High traffic ground cover suggestion

Hello,

This spring we plan on putting in stepping stones to take care of a muddy walkway. I want something other than grass to fill in between the stones. Does anyone have any suggestions? It is a high traffic area. Mostly shady. In zone 5.

Thanks,
Jennifer

How about Corsican mint? It even smells good when you walk on it!

Ajuga grows well in the shady areas I have....cannot kill it!

Ohhh.... I like the Crosican Mint idea. I'll have to look into that one more.

I think the Ajuga might grow too tall for what I would like in that spot.

It might......I also like Crater Blue veronica, but that might need sun.

great ideas on Stepables...you can plug in your exact requirements and will give you suggestions http://www.stepables.com/default.asp

Oh my! There we so many ideas on the Stepables website. The one that would work best for me would be the Scottish or Irish Moss. And there's a place near me that carries them. As soon as the weather warms, I'll have to check them out. Thanks for the idea.

i have both scottish moss and iris moss between some stones walkways to my pond - they filled in great

I have Mother of Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) between my stepping stones. It smells nice but gets brown in the winter. (Of course that didn't matter this winter because it was buried under several feet of snow!)

DonShirer,

How much sun does your Mother of Thyme get? I was origionally looking at thyme but worried that it wouldn't get enough sun in my spot.

Jennifer

Most of it gets 8 hours of sun (on sunny days!), but there is a section that is shaded by bushes to the SE and only gets maybe 4 hours of sun each day and seems to be doing just as well as the rest. I also have some regular thyme outlining the path, but while it looks ok, it grows a little too high to walk on comfortably.

BTW, I tried Irish moss and found that after two years it died out in the center leaving a sparse ring that didn't look appealing.

I got the very low growing thyme but it has trouble establishing in tougher conditions without a lot of organic base and full sun. I also use sedums a lot for all tough areas and they fill in fast.