20 Weekend Gardener

design ideas

Dianne Bellamy recommends some easy care groundcover plants to stylishly define your garden beds.

PhotograPhy: garDEN artIStry

EdGinG plants

plants used to edge a garden have a strong visual impact. they mark the transition between garden and lawn, path or retaining wall. Much is required of them. they should be neat,

have attractive foliage (flowers are a bonus), look good in all seasons, have a spreading habit, require minimal maintenance, suppress weeds and be low growing, to avoid obscuring plants behind them. they should also be relatively slow growing to minimise their invasion of adjacent plants, lawns or paths. their foliage and flower colour should harmonise with other plants in the same bed and their leaves provide a contrast to nearby plants.

a low, tightly trimmed hedge is often the choice for edging formal style gardens (see Weekend Gardener 371 for my suggestions for suitable hedge plants). a formal look can also be achieved by using a single species as an edging plant e.g. mondo grass whose weeping foliage gives a neat definition to the garden edge (see photo 1). in less formal gardens creeping plants interspersed with small grasses are ideal. Repeating the same species intermittently along the length of the planting creates harmony and draws the observer’s eye.

For ease of maintenance edging plants should be closely spaced so that within a year or two the ground is completely covered. this ensures weeds are suppressed and birds tossing bark mulch onto paths and lawn is no longer a problem.

You will need a large number of edging plants but money can be saved by splitting your purchased plants into smaller rooted divisions. Grasses are easily split but you will have to wait much

longer for them to cover the ground. Most creeping ground covers can be propagated by pegging down a length of stem into the ground, with loops of wire, until roots have developed. Cut the new plantlets from the mother plant and grow them on in pots until they are large enough to thrive on their own.

native plants which i have found to be ideal, easy care edging plants are Coprosma ‘Hawera’ and Coprosma ‘poor Knights’ (see photo a). Coprosma ‘Hawera’ forms a very neat, weed suppressing carpet of conifer-like foliage (see photo 2). it will eventually need an annual clipping to stop it crossing the garden edge or invading adjacent plants. Coprosma ‘poor Knights’ (warning-it is frost tender) is a more vigorous plant but once it is established a quick clip twice a year is enough to keep it under control.

trim the top growth, as well, to stop it mounding up. Pimelea prostrata (see photo B over the page) with its grey-green foliage and white flowers, which bees love, is a good slow growing choice. Acaena inermis and its purple form ‘purpurea’ (see photo C) are very tidy ground hugging plants, but they tend to allow weeds to invade making them more difficult to maintain.

succulents like the low growing, rosette forming Echeveria sp. make very neat edging plants but large numbers of plants are required to have any initial impact (see photo 3). they are easily multiplied by trimming rosettes off large existing plants and potting them in gritty potting mix. Sedum ‘Gold Mound’ can create a stunning edge effect (see photo 4).

1

Weekend Gardener 21

Dianne Bellamy recommends some easy care groundcover plants to stylishly define your garden beds.

PhotograPhy: garDEN artIStry

Evergreen edging plants for sunny areas Rosette type plants and small shrubs:

Convolvulus cneorum• – silver foliage and white flowers, a very attractive plant but needs good drainage to thrive.Elephants ears (• Bergenia sp.) (see photo i) – large, round glossy leaves which look good all year and pink or white flowers (will also tolerate semi-shade).Iberis • ‘White Candytuft’ – mounds of glossy green foliage smothered in white flowers from spring to autumn.sea thrift (• Armeria sp.) – tidy clumps of grass-like leaves and pink or white flowers. Hebe • ‘Wiri Mist’ with its profusion of white flowers (see photo 6) and Hebe ‘Red Edge’ with its red margined blue-green foliage are small varieties of hebe which if clipped tightly after flowering are ideal edging plants.

Evergreen edging plants for sunny areasCreeping plants:

Creeping golden Jenny (• Lysimachia nummularia ‘aurea’) (see photo d) – luminous yellow-green leaves (prefers moist soil but very tolerant of drying out once established; in damp areas it can become invasive).lamb’s ears (• Stachys byzantina) (see photo E) – soft silver leaves.Arctotis • sp. (see photo F) and Gazania sp. (see photo G) – large colourful flowers, good plants for hot, dry spots. Geranium • ‘Johnson’s Blue’ (see photo H) and Geranium ‘Rozanne’ (which flowers all year round in the auckland Botanic Gardens) – carpeting, blue flowered geraniums.Convolvulus mauritanicus• – grey-green foliage and blue flowers (see photo 5).

2

3

5

4

22 Weekend Gardener

Evergreen edging plants for sunny areas Grass-like plants:

small weeping varieties of carex e.g. orange leafed • Carex testacea and light green Carex ‘Frosted Curls’ (see photo 7).Mondo grass sp. from the slow growing black leafed • Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Black dragon’ (see photo J) to the tall green Ophiopogon planiscapus and dwarf Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Kyoto’.sterile, dwarf varieties of agapanthus, blue and white flowered •and the variegated Agapanthus ‘tinkerbell’.dwarf evergreen daylilies e.g. golden flowered • Hemerocallis ‘stella Bella’.

GaRdEn aRtistRY: 1. Mondo grass - Helen and Jeremy Wells’ garden, Rotorua Festival of Gardens 2013. 2. Coprosma ‘Hawera’ - ‘pinelee’ garden, Coatesville, north auckland, Heroic Garden Festival 2012. 3. Echeveria elegans - ‘a la Fois’ garden, Coatesville, north auckland, Heroic Garden Festival 2012. 4. Sedum ‘Gold Mound’ - ‘Where the Wild things are’ garden, new plymouth, taranaki Garden spectacular 2013. 5. Convolvulus mauritanicus - garden designed by Jane Jones, Melbourne Garden designFest 2012. 6. Hebe ‘Wiri Mist’ - van der poel garden, Okato, taranaki Garden spectacular 2013. 7. Carex ‘Frosted Curls’ - ‘nikau Grove’ garden, new plymouth, taranaki Garden spectacular 2013. 8. Ajuga reptans var. - donna and Wayne Busby’s garden ‘stanleigh’, inglewood, taranaki Garden spectacular 2013. 9. Hosta sp. - edging a path in donna and Wayne Busby’s garden ‘stanleigh’, inglewood, taranaki Garden spectacular 2013.

Evergreen edging plants for partly shaded areas:

Bugleweed (• Ajuga sp.) (see photo 8) – creeping blue-flowered groundcover with ground hugging bronze leaves. Ajuga reptans ‘Blueberry Muffin’ is a small leafed variety which is more weather tolerant. lady’s mantle (• Alchemilla mollis) (see photo K) – beautiful soft leaves which trap water droplets.Coral bells (• Heuchera sp.) (see photo l) – neat rosettes of lovely foliage in a range of colours from gold to almost black (these plants thrive on being lifted and divided in late winter (some species will tolerate full sun).silver lungwort (• Pulmonaria ‘silver Bouquet’) (see photo M) – mottled silver-green foliage and pretty flowers.turf lily (• Liriope muscari ‘Royal purple’) (see photo n) – deep purple flower spikes and weeping dark green grass-like foliage.Acorus gramineus• ‘Ogon’ – golden yellow foliaged grass with a cascading habit (don’t let it dry out).two non-evergreen (winter dormant plants) i would particularly •recommended for edging paths in semi-shade are hostas (see photo 9) and the glorious weeping Golden Japanese Forest Grass (see photo O) – Hakonechloa macra ‘aureola’ (semi-deciduous in warmer areas). Check which edging plants are being used in your local botanic •gardens for a guide to what will flourish in your area. Well chosen edging plants will greatly reduce garden maintenance and provide a stylish finishing touch to your garden.

6

7

8 9

Weekend Gardener 23

COllaGE OF spECiEs: A - Coprosma ‘poor Knights’. B - Pimelea prostrata - new Zealand daphne. C - Acaena inermis ‘purpurea’ - purple bidibidi. D - Lysimachia nummularia ‘aurea’ - Creeping golden Jenny. E - Stachys byzantina - lamb’s ears. F - Arctotis ‘Fireball’ - african daisy. G - Gazania ‘takatu Red’ - treasure flower. H - Geranium ‘Johnson’s Blue’. I - Bergenia sp. - Elephants ears. J - Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Black dragon’ - Black mondo grass. K - Alchemilla mollis - lady’s mantle. L - Heuchera ‘dark secret’ - Coral bells. M - Pulmonaria ‘Roy davidson’ - silver lungwort. N - Liriope muscari ‘Royal purple’ - turf lily. O - Hakonechloa macra ‘aureola’- Golden Japanese forest grass.

A

D

G

J

M

B

E

H

K

N

C

F

I

L

O