Ground cover plants are wonderfully practical and decorative surface fillers - but their unlimited spread is not always desirable. In which cases, when and how they should be cut, we will explain below.
When and how should you cut ground cover?
Ground cover plants should be cut back in autumn to limit their spread and maintain the bed structure. Cushion-forming ground cover species are trimmed on the surface and edges, while runner-forming species have their shoots shortened to a few centimeters at least once a year. In addition, encroaching offshoots can be cut off with a spade.
When to control ground cover plants
Particularly pragmatic ground cover solutions are those that fill large areas - for example for greening, decorating and fortifying slopes, embankments or wall strips. Ground cover plants are also usually allowed to spread freely under planting of shrubs and trunks.
If a ground cover is used in a more targeted manner, for example to visually structure a perennial bed or in an accurately designed rock garden, it must be kept in check a little. Here it should ultimately only cover clearly defined areas or form compact cushions.
Another reason to cut back ground cover is strong growth. Some varieties fulfill their ground-covering task a little too eagerly for horticultural purposes and may spread to neighboring beds. These include ivy, blue cushions, lady's mantle or upholstery phlox.
Even when used as a filling carpet for early bulb flowers, certain ground cover plants such as lilies of the valley, navel nuts or evergreens can eventually gain the upper hand. Such fellows should also be stopped regularly.
The grounds for pruning at a glance:
- to maintain specific, accurate bed structures
- simply to limit space-taking up spread
- to prevent invasive growth
When and how to cut back
Basically, autumn is the best time for pruning ground cover plants, as this is where they have completed their main vegetation phase. If you want to keep a ground cover in very good shape, you can cut it several times a year, although four times should be the maximum. In this case, you should work at the same time with a little bit of fertilizer (€9.00 on Amazon) so that the plant is not weakened and thinned out too much.
Cutting cushion-forming ground cover plants such as soapwort, stonecrop or cushion thyme is very easy by trimming the surface and the edges. So you can easily keep them in the shape you want.
For varieties that form runners and tend to grow strongly, such as gunsel, deadnettle or cranesbill, you should shorten the vigorous shoots to a few centimeters at least once a year in autumn. If they expand too much in width, you can also use the spade to cut off any encroaching runners.
Such ground cover species can also be easily propagated by cutting off runners.
