Ground Cover Plants to Enhance Your Landscape
Ground cover with flowers is a great way to add some life and beauty to your garden. Not only do these plants help to keep the ground moist and prevent erosion, but they also provide a lovely show of color throughout the different seasons.
In this article, we’ll get into planting ground cover with flowers, as well as the many benefits you may enjoy.
Practical and Attractive
Ground cover plants are attractive, low-growing plants that look great but also have a practical use in the garden. They can help stop weeds from coming through and also cover parts of your landscape where it may be difficult to grow plants.
Different Types of Ground Cover Plants
You can choose different plants for ground cover, including:
- Cactus
- Flowering
- Grasses
- Shrubs
- Vines
Whether you choose perennial flowers that come back year after year or bright annuals that bloom for just a short period of time, there are options to suit every landscape.
With ground cover with flowers, you can transform even the dullest patch of ground into a beautiful floral wonderland! Let’s look deeper into the types of flowering plants you can use as ground cover and how to use them.
Perennial Flowering Ground Cover Plants
Most ground cover plants are also perennials, which means that you plant them once and they will grow on or grow back each season. These landscape plants are favored for getting plants into areas where other plants may not be able to grow well.
Most are are low-growing and tend spread out, and some are fast growing as well, which makes them perfect for covering large areas quickly. Most ground cover plants are also easy to care for, and they can help prevent weeds from taking over your garden.
In fact some of the best, fastest growing ground covers are considered weeds by some, but desirable ground cover plants by others, such as these weeds with purple flowers.
Beyond beauty, flowering ground covers are a great way to add color and interest to your landscaping, upping your curb appeal, and giving you something beautiful to look at. They can also help attract pollinators and are even a good source to fix some common landscaping issues. There are many different types to choose from, so you can find one that will work well in your garden.
Be sure to pick a ground cover that is appropriate for how much sun and shade you have in your garden, as well as the type of soil you have. You should also consider your hardiness zone and average climate.
With a little planning, you can create a beautiful and colorful ground cover for your garden.
Long Blooming Ground Cover Plants That Bloom All Summer
- Mexican daisy – (Erigeron karvinskianus), zone 5-8
- Flower carpet roses – (Rosa x ‘Noaschnee‘), zone 5-8
- Hardy geraniums – (Geranium bohemicum), zone 4-9
- Yellow alyssum – (Alyssum alyssoides), zone 4-9
- Lily of the valley – (Convallaria majalis), zone 3-9
- Rock cress – (Aubrieta deltoidea), zones 5-7
Mexican daisy is a kind of daisy fleabane, an edible and beneficial weed.
Ground Cover Plants That Bloom Year Round
These ground cover plants bloom all year when in the right hardiness grow zone. They may be able to grow in other zones, but might not flower year round there.
- Wall germander – (Teucrium chamaedrys), zones 5-9
- Prickly pear – (Opuntia basilaris), zones 9-11
- Sedums – (Sedum or Orpine), zones 3-11
- Flowering thyme – (Thymus serpyllum), zones 5-10
- Candytuft – (Iberis sempervirens), zones 3-9
- Creeping phlox – (Phlox stolonifera) zones 3-9
Lists of Ground Cover Plants By Color
Many people choose their landscape plants according to specific color combinations. To help you plan and plant accordingly, the following list of ground cover plants are organized by flower colors.
3 Ground Cover With Blue Flowers
Do you love blue flowers? Are you looking for some ground cover with blue flowers to balance other colors you already have in your garden? Here are some ideas to get you started.
- Speedwell – (Veronica peduncularis), zones 4-9
- Lesser periwinkle – (Vinca minor), zones 4-9
- Creeping rosemary – (Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Prostratus’), zones 4-9
You can use blues to complement orange or red blooms. Blue is such a serene and calming color, and it can really make your garden pop.
Speedwell (Veronica peduncularis)
Also called “Georgia blue”, speedwell is an evergreen, low growing, spreading plant with blue flowers that is great for groundcover.
Lesser Periwinkle (Vinca minor)
Also called creeping Myrtle, here’s another blue groundcover option. This evergreen, mat-forming perennial has dark green glossy leaves and large lavender-blue flowers that bloom from mid-spring to early summer. They will usually continue to flower throughout the summer and into the beginning of fall, depending on your location. They thrive in part shade to full sun, dry to medium soil moisture and well-drained soil.
Creeping Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Prostratus’)
Technically a shrub, creeping rosemary can also be used as ground cover because it is low to the ground. The ‘Prostratus’ variety of Rosmarinus will grow an average of 1.5 feet tall and has an average spread of 2.5 feet wide.
Easily grown in poor soil, rosemary prefers sandy, well-drained soil and full sun, though it will also tolerate light shade. This resilient aromatic flowering ground cover is drought-tolerant once it has time to become established, and is very disease resistant.
We love to foodscape our landscape. Toward that, checkout these edible ground cover plants.
Ground cover with pink flowers
If pink flowers are what you’re after, there are also a lot of great options to consider.
- Bishop’s hat – (Epimedium)
- Flower carpet roses – (Rosa)
- Bigroot geranium – (Geranium macrorrhizum)
Bishop’s hat (epimedium) – This plant has heart-shaped leaves and bold blooms that can be pink, red, or purple. Sometimes they are also orange or bicolored. Pink tends to be the most common, so I’m going to categorize them here.
Flower carpet roses (Rosa) – These roses grow in a group, and they are found in many different colors such as pink, red, white and coral. I’m listing them here under pink but be sure to check the color of the variety you choose. They are hardy and like full sun and are mostly low maintenance.
Bigroot geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum) – This low-maintenance ground cover has beautiful pink, red, or light pink hues. It has variegated foliage that looks great even when the plant is not in bloom. It’s low maintenance and adjusts to many different climates and conditions.
Pink flowers are complementary to shades of greens, and so they’re good companion plants for non-flowering ground covers and other greenery as backdrop.
Ground cover with purple flowers
Purple is one of my favorite colors and there is no short supply of ground cover with purple flowers either.
- Bugleweed – (Ajuga-reptans), zones 3-10
- Horned-pansy – (Viola-cornuta)
- Lamb’s ear – (Stachys byzantina)
- Rock cress – (Aubrieta deltoidea), zones 5-7
- Spotted-dead-nettle – (Lamium-maculatum)
Bugleweed – (Ajuga reptans), is a cold-hearty herb with purple flowers that works well as a ground cover. It’s a creeping plant, which means it does a good job of spreading across a surface area of the ground where planted.
Horned pansy – (Viola cornuta), is an annual with round leaves and fragrant flowers that bloom in blue, lavender and purple shades. It will typically bloom from April through June, and it does well in areas with full sun to partial shade. It blooms in early summer to late spring and grows about 8 inches tall.
Rock cress – (Aubrieta deltoidea