All Groundcover - All The Time

14 years ago

Anybody else here gone whole hog and eliminated grass from their property and planted whatever else, like me?

I'm new to Gardenweb and didn't see a place to discuss this kind of gardening. There's a 'Lawncare' section. Maybe a 'Non-Lawn care' section would be appropriate.

My place: Moved here full-time about 4 years ago, and it's nearly half an acre with some mature maples that made the ground bumpy,dry (difficult to mow and even grow grass on). Combine nice sandy loam, location in southernmost Canada and an intense dislike of mowing (it always just seemed to grow back!), with a gardener who could turn a few thousand cuttings into groundcover and augment that with numerous perennials started from seed, and some starter plants and voila!

Plants growing here now include vinca minor (periwinkle), v. repens, sedums - tricolour, oracle, golden acre, hostas, thymes, galium sweet woodruff, lavenders, bellis, strawberries, rockcress, catmints,artimisias, over 350 shrubs and newly planted oaks and tulip populars. Used landscape cloth covered with wood chips for trails.

I like the fact that this yard improves every year, as opposed to when you mow, it just seems like a temporary solution to the problem (of that ever-growing grass).I like not being subject to grass' schedule, nor subject to the whims of machines that may or may not work.

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Comments (3)

gamekeeper
14 years ago
Where can I find Rock Cress?
hemnancy
14 years ago
I've seen yards like that, and have tried to do that in smaller areas of my yard, but have 2 acres so haven't been able to do the whole thing. Also I have trouble with the grass generating weeds and with weedy grasses that creep into my beds and make veruy time-consuming weeding chores, whereas the lawn can just be mowed. I would love to do this on a city lot, though. One of the yards I've seen used clematis on poles with a square of welded wire at the top with great effect.
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Cher
14 years ago
canudigit I am right now trying to decide what to do with the rest of my backyard in grass. Over half the backyard is already in gardens with mulch and outlined around the perimeter of that with large pavers. I have an area left of approximately 46 X 32 in grass. I have been trying to eliminate as much as I can but am hesitant for more mulching area. Literally have hundreds of thousands of maple seeds from neighbors trees drop in my mulch yard in May. Truly a nightmare trying to clean them up yet mowing is horrendous on my back and asthma and would love to get down to just mowing the front.

Have worried about doing groundcover although I am considering the wooly thyme yet how much of a nightmare will I be dealing with trying to get maple seeds out of that. Maybe I could just mow over that also after the seeds drop. Can't deal with more of an area of trying to clean up seeds.

Thought about just doing the clover so many are doing because atleast I could run the mower over that area. So am trying to decide what else to do here.
CH