The Colorful, Easy To Grow Ground Cover That Will Make Your Flower Beds Pop

Eager to give your flower beds a pop of color? Consider using a flowering ground cover to achieve the vibrancy you seek. In addition to filling in gaps in your garden, ground cover plants can suppress weeds. Bacopa (Sutera cordata) is a good choice if you want a flowering ground cover that will bloom into the fall. This easy-care plant is grown as a perennial in USDA hardiness zones 9 through 11 and an annual in other geographical regions. Bacopa flowers are shaped like stars and come in a variety of hues, including blue and lavender. For warm and bold colors, choose the 'African Sunset' cultivar, which offers reds and oranges on each of its blossoms.

Bacopa excels as a ground cover because it grows quickly and has trailing stems, which like to spread out horizontally. It appreciates spending part of each day in the sun, though it won't complain about a full day. What it will complain about is a lack of watering. When bacopa is feeling parched, it will let you know by wilting. Make sure its soil stays damp, but don't let the plant get waterlogged. When this plant is too wet, it's likely to develop root rot. Bacopa also won't tolerate frost, so plant it when spring temperatures are unlikely to dip below the freezing point.Though bacopa is a little fussy about water and temperature, it isn't that picky about its soil's texture, weight, or pH level. If bacopa's planting site drains water effectively, it's likely to be content.

Bacopa is an ideal ground cover for flower beds for several reasons. First of all, it adds visual interest to your garden by filling its lowest level with blossoms. Second, since it rarely grows higher than 6 inches, it won't upstage your taller flowers. Third, this beautiful ground cover prevents soil erosion as it smothers weeds. Fourth, you don't have to deadhead its flowers, which saves you time and effort. You should, however, trim off dead stems and dispose of dropped leaves to discourage botrytis fungus from attacking it.

As an added bonus, bacopa prefers the same growing conditions as many flowers that may already live in your flower beds. This includes angelonia, petunias, and wax begonias. Generally speaking, it's a good companion for plants that thrive in consistently moist soil with an adequate nutrient supply. Like wax begonias, bacopa is easy to propagate from cuttings. You can also grow it from seed or buy young plants from a garden center. After your new plants are established, feed them a balanced NPK fertilizer such as Covington Naturals 10-10-10 liquid fertilizer every week or two. This will ensure that they have plenty of nutrients throughout their long blooming season.