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Living Pathways

May 24, 2024

ADD DURABLE BEAUTY

To your Landscape

Living pathways are an excellent way to add durable beauty to your landscape. Existing paths can be utilized, or new ones created. These low-growing perennials fill spaces between rocks or bricks and line the edges giving your path a natural look.

Create a New Path

To create a new path, follow these steps.

First, plan your route and mark it on the grass or soil.

Dig down about two inches allowing room for the stones or bricks to lay flat with the soil’s surface. You may want to put down landscape fabric as a weed barrier.

Next layout your stones or bricks in a pattern of your choice, leaving room between them for the pathway plants.

Use sand to keep it level and fill the planting spaces with loose topsoil and you are ready to plant.

Use these attractive, easy-to-grow border plants to define your lawn and landscape edges naturally.

15 Perfect Plats for Paths

Red Creeping Thyme

Red creeping thyme (Thymus praecox) quickly spreads to form a lush carpet of small leaves and vibrant blooms! Soft green foliage is aromatic when touched or crushed.

Hundreds of saturated pink and red flowers add even more fragrance as they bloom in early summer. The flowers are rich in nectar and are a magnet for butterflies. Keep your garden low maintenance with red creeping thyme! It grows densely, crowding out unwanted weeds as it spreads. The only requirement this deer-resistant and hardy ground cover has is a sunny spot with good drainage. Sun

Ajuga Chocolate Chip

Ajuga is a very versatile and attractive groundcover that does well in most any sun situation, loves drought, withstands foot traffic, and flowers gorgeously in the springtime. Violet-blue 3-4″ in height spike in late spring. Zone 4-8. Part Shade

Bellium Miniature Daisy

They look great in rockery gardens, perennial gardens and cottage gardens, as well as wildlife and fairy gardens. If possible, Bellium should be grown at the front of the border, between pavers or along pathways to best admire the adorable flowers and cheery foliage. Sun / Part Shade

Leptinella Squalida

Tiny fern-like textured foliage is tinged black and button-shape, black leaves form a spreading mat that tolerates some foot traffic. Bronze to dark gold flowers bloom in early summer and develop into tiny fruit. Sun / Part Shade

Creeping Jenny

Golden Creeping Jenny is hardy down to Zone 3 and is a fast-growing ground cover plant perfect for paths. It has a small yellow flower in spring-summer and is evergreen in milder climates. Growing 2-4 inches tall and 12-18 inches wide, this pathway plant likes to stay moist. Part Sun / Part Shade

Mentha Corsican Mint

Corsican mint is one of the easiest ground covers to plant and care for. It forms a flat carpet of tiny bright green leaves, is the smallest of mints, and has an intense minty fragrance that will follow you as you walk in the garden. Sun / Part Shade

Irish Moss

Its creeping stems tolerate light foot traffic, and as it grows it creates a dense mat that is not only pleasing to the eye but soft on feet. Partial shade to full sun

Scotch Moss

Scotch moss is not a true moss, but is instead a herbaceous evergreen perennial that blankets the ground with hardy, dense mats of 1- to 2-inch tall plants that each spread 8 to 10 inches wide. Scotch moss blooms with clusters of tiny white flowers in late spring.

Scotch moss has a moderately slow growth rate, and it will take several years to blanket an area unless you plant them quite close together at the start. It is a relatively short-lived perennial that dies out after a few years. However, Scotch moss readily self-seeds, so there’s generally no problem keeping an area carpeted with the signature yellow-green color.

Sun / Part Shade

Sedum Spurium Fulda Glow Stonecrop

Low, spreading sedums form a solid mat of foliage which is excellent for covering slopes or can be planted as a groundcover in sunny, dry areas. They are extremely drought tolerant and many are evergreen. These are terrific low-maintenance plants that always look their best. Sun / Part Sun

Sedum Spurium John Creech Stonecrop

Small, scalloped green leaves form a durable, weed smothering groundcover. Small pink flowers create a layer of color over the lush carpet of foliage. Foliage and stems develop deep burgundy tones as cooler temperatures arrive. A fine selection for spotting in rock walls and rock gardens, or containers. Semi-evergreen. Sun / Part Sun

Trifolium repens atropurpureum

Easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Prefers moist soils in light shade, but tolerates full sun and dryish soils. Spreads aggressively by creeping stems.

Trifolium repens, commonly called white clover, is a dwarf, prostrate, mat-forming perennial which typically grows to 4″ tall and spreads to 12″ or more by stems which freely root along the ground at the nodes. Features trifoliate (3-parted), rich green leaves and globular, white flowers which bloom in late spring.

Sedum Spurium John Creech Stonecrope

Fine moss-like yellow-green foliage with tiny white flowers from May to June. Sun / Part Sun

Trifolium repens atropurpureum

This wonderful selection of the common creeping clover makes a handsome edging, or pathway groundcover plant. Foliage is three or four-leaved, dark purple-black with a green margin. White flowers appear briefly in early summer. A very nice filler plant in tubs or mixed containers. Part Sun / Shade

Veronica liwanensis

Turkish speedwell is one of our showiest blue-flowered groundcovers native to the mountains of Turkey. Spreading stems of evergreen foliage root as they spread across the soil and cover themselves with bright blue flowers in late spring. Sun/ Part Shade

Veronica Repens Sunshine

An excellent small-area ground cover, or rock garden perennial; forms a flat carpet of tiny golden-yellow leaves, producing small white flowers in late spring; great between flagstones or as a base in containers. Sunshine Creeping Speedwell is smothered in stunning white flowers at the ends of the stems in late spring. Its tiny round leaves emerge yellow in spring, turning gold in color the rest of the year. Part Sun / Part Shade

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