The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

15 Basic Ways To Landscape Your Homepage

These difficult areas include steep banks, small patches or irregular strips of dirt, out-of-the-way corners, under heavily shaded trees, outskirts and property approaches, surplus ground, cut and fill land or almost any ground with a lengthy slope of more than 15 degrees.

Groundcovers also serve many other purposes. In addition to furnishing interesting all-year carpels which reduce heat, glare, dust and noise; the many forms, textures and colors of groundcovers offer unlimited design possibilities. Grass substitutes for law 11 also tend to relieve a great load of tedious routine maintenance.

Used in connection with small lawns and other plants groundcovers keep down weeds, prevent erosion and act as a link between different shrubs in the border. With your pre-planning they can easily become an integrated, harmonious part of the home landscape pattern.

Requisites for a groundcover include the ability to provide a rather dense mantle. It should also be perennial and vigorous enough to grow with little care, to crowd out weeds, and not become too rampant. In your selection choose only those plants which are adaptable to your soil and climatic conditions. A careful choice on your part will provide plants that should flourish and serve a very definite purpose.

Topping the list for time-tested grass substitutes are the English and Algerian ivies, Algerian Pachysandra, trailing myrtle (Vin-ca), Ajuga and wintercreepcr or Euonymus. Mat and trailing shrubs include Japanese honeysuckle and the spreading junipers.

English ivy usually requires winter protection in the coldest states. Its beautiful shining leaves make an ideal groundcover in dense shade, under trees, or as edgings in flower beds. Or you may use it as a de-sign pattern planted in conjunction with a lawn. This usage will create an illusion of mote space or tie in with your overall landscaping plans.

English ivies are evergreen, growing to a height of about 12 inches. The dark green foliage forms a mat of trailing, rooting stems. For quick results set your new plants about 12 inches apart.

Baltic ivy is practically identical in use and habit, but is a tougher version of rhe I'.nglish ivy. Foliage is not quite as Large but it is able to withstand more severe cold snaps in northern areas.