The End of Groundcovers?

I am lucky enough to live in the foothills of the Rockies. Here we are able to use a number of perennials, grasses and annuals to infill our beds and tree lines. We have a climate that will sustain a beautiful pallet of non-invasive hearty plants. This allows the average person to easily maintain and implement an environmentally friendly garden. However, this is not the case in many areas of the country.

You are talking about developing complex micro climates. Once they are settled they typically do great, but are often more expensive and time consuming to start. It is a hard sell to the client. Also, other than your advanced gardener or Landscape Architect few people even grasp your concept. I love the idea of a more conscious effort, but it will start with education of the end user and our up and coming LA’s.

Thomas thanks for the food for thought this Monday.

Its not just ground covers, but invasives in general. There are plenty of ground covers that can be used unrestrained, and some that must be restrained. I’m still seeing state-labeled invasives on LAs planting lists, however. Should be a required ECU.

I really enjoyed your latest post. I agree with the others that it is as much about diversity as it is about eradicating groundcovers from the LA plant pallet. I have found that in recent years many institutional and developer clients are more and more willing to see more perennials and meadows rather than huge expanses of lawn and groundcover.

Maybe I’m the only one here, but I personally enjoy the groundcovers. While they are not the solution for ever situation to rule them out completely is disregarding an entire branch of the design tree.

hmmm, i enjoy good ground cover too… almost anything can be considered invasive, rarely is there a balance, somethings win, somethings lose, it is a matter of the quality of care.
Nature has its own way (ie your meadow and forest)… but we landscape architects don’t re-create nature… we ultimately design for humans, with nature in mind, however we are all the things that nature isn’t, while in fact, nature is all things we are not. both sides of the same coin.
why a sculpture can be as beautiful as a tree, or my living room as serene as a meadow, I’ll never know…

tom et al., u have a valid argument especially on the invasive characters of groundcovers in general. but so do others. and as jason pointed out there are those that can be used unrestrained. and personally im sure that groundcovers have their own merits when we take a closer look. to me, some groundcovers are actually good when it comes to retaining slopes and for the purpose changing the microclimate of a given place sans the mowing of turf as in alternative approach.

at the same time however i prefer ‘naked’ ground with just turf or bushes and trees. i embrace this concept for more than 10 yeras already. the advantage of this is reduction in maintenance cost and resources such as water. many developments in water challenged countries nowadays promote water saving as in the UAE thru their ‘estidama’ approach and even newer developments in tropical thailand and malaysia. when planning for saving water for the soft landscape design, groundcovers are the first to go. last, i believe we should start looking differently at how to use groundcovers to the best advantage given the locale that we have.

I pretty strongly agree with Andrew, it’s actually a fact that really bothers me sometimes… even in the academic world. I recently had a project involving a stream reclamation near Boise. The so-called creek is heavily channelized, with banks largely in excess of 1:1 slopes, in gravelly, sandy soil prone to high salinity. Nasty. Our objective stated a naturally inspired reclamation, but most of my classmates dropped the natural concept at regrading the stream and introducing sinuosity back to it’s character. A ‘riparian corridor’ of between 150 to 300 feet wide was more or less the status quo and most did not follow native plantings at all – instead we were encouraged by the instructor to remove massive amounts of topsoil and replace it with soil brought in. All this in an area that receives around 9 inches annually, largely in the fall and winter months.

I feel that often times a meadow is a wonderful concept, but it fails in practice, and it is hardly suitable to shady sites. If that became the next big thing, how will the future prove it to be any different than ground covers? If anything, it can introduce a host of new problems, new vectors, and definitely new concerns. I’m from NE Wyoming, short grass prairie land, and believe me it is rather flammable, particularly when you add in ecological plantings like sagebrush.

Many times a whole plant becomes pariah labeled as highly invasive or noxious when in fact, only the species or particular cultivars are really of concern. Creeping Jenny is a notorious groundcover, but the cultivar ‘Aurea’ is much, much more behaved. Properly bounded, and routine maintenance instructed and enforced there is no reason why we should all cast away groundcovers.

On a whole level, I believe that we should develop a greater understanding of the nature and character of our own surroundings. I’ve noticed that a lot of what happens in this field seems to be driven by fads and trends. Pick up any monthly issue of Landscape Architecture and I can almost guarantee that somewhere within it’s covers green roof structures are exalted, meadows are praised, and bioswales are end-all-be-all answer to the sins of modern man. Properly sited, any one of those things can be a great asset. But they are not a holistic answer to every question, nor is banishing all groundcovers, or striking Groundcover from the English language.

Sorry Thomas, but blanketed “answers” have never really served the world well.