Groundcover in patio

Following Pixie's lead, I'm looking for advice. In my soon to be created flagstone patio, I would like to interplant some groundcover to soften the gaps, probably more so at the outer edges, less in the main traffic areas. In the past I have had abysmal luck with this idea. I don't know if it is because I don't water enough, have too much sand and not enough soil, or what. I've usually tried various creeping thymes, creeping pennyroyal, even some low sedums - they all eventually are overrun with grass and weeds. Perhaps I've not given them enough attention/water to get properly established. I will try to do better this go-round. The surrounding area will be planted in mostly natives, leading onto a hillside meadow, so I'm after a pretty natural casual look. In my experience, thyme gets kind of scrappy in the winter. Evergreen is preferable, or something that dies completely back in winter so it doesn't look like a weed patch. A native would be great, and I will research that in my trusty Kruckeberg book. Any ideas?

Here are some ideas from Kruckeberg - anyone have any experience with any of these:

Dryas sp. - mountain avens. It is a native, evergreen, ground hugger, grows in rocky areas.

Erigeron sp - subalpine daisies or fleabanes. Sunny, rock gardens, grow easily from seed. E. peregrinus, E. compositus, or E. poliospermus.

Silene acaulis - moss campion or catchfly.

In your trials of creeping thymes have you tried woolly thyme? That's the only one I've had success with and it holds its look over winter much better than the other thymes. I have not watered it at all.

I'm also weighing a similar decision and think that's the direction I'm going to go.

Kym, I agree that the woolly version of thyme is the better looking through winter, just not sure if I want such a gray look. I'll have to wait until the flagstone is set to see what the colors look like. The particular stone I got is a soft blue/green with swirls of rust and some really pretty violet splotches running through it as well. The boulders are granite, kind of salt/pepper but not real pronounced, and they also have some rust accents.

I have a bit of aversion to the rust, as our water has a lot of iron in it and I fought that solid orange look for years before we broke down and got a water treatment system (no sparkling white diapers for me...) but am OK with small amounts of it.

Makes sense. The stone I'm working with is much more on the rose/tan end of the spectrum so the gray works; but you're probably wanting something more chartreusey to really pop. Sedum 'Angelique' creates a massive, evergreen & weed-defying mat of greeney-yellow at my place, but it might be too tall for what you're looking for. I have a gravel border with that Sedum interplanted with creeping phlox. I'm also mixing in delosperma (ice plant), but again that heads in the grayish direction.

My neighbor put in a flagstone path with about a million different groundcovers about two years ago. I'm not enamored with the look of all the different plants mixed together, rather patchy and not very cohesive, but I'll do some strolling and looking at what is thriving this time of year and see if anything jumps out as filling the bill.

Will report back :)

Hi, this is a plant that I really like-it might work for you-I bought it locally for quite a lot less than PDN, though.

http://www.plantdelights.com/Herniaria-glabra-Sea-Foam-PP-15989-Perennial-Striped-Rupturewort/productinfo/7143/

Here is a pic of my patio interplanted with woolly thyme. I guess it is kind of a gray look, but the reddish stems show a bit more in winter. I took this pic this morning. So the green is coming back. There is a small chance that it may be covered in pink flowers in a month. (Which will be gorgeous to look at, but could be a bit treacherous to walk on with the bees.) As of this summer, the thyme will be two years old. It filled in nicely. Here is what we (and the landscapers who helped) did:

We ran drip tubing in parallel between all of the pavers, embedded under the sand. I would say that is the number one secret to success when interplanting a patio---it does need water. The parallel provides enough water to seep into the perpendicular spaces and water the whole thing. Believe it or not, the thyme is planted directly into SAND only, under which there is a gravel layer. No soil. I ran the drip water almost every day last july and August to get it established. 3 and 1/2 inch plants were cut in half with scissors and spaced every 6 inches. Woolly thyme was chosen because it is widely available, cheap, and the patio is huge.

Close-up of the thyme as it looks today, April 2.

Another thought, and I know this is at least somewhat native is Antennaria (various varieties) -pink pussy toes.
http://www.google.com/search?q=pink+pussytoes
It does seed itself around (readily) but because of that you wouldn't need to feel bad about walking all over it..... it's quite cute when blooming but soft and gray-blue when it's not.


Kosk, beautiful patio!!

I'm trying to think if I've ever grown moss campion. It sounds familiar and it sure is cute-and from this description sounds like it might be great for a patio edge:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/moss-campion.htm

I really like the wooly thyme in my patio. I also have other creeping thymes, and while they do get somewhat scrappy, I appreciate the differing bloom times and colors. The only one that did not work at all was a variegated one thaty was much slower growing and became swallowed up by the others.

I also have used blue star creeper, Pratia pendunculata, which is also called Laurentia (don't know which is the current name). It does eventually get some weeds, but I think almost anything will get some windblown seeds sprouting in it. It is very pretty. There is a lighter blue variety and also a white one. It needs a little more water than the thyme.

I have a miniature daisy, Bellum minutum, a very short groundcover for part shade planted between shrubs. It is very pretty and is supposed to take some foot traffic. I don't know how it would do between pavers, but if you have any areas near shrubbery on your patio it might be helpful to know about.

Brass Buttons, whose latin name escapes me at the moment, is a very cute tiny little fern like plant. It tends to look better in the Spring and not so great in the Summer though.

Steppable ground covers that I have tried between pavers and did not work at all are: Sandwort (Arenaria montana) because it needed a lot more moisture than I was willing to pour on a patio. Hypericum empetrifolium nanum which could not take the heat and got hopelessly interweed planted with shotweed that was almost impossible to distinguish in order to remove. Corsican mint (did not like the environment, but self seeds into the surrounding beds for a nice little good-smelling surprise here and there.

Ah yes, Corsican mint. The plant that comes to my yard to die.

You could be pleasantly surprised Kymmco, at some later date, to find Corsican mint somewhere you did not plant it. I thought mine had finally died after a long suffering summer where I had situated it between stepping stones. That one was indeed a goner, but I found a little patch of it under a shrub 10 feet away, and now it pops up, and sometimes later disappears, here and there, never know where.

Was just cruising the New Arrivals on Bluestone's site and saw a cute little guy that might work with your spot: Anacyclus pyrethrum Garden Gnome (aka Mount Atlas Daisy). The description says

"Long blooming and drought tolerant - perfect near a rock or tucked into tight spots. White daisies have red on the reverse and face upward through the summer. Can be used as a groundcover or along walkways; dense foliage is chamomile-ferny in texture."

And the picture shows the unopened daisies which are really red mingling with the open white and yellow - very striking.

Kym, that does look inviting. I'm actually leaning toward a daisy like groundcover, which I think will play off the rock well. Also considering mountain avens (dryas) if I can find it, native and evergreen.

Went back through the thread and picked up on great ideas. I'm thinking I will keep the plantings more toward the edges so it kind of softens the patio edge and blends in to the planting areas. I'll likely head out to the nursery with list in hand to check on availability and what things actually look like. Maybe buy one or two of different plants before deciding on a mass purchase. I'm with you, Kym, not too fond of the mish-mash look that your neighbor has created, I think I'll lean toward the same plant repeated throughout for cohesiveness. Once the flagstone is all laid, I can dig out some of the sand, rough up the crushed rock a bit (it's been compacted pretty hard), and add in some soil for my planting pockets. Thanks for all the good ideas. I'll continue picking your brains as this project progresses.

Has anyone grown Cerastium alpinum ssp lanatum 'Alpine Mouse Ears'? I saw that Lowe's has six-packs of it in their groundcover section today, and loved the fuzzy miniature-ness of it, but decided to go home and Google it before bringing it home.

Turns out it's an alpine version of snow-in-summer. Anyone had any experience with it good or bad?

Well, that's just adorable and I would try it! Fuzzy, short, and cute. How can you lose?
Just discovered the thread, so I have to go out to the patio and see what lives.

Making a list of the above ideas for a nursery run. So happy one of 'the boys' came by and set up my computer screens so I can have two things going on at once. I'm sure this was fairly easy, but my laptop was set to synchronize with my desktop screen and I was clueless how to change that...hence my on-line moniker. Anyway, I am now scrolling through this thread on one screen and making notes in Word on another. So much more efficient! Duh.

Ah, the wisdom of youth. Yes, that is much easier!
The only thing that is thriving between the cement stones of my patio is New Zealand sedge, which I did not plant there. I guess it loves limey sand. I have the variegated variety and a bronze variety. These are the ones that look like mopheads, but short. I kind of like the way they look all scattered between the stones, so I let them be. Why fight with them when they so clearly are happy there?

As it turns out, most everything on my list I was "too early" for -- the nurseries will not get them in until later. I'm thinking I should probably figure out what I like (somehow) and order up some seed. Several on the list are termed 'easy to grow from seed' which is encouraging.