June 6, 2025
Trade in Your Turf for Perennial Groundcovers!
When it comes to traditional lawns, southern Ontario often finds itself in a natural rhythm: snow – mud – green – brown/crispy – green – mud – back to snow again. Those ‘green’ seasons mean the lawnmowers get hauled out for their weekly meals, typically taking over one of your precious days off. Then there’s the seeding, re-seeding, fertilizing, dealing with grass clippings, and, of course, watering. Aren’t lawns supposed to be low maintenance?
But you don’t have to play to the same old rhythm year after year. There are so many other options for your open lawn spaces than just Kentucky Blue or, in many cases, crab grass and dandelions.
Go For Groundcovers Instead of Grass
A groundcover is any low growing and spreading plant, creating a carpet of foliage and flowers, depending on your varieties. Perennial groundcovers are best when it comes to lawn replacement, since they’ll come back year after year and are typically very low maintenance once they’re established. And there are lots of options whether you have dense trees or bright open spaces: Creeping Jenny (Lysmachia) and Japanese Spurge (Pachysandra) love shady areas under trees and hedges, Irish and Scotch Moss prefer part sun areas, and Snow-In-Summer (Cerastium) loves being in full sun to quickly cover areas with lush foliage.
Turn Monotone into Multicoloured
If you’re craving a little colour in your lawn, you’re in luck! Creeping Phlox (Phlox subulata) also known as Moss Phlox, starts off the spring season with its bright, dense carpet of tiny vibrant blooms. Creeping Thyme (Thymus) offers a double hit of fragrant foliage with adorable flowers in early to mid-summer. Then there are all the colour choices found in the Creeping Stonecrop (Sedum) family! Their succulent leaves range from bright chartreuse to dusty purple to deep blood red, and that’s not even touching their vibrant blooms in summer through fall! If you’ve unsure of your shade-to-sun ratio, Carpet Bugle (Ajuga) thrives in a range of light locations with rounded or scalloped foliage available in solid, bicolour, or even tricolour combinations! Bonus: this low grower is so dense it can choke out weeds!
Add a Touch of Perfume to your Pathways
Gardening is about more than just satisfying your eyes – your nose deserves some love, too! Sweet Woodruff (Galium) has the sweetest little white flowers in spring with a light, almost vanilla fragrance. Their whorled green foliage does incredibly well in moist, shady areas so they’re a great choice for low-lying spaces. And did you know that you can grow your own herbal teas? Chamomile (Chamaemelum) does best in hot, dry sites in full sun (once established, of course). The low mat of ferny green foliage has a wonderful fragrance, especially when rubbed against your foot/shoe as you walk by. Plus, those masses of tiny white daisy blooms that cover the carpet in spring and summer can be picked, dried, and made into tea!
Enjoy Some Time in the Shade
Most turf grasses need full sun to thrive, with very few varieties being able to thrive in shady sites. Instead, expand your options and replace your lawns with shade-loving perennials! Deadnettle (Lamium) thrives in any level of shade, be it under trees, large perennials, even under deck stairs! The scalloped green foliage can have frosty, silver, or even gold highlights, with hooded blooms that show up in spring and some varieties will continue to bloom on and off until fall! Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria) is a classic choice for shady sites, with its large leaves, dangling white bell-shaped blooms, and a fragrance that cannot be matched. It’s also perfect for filling in large areas and can even tolerate dry shade after it’s established. Canadian Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) is a native perennial so of course it’s a great choice for shady areas, covering large areas with its soft, kidney-shaped green foliage.
Where Turf Grass Needs to Stay
If you’ve got budding soccer stars in your home, or pets that need to use the outside facilities on a regular basis, then keeping a sizeable patch of turf grass is a good idea. But why not help our pollinator friends between soccer matches and doggy walks? By switching your regular grass seed with White Clover seed, you can grow a tough lawn that offers bees and butterflies a nectar-rich food source to kickstart their spring season as well as give them reliable meals through the summer. It’s also more drought tolerant than traditional turf grasses (once established), can thrive in poor soils, and even chokes out weeds with its dense coverage!
A Few Words About Watering
The average turf grass has a root depth of 4 to 8”, though it can vary depending on the length you keep your grass. Those shallow roots don’t hold a lot of moisture and will need at least an inch or more of water per week to stay lush and green. But during intense summer temperatures, most cities start to enforce water conservation by-laws and limit households to watering their lawns to just once a week. This is where that “brown/crispy” section comes from in the lawn cycle.
Perennials, including groundcovers, can have incredibly deep root systems that seek out and absorb moisture where turf grass cannot reach. And if the groundcover happens to be a drought tolerant variety like Stonecrop (Sedum) or Hen & Chicks (Sempervivum) they can even thrive in the hot, dry summer weather!
Notes: All perennials need at least one full growing year with deep, regular watering before their root systems are fully established. Belgian’s Perennial Centre changes constantly and rapidly with every season; not every variety featured in this article will always be available and/or can sell out quickly depending on demand.
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