of the best flowering ground covers that will answer to your landscaping challenges:
- Stonecrop
- Plantain lilies
- Ice plant
- Liriope
- Canadian Anemone
- Creeping Thyme
- Deadnettle
- Japanese Pachysandra
- Sweet woodruff
- Wishbone flower
- Yellow Alyssum
- Common periwinkle
- Yellow Archangel
- Dragons blood
- Angelina Sedum
These flowering ground covers are resistant to simple pests and diseases and some of them are invasive enough to not die even after being stepped on.
Each of these flowering ground covers has its uniqueness in terms of growth, bloom and color combination. They are explained in the proceeding paragraphs of this article.
1. Stonecrop
Botanically called Sedum, these flowering ground covers have their origin from the northern hemisphere of Africa and South America. They are flowering ground covers that usually do not grow more than fifty centimeters upwards.
Consisting of various species, the stonecrop is usually described as a shrub or creeping herb, further validating the claims of this plant falling into the flowering ground covers category.
They are succulents that could be annual, biennial, or perennial depending on the nature of the climate within the location where it is grown.
This is the first on our list of flowering ground covers, you might wanna consider getting the seedling or stem cuttings for propagation on the outer space of your house for a great landscaping view.
2. Plantain lilies
Popularly known in English as Hosta and in Japan as giboshi, plantain lilies are popular ground covers grown in homes and gardens for landscaping as well as protecting the soil from excessive heat and rainfall.
They do not require too much sunlight to produce their food and carry out photosynthesis but they do not also die when they are exposed to too much sunlight.
So they serve as the perfect ground covers in shaded and open areas.
They have large leaves and when they bloom they produce beautiful white flowers, filling the surrounding with the scent of beauty.
The best part of cultivating plantain lilies is that they are resistant to winter and do not shed their leaves in winter, so you are sure of having a feel of nature even when the city is all cold and cuddled up.
You can get the seedling of these flowering ground covers and begin your journey to great landscaping right away.
3. Ice plant
Flowering ground covers aren’t just there to be ground covers and protect the soil from erosion. They also exist to bring beauty to the surrounding, giving the landscape an eye-catching view.
The ice plant is one of such plants that fulfill this tenet of what flowering ground covers should be.
When ice plants bloom, they produce flowers that give a glassy feel. It is such a beauty when the sun radiates on it.
Now, imagine your garden filled with beautiful purple-colored glittering ice plant flowers. Imagine the wonder you would have created with something as simple as flowering ground covers.
You do not need another cajoling to get some flowering ground covers growing on your garden at this point in this article.
An ice plant is one of the best bets for a start.
4. Liriope
The beauty of having a liriope feature in your garden as a ground cover is its low nutrient needs.
Flowering Ground covers can often compete with other plants for food and nutrients, but not the liriope. It just needs an average water supply and very small amounts of nutrients to thrive.
It is botanically called liriope spicata.
It is a lily that is grown for ornamental purposes.
At bloom, the beautiful flowers fill the surrounding with so much bliss. It grows thick enough to cover sloped areas of the landscape so that one does not really feel the slope when walking through.
It blooms in summer and fades in winter.
5. Canadian Anemone
It goes by the botanical name anemone canadensis.
As the name implies, these species of flowering ground covers are native to Canada. They are really short and cannot grow taller.
They are usually grown as cover crops or organic mulch, and in landscaping, they are useful as flowering ground covers.
They are sunlight growers and can grow under heavy sunlight as well as light shade. They are invasive and choke out the activity of weeds from the environment.
6. Creeping Thyme
The creeping thyme plants aren’t just needed for their functionality as flowering ground covers, but for their ability to fill the environment with the beautiful smell of mint.
It can survive in periods of drought and does well under full sun. The creeping thyme is botanically known as thymus praecox.
At full bloom, the creeping thyme produces flowers of pink and purple color. It’s usually beautiful to see these flowering ground covers in full bloom.
7. Deadnettle
These flowering ground covers are adapted to bloom in July and early September.
They can survive long periods without water and prefer to stay in a cold region in well draining soil.
The deadnettle does not grow tall enough to be classified as a flower hence it falls under the class of flowering ground covers.
Their rate of growth is dependent on wind dispersion and this plant is beautiful in rocky patches of your landscape as they help give even broken rocks, the tender feel of beauty.
8. Japanese Pachysandra
This plant is perfect under shrubs, combining perfectly with other shrubs in the garden to form a blend of beautiful greens, yellows, and pink.
As a ground cover, it does not require much gardening care. A simple watering routine is enough to keep the Japanese Pachysandra growing.
They bloom white spiky flowers in April and July.
9. Sweet Woodruff
These flowers bloom between May and June before the first rains come for the year.
It is not like other flowering ground covers that can survive properly under the full blast of the sun.
Sweet woodruff does prefer shades and is best grown and an organic mulch to protect the doors of trees against the activity of erosion and soil pests.
They help with landscaping challenges by providing a beautiful mixture of colors to the environment when they bloom.
10. Wishbone Flower
The wishbone flower is botanically called torenia fournieri. Most people around the world love to call it the blue wings plant.
It is an annual that dies off after its season.
It is best propagated asexually as growth by seed propagation can take a lot of time.
With leaves that are light green and oval In shape, the wishbone flower blooms to perfection, producing flowers that vary in colors white, pink, and yellow.
The seedlings are available for purchase from stores like Amazon.
11. Yellow Alyssum
The yellow Alyssum is best suited for planting in areas of the landscape that have rock clusters.
Its beautifully blooming yellow flowers mingled with the green leaves that grow into a thistle needle at the tips make for a good day.
As flowering ground covers, the yellow Alyssum is a perennial that should be pruned after it finishes flowering.
It is a bushy plant, hence pruning should involve cutting away about fifty percent of the leaves. They naturally grow back in summer.
12. Common Periwinkle
The common periwinkle produces blue flowers that are sometimes purple in color and very beautiful.
They are growing shrubs that serve the purpose of covering the soil for forming a beautiful landscape.
They do not have a special soil type that they grow in and can survive in sandy, loamy, and clay soils.
These species of flowering ground covers like to grow under full or part shade.
13. Yellow Archangel
A mythical name for a plant with an enormous ground cover.
The yellow archangel plant is best grown in loamy soil under some form of shade.
It does not require a lot of effort in gardening. With a well-developed root system, a yellow archangel is adapted to search for nutrients far down into the soil.
With a good number of these flowers in your surroundings, you need not bother about weeds and them thriving on the soil.
14. Dragons Blood
If you are a lover of the color red, then these flowering weed covers are your best bet for ensuring beautiful landscaping for your environment.
The dragon’s blood plant has a deep red flower in full bloom. It can grow under the sun as well as under shades.
The dragon blood plant does not favour a certain soil type for growth and can grow on relatively any soil type.
15. Angelina Sedum
This is one of the species of the stone plant. It is unique for its beautiful yellow flower. Some gardeners do not find the flowers too attractive and prefer to cut them off.
It is fast growing and can be invasive. Feel free to cut the Angelina Sedum to required size anytime you think it has grown too bushy.
It is a perennial and does not need much plant care to survive.
What are the Most Drought Tolerant Ground Covers?
The most drought tolerant flowering ground cover is the phlox subulata also known as moss phlox.
This plant is native to Eastern and central United States of America, and is usually grown as a landscape worthy flower. It is a perennial that stays fresh all year round and is very resistant to drought conditions.
It usually gathers around an area to form a beautiful mass of colors that range from pink to white and lilac.
What is the toughest ground cover?
Ivy.
Every ivy species is tough and invasive.
This is why they are treated as weeds in some areas of the world. They are very tough to control, having long twiny stems that are difficult to weed out.
This group of flowering ground covers can compete favorably for food and nutrients in the soil and it takes only a while before it becomes the only plant where it grows.
What is the Fastest Spreading Ground Cover?
It is surely the moss phlox.
These flowering ground covers grow very quickly and once dispersed, start to grow almost immediately.
It is not surprising to see a whole expanse of land covered with moss phlox.
What is the Easiest Ground Cover to Grow
The easiest ground cover to grow is the periwinkle plant. It needs little to no maintenance as it can survive any climate condition.
It is also adapted to fight off weed attacks as well as pests and diseases. If you’ve got your land growing with periwinkle plants, you need not bother about regular watering or constant fertilizer application.
These flowering ground covers are low maintenance plants. In fact, they are cheap maintenance plants.
Conclusion
Landscaping just got way too easy with these flowering ground covers.
Any one of the fifteen listed flowers or a combination of various ones, is sure to restore your landscape to mode perfect.
With these flowering ground covers, you are as good as free from landscaping challenges.
