Tips for Growing Ground Cover and Vines

Not only do vines and ground cover look good, they are also very practical, too. They will provide extra texture and colour to your garden at the same time as providing vital shelter and shade for other plants. Before buying your vines and ground cover you should decide what it is that you want to get out of them. While ground cover can help blend areas of your garden together smoothly, vines may be more suitable for accenting certain features of your garden, such as trees and trellises.

Growing Ground Cover in your Garden

The inclusion of ground cover in your garden can help to make a space, that may have otherwise been sparse and unexciting, more beautiful. Here are some tips for growing it in your garden:

• Plant it in small pocket-like areas between the roots of trees. These spots are usually easier to find the closer you look to the trunk because roots aren’t so abundant here. The only encouragement it should need to grow is some organic matter, such as compost or manure. After this initial encouragement, the ground cover should just require regular watering in dry weather spells.
• Use landscape fabric instead of plastic as a way of reducing the number of weeds that grow among your ground cover. Landscape planting has small holes that allow air and water to escape, which is an advantage that plastic covering does not have. You should lay this before planting your ground cover: lay it flat, cut holes where you wish to plant the plants and then, after you have planted the ground cover, mulch the area.
• Help ground cover to spread and cover the ground more effectively by layering the stems during the growing process. Layering will encourage each stem to root whilst still connected to its original plant.

Growing Vines in your Garden

Vines are great for accenting the beauty vertically in your garden. They can add colour with flowers, fruit and foliage. Here are some tips to help you grow them best:

• Use vines to create shade in your summer garden by growing them around trellises or arches. The vines will not only provide shade from the sun but will also give your garden a more enchanting look.
• In order to help establish perennial vines you should pin them to a wall or fence. This will provide them with the stability that young vines will lack and will also mean you can manipulate it to grow in the direction that you want it to.
• Use a vine to give beauty to older garden features, such as dead trees or unattractive garden walls.
• Given the somewhat chilly British winter weather, you should opt for the more hardy vine varieties as many of the evergreen sorts are vulnerable to the cold and are likely to wither and die.

Do you have any more tips and advice on what to do with ground cover and vines in your garden? Share your ideas with us in the comments!

[Photo Credit: DominusVobiscum ]