Most of the plants I write about prefer full sun. But what about those of us with shady areas? There must be something out there for us, right?
Outside the new home I’m building with my partner, we have some beautiful rock retaining walls that are in the shade most of the day. I have dreams of lush trailing greens and flowering vines hanging over the rocks. I’ve been trying to find the perfect ground cover for the rocky soil in our climate.
In that light, please enjoy this list of 17 beautiful ground covers for shady areas I’ve researched so you don’t have to. Enjoy!
Why Should You Cover the Ground In Your Garden?
I bet you’ve heard that mulching can help the soil retain moisture, suppress weeds, hold soil in place, and prevent erosion. Well, covering the ground around a shade garden is no different! Grass creeps in fast and is hard to get rid of, so when starting a shade garden, we recommend killing back any grass in the area and starting with a blank slate.
Some plants don’t mind being stepped on, creating a lovely green path, while others do well under patios and along rock walls. Here are 17 of our favorite ground covers that work well in shady areas.
Golden Japanese Stonecrop
‘Ogon’ sedum thrives in full shade, boasts low maintenance, and adapts to various environments.
While most sedums require full sun to partial shade, ‘Ogon’ can tolerate full shade. Grown mostly for its bright gold greenery, it also blooms in the summer with a yellow flower. In the fall, the foliage transitions to a deep reddish-purple.
This unique sedum grows low to the ground, just about three inches tall, forming a dense mat-like cover. It’s perfect for a shady rock garden, around raised beds, or under a patio.
As far as maintenance, Golden Japanese Stonecrop won’t ask much from you. It prefers the soil to remain moderately moist but is also heat and drought-tolerant once well-established.
Bunchberry
This white-flowered ground cover is perfect for cold, wet soils.
If you grow in a colder region, you may sometimes feel limited by your choices for cold, consistently moist soils. Enter bunchberry, which can be found growing even in Alaska. Known commonly as creeping dogwood, dwarf dogwood, bunchberry dogwood, and Canadian bunchberry, this plant makes an attractive, medium-green flowering carpet.
In late spring or early summer, it blooms a cartoon-like white flower featuring four pointed petals with a salt and pepper center, but don’t expect flowers until at least the third year. In late summer, the blossoms form tiny fruits that serve as food for birds.
Bunchberry spreads by underground rhizomes so it expands fairly easily, but should not be planted in a high foot traffic area.
Creeping thyme
This aromatic plant with edible properties attracts pollinators and suppresses weeds.
A ground cover that doubles as an edible herb and smells amazing? Yes, please! Creeping thyme is a gorgeous dark green and, when it blooms in the summer, is covered with small white, pink, or purple flowers.
It’s hardy in zones 4-10, making it a great choice for many growers. Pollinators love it, so be careful where you step in the garden. Creeping thyme grows very densely, and therefore, it’s great for weed suppression. It will also creep through rocks, retaining walls, fences, or pathways, making the name ‘creeping thyme’ very accurate.
Wild Ginger
This groundcover is a hardy, spreading plant that attracts Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies.
An underrated, reliable, and attractive ground cover, wild ginger serves as a food source for the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly. Hardier and larger than its cousin, European ginger, it survives winters down to zone 3. Its glossy leaves are large, dark green, and heart-shaped. You may never see the pendulous flowers that hang beneath the foliage. These are pollinated by crawling insects.
Because it’s a woodland plant, it requires moist, well-draining soil that’s rich in organic matter. It thrives in full shade. Although it has a gingery flavor and aroma, wild ginger is not for consumption and is of a plant family entirely different from the culinary version (Zingiber officinale).
Give wild ginger 1-2 feet of space when planting. The plant spreads via rhizome, creating a dense carpet of foliage. Use it to fill in space nearby and between early spring bloomers. Divide plants in the spring for the best success in transplanting and getting them established. You should be able to do so via the rhizomes, which grow just below the soil surface.
Spotted Dead Nettle
This nettle flourishes in shade with minimal care.
Although this member of the mint family looks similar to stinging nettle, it won’t hurt you, hence the ‘dead’ part in its name. But the hair on its oppositely arranged leaves may make you do a double take. It blooms in spring and summer with small white, pink, or purple flowers, and with the flowers come the bumblebees. While the blooms are attractive, it’s typically grown for its lush foliage.
When planted in full shade, spotted nettle, as it’s sometimes called, won’t require much for watering. Although some growers are scared off by its ability to spread, spotted nettle is an amazing option for large, shady areas that need coverage, such as newly constructed beds.
Pro tip: Grow this alongside Sweet Woodruff, another groundcover on this list, for a unique underplanting.
Creeping Phlox
Low-growing creeping phlox, also known as moss phlox, forms a stunning ground cover.
You may be familiar with upright flowering phlox, but have you heard of low-growing creeping phlox? Its lovely pale-hued flowers make it quite the sight when growing in mass along border walls, retaining walls, and rolling sloped land.
Creeping phlox is also called moss phlox and gets its botanical name for its growth by way of stolon, or horizontal runners. These allow it to spread, giving it a creeping nature. The dark green oval leaves look awesome even after the flowers have passed. Pruning is optional, but it will keep the area looking cleaner if spent flowers are removed.
Reduce weed pressure when establishing creeping phlox as a ground cover and ensure the soil remains moist. Feed with a well-balanced and organic fertilizer in the spring.
Creeping Jenny
Known as moneywort, this plant boasts charming foliage but spreads rapidly in well-draining soil.
Grown mostly for its lovely foliage, Creeping Jenny is a low-growing cover whose leaves resemble little coins, earning it the nickname moneywort. The small yellow, lantern-shaped flowers don’t last long but are quite cute.
Due to its incredible growth rate and ability to spread, planting Creeping Jenny near annual gardens isn’t advised. However, it covers unsightly ground areas such as a back deck or around a garage or garden shed very well. Watch out for slugs, caterpillars, and aphids.
Jenny’s not particular about the soil pH level but does need it to be well-draining. While you can grow Creeping Jenny in full sun, the leaves tend to be more yellow and sometimes become blanched. When grown with limited sun, they remain a waxy, medium green.
Pansy
Cold-tolerant violas thrive in the shade, offering low ground cover with colorful blooms.
This one might surprise you, but pansies do well in shady areas and are super cold-tolerant, making them a superb groundcover option. Their foliage also remains low to the ground and looks nice after they bloom in the spring and early summer. These members of the viola family readily reseed, making them easy to maintain.
Pansies were bred from violas, and there are lots of different flower types and color options to choose from. Perhaps one of the most popular is ‘Johnny jump-ups’, which look like a friendly purple, yellow, and white “face”.
Try winter sowing them for the earliest spring blooms. Pinch back dried-up flowers to encourage new growth. As a bonus, the flowers are edible.
Bearberry
Also known as kinnikinnick, this plant forms a hardy ground cover with glossy foliage and pink lantern-like flowers.
This unique sub-shrub forms a dense ground cover or trailing cover for a wall. Its foliage is rounded, dark green, and glossy, which transitions to a bronzed purple in the off-season. The plant consists of branching twigs and long, flexible stems and features alternating leaves. Small pink flowers bloom from May to June, akin to small lanterns, just ¼ – ½ inch.
This gorgeous and hardy groundcover thrives in sandy soils, rock walls, and dry and rocky spots. It spreads fairly slowly by shallow rhizomes and doesn’t do well when moved once established. Pick a spot you’re sure of, where it can spread over the next few years. Use a balanced fertilizer each spring to encourage new growth. Control weeds for best results.
Bearberries will play an important role in any backyard ecosystem. While the plant itself is fairly deer-resistant, the small red berries are an important food source for native birds and small critters, too. Several butterflies make Bearberry shrubs their home. Perfect for cold region growers, Bearberry is a very cold-tolerant option.
Wild Strawberry
Wild Strawberry is an attractive and edible ground cover option.
Perhaps you’d like a pretty ground cover that’s edible, too? Wild Strawberry spreads easily in shady beds, covering the ground with bright-green rosettes. In late spring to early summer, it produces adorable white flowers followed by sweet, scarlet berries.
Wild Strawberry can go dormant in the midsummer heat, so avoid it in arid, desert climates and keep it in full shade in areas with hot summers to prevent leaf scorch.
While disease-resistant, powdery mildew can become an occasional problem. Wild Strawberry forms colonies via runners, and is easy to transplant wherever your garden needs some color.
White Clover
This is an adaptable and eco-friendly plant that thrives in shade and attracts pollinators.
This spreading clover is easy to establish, thrives in shade, and can tolerate heavy foot traffic, making it a great option for a shady rock garden or along a north-facing patio. It also attracts beneficial insects, making it an environmentally friendly lawn alternative that prevents erosion. And yes, it’s the same white clover that pops up occasionally on your lawn!
White clover serves well as a living mulch that suppresses weeds in perennial fruit trees and vegetable gardens. Michigan blueberry growers find growing white clover between rows of plants increases pollination. It can be mowed, making it easy to maintain, and produces more nitrogen than most other legumes. Seeding can be easily adjusted to whatever scale garden you have.
This ground cover can tolerate wet conditions, dry spells, and fairly acidic soils. We planted this along a sloped retaining rock wall area in the back of our house. It will handle dog foot traffic well, too.
Woodland Stonecrop
This moisture-tolerant sedum blooms with small white flowers.
Also referred to as wild stonecrop, this sedum blooms from March to June, depending on your region. Its flower is a small white one with pointy petals. What makes wild stonecrop different from other sedums is that it can tolerate moisture and shade better than others.
The North American native forms a dense, trailing mat with its succulent foliage. It will happily creep along rocks and in between cracks and crevices.
Propagate by starting from seed, dividing, or taking cuttings from healthy plants. Cuttings can be taken at any point in the season and offer an easy way to create new sedum plants.
Sweet Woodruff
This is a low-maintenance ground cover with star-shaped flowers that thrives in dry or moist shade.
This herbaceous perennial blooms cute little white, 4-petaled star-shaped flowers with medium-dark green leaves. It’s an extremely easy groundcover to grow, and it’s deer and rabbit-resistant to boot.
Common names for sweet woodruff include wild baby’s breath and sweet-scented bedstraw. If you like the smell of freshly cut grass but don’t want to deal with the maintenance, sweet woodruff is for you. It gets easily damaged when the sun is too hot, so plant it where the sun don’t shine. While moist soil is preferred, it performs well in dry shade as well.
This perennial can spread aggressively, so be sure to keep it under control if there are areas nearby you don’t want it to take over. Give each plant at least one foot of space, and divide large plants by digging up clumps and moving them to a new area or sharing them with a friend, similar to hostas.
Partridge Berry
Pretty Partridge Berry has sweet pinkish-white flowers followed by bright red berries.
This ground-hugging ornamental has eye-catching red berries beloved by birds and small mammals. It’s a great choice if you’d like a wildlife-friendly ground cover for your shade garden.
Partridge Berry is native to Eastern North America. It likes acidic soil and is a great underplanting for acid-loving plants like blueberries and rhododendrons.
Cute and dainty, this hard-working ground cover blooms with fragrant, trumpet-shaped blush to white blossoms from spring through fall. It is generally unbothered by pests and diseases.
Brass Buttons
This low-maintenance perennial spreads quickly and thrives in shade.
This funky, fern-like perennial is perfect for gardeners with lots of new space to fill with varying soil situations. When grown in the shade, fewer of its yellow flowers will bloom, but the purplish green foliage is perfectly lovely without them. ‘Platt’s Black’ is a cool option with unique dark purple leaves with green tips.
Brass buttons spread quickly and can be used as a lawn alternative as they can handle some foot traffic and require little maintenance. There aren’t many pests or disease problems, but watch out for aphids in the spring.
Keep the soil fairly moist, but don’t overwater to avoid root rot. Brass buttons like fairly acidic soil. Too much sun scorches the leaves, making it a great option for shady areas. Try lining pathways with it or allowing it to spread between stepping stones and rock walls.
Green and Gold
Green and Gold is a vigorously-growing, cheerful ground cover option.
This pretty ground cover, also called “the golden star plant” is native to the eastern United States. It’s a great alternative to invasive Pachysandra.
Green and Gold is low maintenance. It forms a low-growing mat of deep green leaves. In early spring, it blooms with bright yellow, daisy-like flowers. A vigorous grower, it will spread rapidly to fill in your shady garden areas.
This ground cover prefers consistently moist (but not soggy) soil. Green and Gold is easy to transplant and also looks great in pots and containers. It’s rarely bothered by pests or disease, but watch for occasional slug and snail damage.
Heartleaf Brunnera
Heartleaf Brunnera, or false forget-me-not, features heart-shaped leaves and blue flowers.
Sometimes referred to as false forget-me-nots due to their flower resemblance, Heartleaf Brunnera features tiny blueish-purple flowers in the spring alongside broad, heart-shaped, almost iridescent leaves. The hairs on the leaves of this woodland plant make them unattractive to deer and rabbits.
This beauty thrives in the shade, spreads slowly underground, and is easy to care for, making heartleaf brunnera a fan favorite. Some cultivars’ colors will be slightly subdued when grown in the shade but beautiful nonetheless. This flower won’t perform best in prolonged hot, humid conditions, although some silver-leafed varieties like “Sterling Silver’ tolerate it just fine when afternoon shade is provided.
Deadhead this beauty throughout the season to keep growth healthy, removing any yellowing leaves or passed-by flowers. Brunnera may self-seed, but unwanted seedlings are easy to pull up.
Final Thoughts
I hope you discovered a shade-loving plant that suits your needs. Or perhaps you rediscovered a plant you haven’t grown in a while. Happy ground covering!
