A recent post

[conuly]

About somebody wanting to replace her clover with grass "for her babies" (we all largely piled on to politely enough say that clover beats grass any day of the week) got me thinking - our huge patch of clover that went from the front to the side of the house is much smaller. The grass is taking over!

So I want to reseed the clover, naturally. And I thought I might put a few patches of other groundcover on the edges here and there, like creeping thyme and whatnot. Can anybody suggest other groundcovers that are attractive (look or smell or feel pretty) *and* that can stand being stepped on often? It's not so much a yard as a creeping path - one day I'll draw a diagram of our house and yard space.

Comments

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

My parents replaced the grass to the side of their house with English ivy. I don't know how it feels to walk on it with bare feet, but it puts up with us tromping on it one a fairly regular basis, and it's a lovely dark green. (It also takes shade and sun equally well, we've found.)

[conuly]

Ivy makes great cover for rats to hide under, doesn't it?

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point. We don't have a significant rat population around here, so I didn't even think about that....

[conuly]

A lot of our neighbors on the other end of the street have ivy for their front yards. (Mixed with honeysuckle and weeds, naturally - I keep sneaking honeysuckle to get the nectar, and the nieces do too now!) I keep shuddering as I look at them, because it goes right up to their porch. In this case the yard goes right up to our *house*, forget the porch, so... no, no thanks.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Honeysuckle is still one of my favourite indulgences. It's one of those I hope I never ever grow out of. :D

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

Ivy is not pleasant to step on barefoot -the stems are VERY woody and hard, and if you have a lot of folks who walk dogs and it's accessible, it appears to be a Preferred Pooping Medium- and it's hard to find the poop to scoop.


Non-blooming Chamomile makes a beautiful grass cover and it's not super hardy, but is really nice. Creeping or Elven Thyme (tiiiiiiny leaves) are also nice - lemon thyme, too, and it's fairly durable. Also smells nice when you step on it.)