My guess is that it's creeping toward it's neighbor, not from under neath it.
Just a guess.
:)Laura

I thought creeping plants just creeped in general. I didn't know I had to be concerned about which direction they tended to creep to? I'll never understand gardening :)

Any suggestions on a flowering creeping plant that exhibits similar shape, height, spread for zone 7? A+ if it's an evergreen.

Or some tips on how to find the right type of plant? I'm assuming it's a creeping plant. Could it be something else?

Tom - 'only hardy to Z6 and I'm in zone 7' -

You're going the wrong way with the hardiness rating. Generally it indicates coldest zones in which a plant will normally succeed (and its an estimate, other factors come into play, like rainfall, snow cover). You would be one zone warmer/milder than a plant rated for Z6. And that can be good 'insurance', if typically it will do well in Z6 you should be quite safe planting same in a Zone 7 with slightly warmer winters.

I can't guess what the plants are you've highlighted from the photo, not enough detail. Is it a yellow flower you are interested in, or the habit and size of the plant?

Morz,

Thanks for clearing up the zones thing. I'm still confused about that. A few years ago the USDA changed my zone but some websites still say I'm in zone 6.

I'm interested in the habit and size of the plant. I'm flexible on color. If I could just understand what it is about the growth habit I like so I can search for similar plants that would be helpful.

To me it looks like it's higher near the base of the shrub and lower on the outside. Is that just my eyes playing tricks on me?

Also is it one or two plants? One with yellow flowers and the other with just foliage?

I was searching around and a Dalmation Bellflower looks like it might work? Pink Chintz Thyme? Snowflake Creeping Flox? Am I on the right track?

If I plant it close to the shrub will it fan out away from it or do I need to plant 2 or three around the shrub?

hey tom

you can post pix..

just like the zone thing.. lets do it backwards..

can you post a pic of your spot.. and perhaps we can make suggestions specific to that..

rather than discuss someone else's garden???

ken

Hi Tom,

The plant in the picture might be a euphorbia? And it looks like it might be 3 plants, basically planted sort of underneath the shrub with no choice but to sprawl out from under it. You can see the nearby daylily is doing the same thing.

The bellflower, thyme and creeping phlox have a different habit than this. They will always creep along the ground no matter where they are planted. I think those are a better choice than to take a medium-sized plant and force it to be a groundcover because it's too close to its neighbor. So yes, you are on the right track. With groundcover plants you'll want to plant several and eventually they will grow together to form a solid mat.

(PS, I used to live in NJ, central/coastal.)

Ken,

The spot doesn't exist yet and there's some work being done so I can't take pics of it. I'm trying to plan the area and determine what plants I'll need and how to get certain looks.

The thing I like about that arrangement is that the folliage under the shrub has an irregular shape and is tight up against the shrub. It's not a perfectly round tuft like I've seen with other plants under planted around shrubs.

I'm also using a loropetalum not a japanese barberry because it's invasive in my area.

I tried looking for help in the design and shrub forum and thought I might be asking too broad questions. So instead I tried posting about items in the designs that I don't understand how to do to see rather than trying to get help with the whole thing. The big picture is this... I have an odd spot that I'm trying to fill in and I'm trying to recreate certain feels. I want everything to feel more connected like in the photo above. I also don't want it to look just like a row of shrubs.

I'm not 100% settled on the plants but there will be about 3 shrubs added in front of 2 small arborvitae and I'm trying to pick appropriate smaller shrubs/perennials to fill in the areas and unify it as one planting instead of 3 shrubs in front of 2 trees.

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This is the plan view
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Karin, thanks for the advice and sorry I missed your post earlier.

I suspected more than one plant and now that you mentioned 3 I can visualize how it comes together. I think the 3 plants will look better than the ground cover because it will give that tapered look.

So the spiky foliage in front of the shrub is a daylily? I thought it might be an iris. Is the foliage on an iris too stiff to look like that? I don't want to plant daylily because their toxicity to cats is pretty nasty. Can you (or anyone) think of an alternative?

I might try with some iris if I can't find anything else.

The foliage of Siberian iris is very similar to a daylily, although it's a little taller and a little more upright. Japanese iris also fit the bill, but they refer a moist location. Bearded iris are much stiffer and would not create this same look.

I did not know that daylilies are toxic to cats so I looked that up and sure enough, they are. That is very bad news to me as I have daylilies everywhere and we are extremely fond of our cats who rule the gardens. On one hand, I'm thinking I have had daylilies + cats for 20 years and all our cats have lived to ripe old ages happily. On the other hand, I'm also thinking that I would be beside myself with guilt if one of them ever got sick from that.

But if I were in your position and could opt for plants other than daylilies, that is certainly what I would do. Good call.

i dont see linear measurements..

as of now.. it 'looks' .. on the various mock ups.. that you are cramming too much stock in there ...

but i have never been able to translate mock ups to reality ...

3 shrubs in what amounts to 10 square feet.. just guessing.. is too much.. even if dwarf.. especially looking down the road long term ...

i cant recall your level of experience.. but looking at your dream pix above.. do understand.. that it has taken years.. if not a decade to perfect the look you like ... and trust me... no plan is static ...

if you were to fill the spot.. per your mock up.. directly above ... with plants sized directly to the mock up.. and presuming they all thrived ... within 2 years.. you will be removing things.. and moving things ...

all that said.. you knock yourself out.. and have fun with the whole process...

ken

I'm going to address some of your other questions:

1. To me it looks like it's higher near the base of the shrub and lower on the outside. Is that just my eyes playing tricks on me?

That's what I think, too. I thing there are rocks, similar to what is on the left of the picture.

2. If I plant it close to the shrub will it fan out away from it or do I need to plant 2 or three around the shrub?

That will depend on several things...which plants you choose, size of what you want filled in, slope, and sun and shade to begin with. I have found that my spreading plants grow much faster downhill than up. If you plant it under another plant, it will grow faster out, towards the sun. If it grows in a direction or way (such as too rounded) that you don't like, trim some of it (and plant what you trimmed in the direction you want).

3. Another plant I like to use as a groundcover is sedum. There are several that hug the ground. I also have a very low growing, mat forming dianthus (sorry, I can't remember the name of it) that grows like what you want. Although planted by itself it grows in a circle, when given rocks to clamber through, it has a more casual look.

You all are great!

I have some rocks I was planning to use that I think will work well.

I have a concern. A lot of the ground covers have names similar to lawn weeds (spurge, nettle) do I need to worry about them blowing into the lawn?

That almost looks like torenia, an annual. However, it also looks like it could be a prostrate shrub. Perhaps you could e-mail the renegade gardener himself to get a definitive answer?

As for lawn penetration, I find that the only perennials to worry about are fast-growing groundcovers like mazus or liriope spicata. I wouldn't worry about something like euphorbia - any penetration can be easily controlled.

Thank you to all for the help. I'm not sure if I picked the best plant for under the shrub but I did wind up selecting plants.

For the small yellow ones under the shrub I went with Bucket of Gold Perennial Alyssum. Some photos looked like too much blooms, others looked exactly like the photo above. It'll do for now and I can easily change those later.

The first image in this blog post is what made me chose it.

I went with a siberian iris for the spiky foliage look.

Ken,

The area in front of the arborvitaes is about 4' x 14'. I didn't get that much input on my general post for help designing the bed so as I started to understand more I created more specific threads, like this one, that focused on a single element I tried to incorporate. Some of the other images I posted in the other threads had dimensions.

mistascott,

I forgot to mention I emailed the renegade gardner before I posted here. That wasn't one of his designs but one a friend did. He helped identify as much as he could but the photo is so small and lacks a lot of detail. I was hoping more eyes could help.

True lilies are toxic to cats, the problem is often found with indoor only cats who eat the leaves of Easter lilies or other potted gift lilies thinking they are grass....

I've never heard of daylilies being a problem. I have several dozen in my yard and I know many on the daylily forum have cats...

It seems it is controversial as far as the Hemerocallis Society knows. The big problem is that the public thinks any plant with lily in it's name is really a lily.....

Here is a link that might be useful: Hemerocallis Society

"I've never heard of daylilies being a problem."

The page you linked to indicates it's a problem. Unfortunately they put the information from reliable sources way bellow all the anecdotal evidence that people didn't experience any issues.

That's the page I actually read that made me decide not to use daylilies. The last few paragraphs are the only one's that mattered to me that were from Dr. Weiner (Wiesner?) from the ASPCA's poison control center.

He traced the deaths of some cats back to them ingesting Stella D'oro daylilies. The university of Michigan identified a sugar in daylilies that is a renal toxin in cats and cows.

There appears to be scientific evidence supporting daylilies being toxic to cats.

Here is a link that might be useful: Scientific Study About Daylily Toxicity In Cats

Can u tell me what kind of tree this by this pic of the leaf. thanks

Here is a ground cover that might interest you. I personally love it as it gives you 4 seasons of color. It is a spreader so if it gets too big you simply remove what you don't want. It's an Angelina Sedum....

Here it's in it's chartreuse green stage changing from orange. It's also an evergreen. I like it as it adds lots of texture.

rfonte649, you want to start a new thread, either in the tree forum or in Name that plant, linked below. In each forum, the place to start a new thread is at the bottom of the list of threads, so scroll to near the bottom of the main forum page.

If you add where you are at least to state or city level, that will help also.

In my part of the country, redbuds and catalpa have heart-shaped leaves.

Here is a link that might be useful: Name that plant forum

This post was edited by nhbabs on Mon, Jun 2, 14 at 17:44