About Emma Dutch Expertise I am finishing my horticulture degree, in the final year. My thesis is about the history and restoration of rock gardens but I am willing to answer any horticulture question as best I can.
Question I am an artist who loves to "paint" with color in my garden but I bought a home with a huge hill (45 degree angle straight up) with nothing but rocks and boulders that haven`t been touched in 50 years. I spent all spring playing "Mountain Girl" and cleared all the underbrush and trees except for the large oaks and birch (about 8). I filled the town chipper truck! I also bagged 40+ bags of leaves (and still have mulch left!) and removed MOST of the poison ivy (my arms will attest to that). I`ve dug two beds and added soil for two climbing rose bushes (I`m hopeful!) and other plants (dianthus, some bulbs, annuals, etc.) and I`ve nursed some native ferns. I`ve planted some stonecrop, tri-color sedum, and some really nice lamium with silver-green variegated leaves and lilac flowers (Red Nancy). It is really hard to get plants going but I am determined. Any advice on plants, especially colorful ones, that might thrive in this environment would be appreciated. I MOSTLY need a low, vigorous ground cover that doesn`t bore me. Thanks so much!
Answer Hi Maria,
Sounds like you've been extremely busy in the garden. I live in the U.K and we luckily for us don't get poison ivy here, I hope your arms are getting back to full health now :-)
It does sound like you've got an interesting garden.....a 45 degree slope, many rocks and boulders, I'm guessing areas of sun and shade thanks to those trees.....I'll start by trying to suggest some plants suitable for different areas,and see where I end up.
Around the base of the trees, or any place where its a bit damp and shady you could plant hostas. Though these can be susceptible to slug damage, they have beautiful large leaves, and are quite low growing in general. Variegated forms are particularly eye catching, especially in dappled shade where the sun comes through and catches the light edges of the leaves. Berginias also have large foliage and will grow happily in sun or shade. They are also evergreen and produce small spikes of pretty pink or white flowers in early summer and spring. Both these plants are perennials and are easy to divide and the berginia in particular makes for good ground cover.
I can't speak highly enough of nasturtiums as ground cover plants. Foliage is green or marbled, flowers range from a cream colour to the deepest red imaginable and on most plants the flowering season is long, with many flowers on a single plant. Also you can collect the seed to replant next season. You can get trailing forms, climbing forms, dwarfing and clump forming varieties....I plant climbing forms in the ground and let them ramble, last year I had a think chain of flowers and foliage which must have been six foot long. An added bonus is that the flowers smell beautifly sweet and you can eat the flowers and leaves in salads. They taste peppery.
A good spring bulb which has a tendency to go crazy as ground cover is cyclamen, particularly cyclamen coum, a small pink and purple flower and green and silver foliage. It enjoys the shade and looks great as a carpet of colour under a tree.
As a change in texture you might like to think about using grasses in small clumps, they come in a range of colours and sizes, some quite fine and feathery, others with think waxy looking leaves.
Herbs can also be a good addition to the garden. Sage and lavendar spread like fury and can be cut back every year to keep them under control or rejuevenate growth. Sage comes in purple, variegated, yellow and green forms and both this and the lavendar smell wonderful in the evenings. The lavendar is particularly attractive to bees and butterflies, and the scent of both of these plants tends to keep away slugs and snails. Marigolds possess this repelant property too.
If you are looking for ground cover to carpet a large area then Ivy may be the answer. Not poison of course. A blanket of green glossy leaved Ivy can look quite impressive growing around a tree, just be careful not to let it grow up the trunk.
Not strictly groundcover since they grow to two feet in height, but impressive none the less, are poppies and nigella. The poppies come in a range of colours including lilacs, purples, vivid electric blue, orange and red and spread readily. Nigella has the most delicate feathery foliage and is an extremely resiliant, long flowering plant with colours of white, pink, blues and purples, all light pastel shades. Both of these plants have the added bonus of pretty seed heads once the plants have died. These seeds can be collected and planted and the seed heads used for dried flower displays. Nigella also tend to make excellent cut flowers. Plants like these I feel are best used in bold drifts of colour around the edge of the garden. Around my greenhouse I grow nigella with fennel plants, because the feathery foliage of the two are similar and the yellow flowers of the fennel towering above the dainty pastel flowers of the nigella creates a nice contrast.
So for now I'll leave things there....please ask anything else you would like to know, I would look forward to answering any more queries you might have, your description of your garden was so detailed and a pleasure to read.
I hope I have been of some help, thank you for your question, and my apologies in taking so long to get back to you,
