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Step It Up

Cover your ground with lush little creepers that don't mind feeling the occasional boot

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JULIE NOTARIANNI Cover your ground with lush little creepers that don't mind feeling the occasional boot

GARDENING IS ALL about covering the ground. Fortunately, we can choose many ways to green things up besides lawn. Think of Japanese gardens with quiet stretches of cushy moss, or Italian gardens with herbs springing up between stone paving to soften the formal lines. Groundcovers bring blossom, texture and scent to the garden, and they keep down weeds. When the lawn is all crisp and brown toward the end of summer, drought-tolerant ground covers add a welcome note of lush green and flower to a heat-stressed garden.

There's a whole new category of plant called steppables. Yes, this is a marketing concept, but it's a convenient short-hand way to refer to low-growers that tolerate foot traffic. Perhaps most steppables aren't ideal for a croquet lawn, but they offer more than the emerald-green perfection that is such a drain on time, energy and water.

One of my favorite creepers is woolly thyme (Thymus pseudolanuginosus), which has hairy, gray-green leaves that form a dense carpet dotted with pale pink flowers. It loves heat and drought, shows no ill effect if you step on it, and grows in just enough to blur the edges of pavers or stepping stones without covering them up.

Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) is a highly fragrant steppable, with tiny, round, bright-green leaves and purple summer flowers. When you step on it, Corsican mint releases a blast of lively fragrance.

It's worth a trip to the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island (www.bloedelreserve.org) just to take a look at the tapestry of overlapping ground covers in the Japanese garden. You'd never think plants that grow only a few inches tall could be so colorful and highly textural that simply coating a mound with them would make a distinctive landscape feature. While some groundcovers carpet the earth, others are as tall as knee-high. Think of hiking in the woods where Oregon grape and salal brush against your calves as you wind along the forest trail. Taller plants like ferns, ornamental grasses and sedums add fluff and dimension to the garden while doing the job of covering the ground.

Stone or pavement never looks as charming as when its edges are softened in green. Because we all are looking for spots to squeeze in a few more plants, check out your garden for cracks, crevices and crannies. Gravel surfaces, spaces between pavers or stones can be colonized by sweet alyssum or a tumble of nasturtiums. Even though such hardscapes are the unchanging part of the garden, they, too, can be made to reflect seasonality by tucking a few California poppies in any stray gap, sticking an annual portulaca or two between stones in a wall, or priming rocks with buttermilk to encourage a fuzz of moss in the rainy season. Hardscapes can look too harsh, clean-edged, massive or even raw without a haze of green around them to create a more comfortable, organic feel.

For successful planting in gaps or around pavers, loosen the soil and scratch in some compost. Make sure you have at least 5 inches of softened soil; you can stick in a chopstick or pencil to gauge the depth of the dirt. Starting with seed allows the plants to develop their roots well within the limited space; if you start with plants, choose the smallest possible. It's OK to shoehorn plants in — just treat their roots gently and water thoroughly. Hand-pull weeds until the plants have become well-established; a lack of competition from weeds will help them take hold and spread quickly.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Julie Notarianni is a Seattle Times news artist.