I am looking for a ground cover to plant with Daylilies, it must cover quickly, fill in fast and block out the sunshine to the weeds in the Full Sun!
Any Ideas?
Ground Cover
I have been experimenting with ground covers for the same reason, and have reached a conclusion. Some of them are very effective at controling weeds, but what happens is the grass sends its roots under them and develops massive root systems and then at the edge of the ground cover it will send up leaves. It sends up some leaves within the groundcover also. So it kind of does its job, but it's a mixed blessing because those roots that grow under the groundcover are very hard to get out. If you add lots of organic stuff to your dirt so that it's nice and soft it makes a world of difference when you're pulling those roots out.
I have thyme growing around my roses for weed control and I really like it, but it does take nutrients and water from the roses. I also have St. John's wort (the herb) growing around one of my roses. It's a wonderful refreshing green color when everything else is dormant, but it can't take afternoon sun. It will freeze back though. It's about 2-3" tall.
I also have blackfoot daisies growing around another rose. It was blooming even in Aug, loves the sun, needs very little water, and gets about 6" tall.
I hope this helps,
BTW are you coming to the CT RU? Do you want daylilies or groundcovers?
Thanks Silverfluter - I am going to keep looking to see, grass roots are worse then seeing the weeds . . . well maybe not but still bad.
I am going to try to come to the CT RU - would love daylilies and groundcovers, but seeing that we are going to share a ride if we come we are not going to have a lot of room for plants to trade. Pray everything works out right!
Mitch
I think using groundcovers to discourage weeds is a good idea, as long as you keep in mind that the grass roots are still there even though you don't see leaves. And if you use lots of compost etc. when you start the bed, the dirt will be soft enough that you can dig up a lot of the roots surprisingly easy. The dirt around most of my rose beds is so soft, I can pull out 1 foot long roots as much as four inches under the dirt. If the dirt is wet it's even easier.
I don't know if you garden organically or not, but if you do, you will eventually attract earth worms to your beds and they help keep the dirt soft too.
99.999999% organic. I try to do everything I can but there are sometimes when you just have to use soemthing!
I have very hard clay soil!
Mitch
We do use Roundup, but only when nothing else will work. Didn't use that either for a long time, but we talked to Malcolm Beck in San Antonio one day and he told us that if you use Roundup when the weaher is not hot that it will break down quickly to totally harmless things. If you spray when it's hot it remains as Roundup in the soil forever. Malcolm is the guy who started Gardenville in San Antonio and as far as I know still lives next to the Evans Road location. He loves to talk to people about organics, and he can explain this to you a lot better than I can.
He can tell you what to add to clay soil too to make it soft. It's a lot of work but it makes maintenance in the yard so much easier.
At the moment I am just trying to grow everything in raised beds - would loe to see the soil soft and able to use all of it!
Roundup - that is good to know. I will look up that one, I so hope it is true!
Mitch
you might try the Gardenville website. Do a search on Google. It's probably www.gardenville.com