Filling in the Cracks

Hardscaping is any manmade structure built for practical purposes that also adds beauty to your yard - like walkways, walls and fences. These hard surfaces look even better when ‘softened’ with plants. Walkways are particularly well suited for planting with low growing, creeping plants.

Instead of filling the spaces between bricks and stones with mortar, some homeowners prefer to use a sandy mixture and plant rooted plugs to grow and spread. Tucked in six to eight inches apart, firmed well, and watered, these plants will form an attractive mat within a few years. It’s an easy matter to snip away portions to expose more of the hard surface if desired.

Depending on what plants you choose, you can also enjoy a carpet of colour and/or fragrance as in the case of many of the creeping thymes.

Thymus serphyllum or creeping thyme, has a rich mediterranean bouquet and can have flowers ranging from white to pink or shades of purple. Full sun will bring out the most flowers.

They say the more chamomile is trod upon, the more it spreads, so you can’t go wrong using this in high traffic areas. It has small, white, daisy-like flowers and a delicious apple fragrance.

Pennyroyal is borderline hardy here but I’ve had good luck with it returning each year and the smell is one of the best of all mints. It grows easily from seed so it’s possible to sow this right in place.

While researching this topic I found a good website for viewing many of the varieties suitable for “crevice planting” at www.stepables.com. The site gives you a good idea of what the leaves and flowers of many varieties look like.

Other attractive plants for using between steppingstones include dianthus deltoides (maiden pinks), veronica repens (creeping speedwell) and lysimachia (creeping jenny).

For shady areas try Leptinella (brass buttons), sagina (scotch moss) and ajuga (bugleweed).

To keep your pathway plants vigorous and healthy, water them once or twice during the growing season with a water-soluble fertilizer. You will need to pay attention to weeding in the first year or two until the plants become established and grow thick enough to crowd out most weeds.