Perennial plants for ground cover
Ground cover perennials are perfect for filling gaps in herbaceous borders or tricky shaded parts of the garden. These low maintenance stalwarts form a spreading carpet of foliage colour and flowers that help cover bare patches of earth, suppress weeds to help make weeding less backbreaking and hold the soil together on banks and slopes to help control erosion. The varieties in this section are low maintenance and will succeed in situations where other plants may struggle. One excellent groundcover perennial grown for its interesting foliage shapes and colours is heuchera. Heuchera are resilient and versatile, evergreen or semi-evergreen perennials available in a variety of vibrant and pastel colours and styles, some with ruffled edges to the leaves, others two-toned with a bold distinctive blotch of contrasting colour in the centre of each leaf. Hosta are another great choice, especially for shaded areas, with large, lush tropical foliage, often two-tone or variegated. Robust, easy to grow and long-lived, hostas produce summer flower spikes held high above the foliage in shades of mauve through to white and go dormant over the winter before bursting into life again from new shoots each spring.