Welcome to Florida, summer and the hot summer sun! We all love to keep our landscaping looking beautiful and you can do that with mulch, stone and a variety of ground cover plants that actually thrive in our climate.
A colorful ground cover that flourishes in hot, full sun is the ice plant, which rocks quarter-sized star-shaped blossoms in vibrant pink, red, orange or yellow. These are also great for erosion, as they can spread up slopes, across stones and creep into rocky crevices.
Here’s something you may not have considered for ground cover…herbs, especially those that smell nice! Lemon balm offers a lush green appearance and is not only edible, it deters insects!
Looking for a low-maintenance fast spreading ground cover? Try creeping lilyturf, which looks like tall grass with purple flower spikes that bloom in the late summer and can simply be mowed on a high blade setting to keep them looking fresh.
How about a great ground cover for planting around trees? Bigroot cranesbill is a hearty, thick root, drought tolerant partial to full sun to part shade. Bright magenta flowers late spring to early summer are an added bonus for pollinators…and you!
If you like variation, try chokeberry, which provides tiny white clusters of flowers in the spring that transform into berries in the late summer months. Birds love this ground cover which can tolerate any soil from wet, to dry, to rich or rocky.