The Best Ground Covers for a Sunny Area

Flowering Ground Cover Plants

• Flowering plants such as Candytuft, Stonecrop and the mock strawberry plant all provide solid ground cover and abundant colorful flowers when planted in full sun. The strawberry plants offer the added benefit of producing edible fruit. These plants all produce flowers in the spring months. The Memorial Rose is another flowering plant good for ground cover. Unlike the others, however, it does not normally bloom until later in the summer.

Non-Flowering Foliage Ground Covers

• Foliage ground cover can often thrive in both full sun and shady areas. Foliage plants can provide extensive coverage and generally maintain a consistent appearance throughout the growing season. Many juniper varieties do very well in full sun and offer a range of textures and plant height to suit different landscape styles. Several of the creeping plants, including Wintercreeper and Cinquefoil, have large lustrous green leaves and can also climb in an ivy-like fashion to cover slopes or nearby rock outcrops. Most of these offer the added benefit of providing year-round coverage.

Deciduous Ground Covers

• Some deciduous plants can also be used as ground cover in sunlit areas. However, since they do not offer full coverage outside, their growing seasons, they may not be the best choice for sloping or erosion-prone areas. For smaller flat areas, day lilies provide showy, colorful flowers throughout the summer months but do not provide much cover in the fall and winter.

Shrubs and Bushes

• Many of the plants already discussed are low-lying, wide-spreading ground covers. Shrubs and bushes offer another option for full-sun areas needing coverage. They are planted more widely apart than the lower-lying plants and do show more "open" space than other ground covers but are well-suited to sites needing taller or more substantial plants to fill the area. azaleas and dwarf holly are good choices, as are plants from the cotoneaster family; the latter produces bright red berries in the cooler months.