Sunday, July 4, 2010

Ground Cover

We moved into out beautiful home in October. Our house has a hill in front of it that isn't ideal for growing grass. It is a pain to mow (which hubby has to do as I am allergic to grass) and John was noticing that were were getting run-off on the sidewalk after it rained.

Hubby talked to one of the master gardeners at the farmer's market and came up with a plan. We would replace the grass on the hill with ground cover. This started a slow experiment for us that has yet to be even half way completed. Ground cover plants aren't cheap and they need time to establish themselves and spread. However, after seeing how difficult it was to build a rough retaining wall in the back of our house, I have given up on dreams of a 2-set retaining wall in the front of the house (with a rose garden on the first plateau) and am starting to embrase the grownd cover. This year we even decided to spead it out a bit after I took the pictures. Keeping my fingers crossed that in the next 5 years we can transform the whole front hill of our house into hearty, drought resistant ground cover. Who knows if we will ever get there? I just know that this project has grown on me.

Front of our house. Grass on one half; ground cover on the other. Which side do you like best?

Here is what came up naturally this spring. It looks pretty space. However, the plants have spread out and we have expanded it and filled in a lot of the spaces since then:
Some close-ups of the different plants. I really think it is pretty to get a wide variety of plants and textures:



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