New groundcover

I live in Riverside, California -- mid-way between Los Angeles and Palm Springs -- where the summer temperatures often exceed 100 degrees.

I have a 30' by 20' garden containing about a dozen roses and other shrubs. Years ago, I planted gazanias as a groundcover. For the first few years, the gazanias looked great: luxurient growth with continuous flowers and full-coverage. But, since then, the gazanias have become unattactive: sparse, lanky and gangly growth with few flowers.

I'd like to replace the gazanias with a different groundcover that has attactive foliage, that flowers more-or-less continuously and has full-coverage.

What are good candidates?

Reply to
GARY
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While there are evergreen groundcovers that will fill that area nicely, there are few that are everflowering. According to my copy of Sunset's "Western Garden Book", Riverside is borderline between zones 18 and 19. In those zones, consider:

Persica capitata (pink clover). The leaves are somewhat colorful, turning bright red (but remaining on the plant) with winter frosts. It repeatedly has small, pale pink flowers resembling clover flowers. Under the right conditions (especially with part shade in your area), this can grow vigorously or even invasively.

Pontentilla neumanniana (cinqufoil). Dark green leaves. Occasional small, bright yellow flowers. Resembles strawberries in its growth pattern. Slower growing than P. capitata, but this too can become invasive.

Iberis sempervirens (candytuft). Not invasive at all with somewhat an open pattern of growth. Very low but upright growth. Covered with tiny white flowers in the spring and sometimes again in the summer or fall.

Instead of a ground cover, also consider Cuphea hyssopifolia (false heather) planted close together to form a single mass. This is an evergreen subshrub, growing only a foot high. Mine are covered with flowers all year long. I have scattered plants of this with white flowers and a mass planting with dark pink (almost purple) flowers. One year, frost burned some of these. On a single plant, half was obviously burned; but the other half continued to bloom through the winter.

You might also consider mixing two or more of the above. My mass planting of C. hyssopifolia has both P. capitata and P. neumanniana growing through it. In one area of my garden, P. neumanniana is growing under my I. sempervirens.

Reply to
David E. Ross

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