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TEN Ground Covers for Weed Control +2019 May Urban Garden/Edible Landscape Tour Albopepper Walk-thru - YouTube
Channel: AlboPepper - Drought Proof Urban Gardening
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Hi YouTubers.
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I'm Al Gracian from Albopepper.com.
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If you're new to my channel, I'd like to extend
a big welcome to you.
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Today we're going to look at ten ground covers
that I'm using here on my lot, including some
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edible ones.
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Just a couple common sense quick tips when
it comes to keeping weeds at bay.
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I'll show you those cardboard applications
that I've been doing selectively on my site.
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How those have been working out.
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And where I've been doing them.
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In general, we'll do a nice walk through so
you can see how things have been shaping up
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on my site, here Zone 6, Western PA at the
latter part of May.
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Here we are at the corner of my lot.
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And what I want to do is just show you like
my outer perimeter first.
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You may remember this edge along here on my
video about landscape fabric and using sheet
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mulching with cardboard.
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This was very badly overgrown with weeds.
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But now, look at what I've been able to do,
laying down some cardboard, putting mulch
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on top, suppressing the initial weeds.
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And then after that, it was easy to maintain.
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And so I'm trying to fill this in with some
ground covers.
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I'll talk more about this ground cover in
a little bit.
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I try to have as many herbal things, edible
things.
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These are fruiting, berry type of things that
we have here on this edge.
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This is very densely planted so there's really
no room in this spot for any significant weeds
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to come in.
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And as we come along this edge here, this
is that walkway where people have their dogs,
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trying to take them out.
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Want to keep them away from my edibles like
these black currants and so I built this nice
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little ornamental edging, this fence here,
to keep, keep the dogs from trying to pee
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all over my, my berries, right.
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And I've used a ground cover here, which I'll
be talking about to make everything fill in
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quickly and keep out those weeds as well as
I can.
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Yeah there'll be some little stragglers in
between some of these open spots.
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But as that fills in, there's more and more
competition and less and less room for anything
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to really take hold.
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We have more ground cover here in this bed.
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And you can see this opens up to my inner
yard here, where we have a mixture of some
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ornamentals, but mostly all of our edibles.
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Perennial things and annual things.
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Every year these berries, the blueberries
here, like these perennials get bigger and
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bigger.
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And it gets more and more exciting, seeing
everything really fill in.
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You can see some of the infrastructure I have
here for my annuals.
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But behind there, I have a backdrop with,
you know, peaches, apricots.
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Even these little spots in here in between
these structures, everywhere that I can I
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try to fit anything that I can.
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From place to place, you see these different
ground covers that are being used with different
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measures of success.
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And we're gonna go over all of those.
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But I just want you to see how I've kind of
organized and laid out everything first.
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We have this walkway here.
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There's these little crevices where weeds
would always get, but it's not really happening
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anymore because of this ground cover that
I'm using.
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Same kind of thing here.
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By intentionally allowing something to grow.
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You can fill in those cracks and it just makes
it really hard for anything to take hold.
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Here's my espaliar pear.
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We've got a bed here.
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Here's some plums.
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Everything's been just coming to life, looking
really well.
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What I found to be successful in keeping down
weeds is to just come out regularly.
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Come out often.
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Doesn't have to be a lot of time.
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But just a regular everyday thing, for a little
bit of time.
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Stay on top of stuff.
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What we actually have here is a brick patio
and in between every single brick, it was
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just full of grasses and weeds.
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And, I mean, really tall.
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Completely overrun.
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It just horrible.
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I went with this pea gravel.
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And to lay down and prepare the surface for
the pea gravel, I didn't use cardboard and
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then put pea gravel on that.
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The cardboard break down.
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The pea gravel doesn't.
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So what I did, I laid down plastic.
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So I have 6 mil plastic.
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I put that right overtop of the bricks.
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And then I poured my gravel on top of that.
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That 6 mil plastic doesn't break down.
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Similar with landscape fabric.
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It doesn't break down, and the surface, the
mulching material that you're putting on top
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doesn't break down.
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Neither of those are bio-degradable.
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So a plastic or a landscape fabric goes well
with things like rocks, stones, gravels, even
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like rubber mulches.
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This has been like a very maintenance free
open area.
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And when did I do this?
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I did this in 2011, 2012.
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And so it's held up very much like this for
all that time.
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Well, that's how things are looking here.
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So now let's start talking about those ground
covers.
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Let's get into this list.
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Number one: Creeping Thyme.
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I've shown this on my videos before.
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It's evergreen.
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It stands up pretty well to some foot traffic.
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But it does have limitations though.
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I've found it to be very shade intolerant.
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So if there are plants that are really blocking
out a lot of the sun, expect to see some die
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back as a result.
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And in general, it seems to be prone to some
center die back.
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So it pushes new growth outward from the center
of the plant.
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And then in the middle where the growth initially
started, it tends to be woody and you don't
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see those nice full leaves.
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That growth seems to cycle through and overall,
from season to season, it does pretty well.
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Number two is: Elfin Thyme.
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Very much like the creeping thyme.
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All the same pros and cons, I would say.
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The difference is, elfin thyme seems to be
just a little bit slower to grow.
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The branches don't reach out quite as far.
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So it's tighter.
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It's lower to the ground.
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And those leaves are even smaller than the
regular creeping thyme.
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Number three: Irish Moss.
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Irish moss holds up pretty well to foot traffic.
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It's really great edging along different areas.
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But it does like it to be moist.
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So keep that in mind, that it is drought intolerant.
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And I found that it can be hard to weed.
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If you get like little weeds growing in between
it, it can be a little bit tricky to pull
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those out.
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It is self-seeding though.
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So it can eventually start to fill in an area
pretty nicely.
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In fact, I've even had areas that it's begun
to colonize.
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Areas that I never even put it in.
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And it just has shown up.
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It's done well there and so I've decided to
keep it there.
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Number four: Strawberries.
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Yes, an edible ground cover.
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Normally, we might think of this as something
that we cultivate very vigorously.
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Giving it full sun.
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Spacing the plants perfectly.
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And yeah, that's going to give you your best
harvest of strawberries.
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But, you know, you can squeeze these into
all types of spaces.
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Like under these plums.
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A complete carpet of strawberries.
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Their pretty fast spreading.
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And you've got something that's edible there,
filling in that space.
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You even do have some ornamental options out
there.
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Strawberries, for example, that have pink
petals on them.
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Now if you're gonna put in a strawberry patch,
it is going to take a little bit of maintenance.
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More so than these other types of plants that
we're talking about.
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But I do think it's worth considering as a
very good option.
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Number five.
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Probably my most prevalent ground cover on
my lot, that you've seen in many spots as
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we've gone through: Sedum Stonecrop.
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This likes moist or dry.
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Sun or shade.
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It does very well in rocky soils.
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In crevices.
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And it's excellent in edging.
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Now, it's not that great for walking on, but
if you put it around stones, around pathways,
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so that you're not constantly stepping on
it, I think it does very nicely.
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It is very good at choking out weeds in those
cracks, like cracks in pavement.
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Once that takes over, nothing else seems to
be able to fill in.
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And so I'm very happy with how it's worked
out.
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Number six: Sweet Woodruff.
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I only put this in last year.
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But I've found it to fill in the area very
nicely.
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It likes it to be reasonably moist.
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It can do shade or sun.
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It's rhizomatic, so it has underground stems
that are pretty fast to colonize an area.
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In fact, it may even be a bit invasive.
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So you want to keep that in mind.
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That you don't want to put it into an area
that you won't be able to easily control it.
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I like the fact that it is herbal and it's
also deer resistant.
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So that can be a nice plus if you want to
have it on an outer perimeter, where maybe
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deer might be likely to try to browse.
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Alright let's do a few more edibles.
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Number seven: Lingonberries.
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They spread through rhizomes.
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Mine have been very slow spreading, but they
been happy underneath my blueberries.
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It's nice because they're evergreen and they're
edible.
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Also: Kinnikinnick, Bearberry.
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These are evergreen.
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They're edible.
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The growth tends to be very long and lanky.
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And the branches aren't very quick to root.
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So I've been able to get them to root by manually
layering them, where I've buried the stems
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underground and then they've generated some
roots.
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But the plant doesn't seem to want to do it
on its own.
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Next up.
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Number nine: Arctic Raspberries or Nagoonberries.
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These spread through rhizomes and they make
an edible small raspberry.
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It's amazing because they're very, very low
growing.
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Only a few inches tall.
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And I'm just trying them out in this one spot,
but it seem like they're doing well so far.
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Okay.
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Now for the last plant I want to talk about,
Number ten.
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I haven't even actually used it on my lot
yet.
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I'm still getting it ready.
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Brass Buttons, Leptinella.
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It likes it to be moist.
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It can do shade or sun.
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And it spreads through a rhizomatic process,
with those underground stems.
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This can be a tip to help you out.
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You can start out by just buying one plant.
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I put it in a larger, shallow container.
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Let it fill that in.
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Then I divided the plant and put it into these
additional containers.
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Now I have multiple plants over the course
of a year.
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They've proliferated.
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And I've been able to see how they grow under
different moisture conditions, light levels.
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How they withstand the cold Winters.
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And I found that this plant has passed my
initial tests.
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So I am going to be wanting to integrate it
into my landscape.
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I already have a nice offering of multiple
plants that I can put in to really get an
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area established quickly.
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An additional tip that I want to share is:
Definitely try multiple types of plants.
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Don't just see one and think that's the one
you want for your entire property.
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You've got a lot of things that you may have
going on.
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Fluctuations in temperature and light and
moisture.
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A great reference that I've loved is stepables.com.
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If you head over to that website, stepables
shows some nice photos and it shows all of
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the different characteristics, the strengths
and the weaknesses of so many of these plants
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that we're talking about.
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And of course, many, many more than what I've
shown you here today.
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Alright guys.
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That should do it for today.
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These are just ten creeping perennials or
ground covers that I'm using on my property.
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But there are so many options out there.
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In the comments below, share the ones that
are your favorite and why you like them.
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I appreciate all of your support on my channel.
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Thanks for taking time to watch.
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Please subscribe if you haven't already.
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And as always, Happy Gardening!
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