LOTS OF PLANTS

Hi Folks,
I am trying to plant a sloped area in front of my home. I am pulling weeds and putting in some rocks(not too close together and not too far) I found some native groundcover plants in my area and am using those too. But, I need lots of plants for the area. I also divided some yellow sedum I already had, Where can I buy a large quantity of groundcover plants and not pay a fortune. After reading the watchdog site I am afraid to order from some of the mail order catalogs. Should I take a chance? Where else can I find cheap groundcover plants? Thanks in advance. I am new to Dave's garden..what a tremendous site!!!! But the way, I live in northeast Pa.

There are plenty of good places in Watchdog--when you do a search for companies, you can choose to sort the results by rating, then the best ones will show up first. There are some bad places that you should be afraid to order from, but there are lots of good ones that you can feel perfectly safe with.

I did a search for you for places that sell vines & groundcovers, and sorted it by company rating, there are plenty of good places there.
http://davesgarden.com/gwd/advanced.php?state=xx&country=XX&category=49&search_text=&sorter=rating&submit=Search

For large quantities, you may be better off going to local nurseries or home centers and getting flats of groundcover there, mail order will give you a better selection of plants, but will probably cost you more for what you're looking for.

thanks so much for your reply. I was wondering if any one ordered from Ebay. They have some ground cover in bulk.

Just like anywhere else, there are good and bad on Ebay so without knowing the seller you're thinking of it's hard to say whether they're OK or not. If you post the name of the seller you're considering maybe someone around here has bought from them and can comment.

Another possible route is to plant some now, sheet mulch the rest, then get seeds for the desired plants and germinate them inside in late winter/early spring to be transplanted once it is warm enough.

You can also sheet mulch with newspaper and cedar mulch, and try to plant smaller/younger plugs than the 3-4" pots. This is something to consider even for larger potted plants to hold down weeds while your ground cover fills in, but it allows you to plant smaller plants that cost less, but take more time to fill in. You just punch a hole in the sheet mulch and plant them. I know of several native plant nurseries who sell plugs at a cost of $0.75 - $1.50 or so. They all are rated in the garden watchdog section. E-mail me to let me know what you are looking for, & I might be able to point you in the right direction.

A third route that will work only if you don't mind what the beds look like this year, is to plant an annual cover crop that you mow before it goes to seed. You can then use seed or plugs of perennial ground covers, which are cheaper than 3-4" pots. The perennials come back, but the annual cover crop does not allowing your younger, less expensive ground cover time to fill in. Since this is a front yard, it is probably too visible to go this route, but I thought I'd mention it in case.