Ground Floors

They are tiny, understated and barely a few inches above the ground, but don’t mistake their simple demeanor for meekness, they will take charge of a full area if left to their own devices: crawlers, ramblers and ground covers have the most aggressive spreading habits of the whole plant world. Everybody who has grown bugle weed, lily turf, creeping Jenny or periwinkles knows what I’m talking about.
Many of these plants spread by runners, which makes them relatively difficult to contain, but also, fortunately, many of them are adapted to grow in special conditions where they don’t encounter a lot of competition, and that makes them great choices for dry shade, rock gardens, woodland gardens and xeriscapes.

I have a list of favorites I wouldn’t want to do without, invasive or no, because the garden wouldn’t be the same without them: - sweet violets, the joy of April’s borders; they form carpets of cheerful flowers that brighten up the landscape when it’s barely awake and still shivering from the cold
- plumbago with their abundance of electric blue flowers at the beginning of fall
- grape hyacinths, just dreamy in a rainbow array of cool hues that run the gamut from pure white to indigo. - moss roses, don’t even need to explain those
- last, but not least, mosses, chamomile lawns and creeping thyme, which turn flagstone paths and hard stone patios into romantic fragrant retreats.