Ground Covers South Florida Style v.III

Just when we started to warm up, BAM, another cold spell blew in...which is sooooo nice!  We are very hot most of the year that when we get cold weather, everyone revels in it as long as we can and brag a little that we're "sooooo cold."  Hee hee.  It's the only time I can use the wool blankets my amazing grandmother made long ago.  Thanks Memere!

Around here, the landscapes look less than stellar with the odd rotation of rain/wind/cold then warm/dry/humid weather we've had over the past month or so.  Everyone's grass is a pretty patch work of yellow and green, leaves are constantly falling from trees and shrubs, many plants are in their dormant stage, citrus trees are full of delicious winter season fruit, subtropical plants have already died back or starting to die back and vegetable/herb gardens are growing strong.  Much of the landscapes still look beat up from hurricane Irma, especially the larger trees and palms which took the brunt of the force.  I'm sure they are looking for warmer days to start growing again.  In the meantime we can get another post of ground covers in before it warms up to go play outside!

First up on our extensively long list of South Florida ground covers is the genus of ferns.  Oh boy do ferns love Florida and we love ferns too.  Actually Florida has a collection of about a hundred or so of native ferns, some very rare and endangered to prolific and readily available at plant nurseries.  For this post I'll stick to the more common ferns that you should be able to find quite easily.  Ferns for the most part thrive in part sun/part shade, moist, rich nutrient soil environments.  Though some varieties can grow in full sun with a consistent watering schedule.  Most varieties of ferns are clumping by nature and spread around by their roots.   So they can take over large sections fairly easily.  Though do note, a few varieties can really take over and can be a challenge to keep from wandering into other areas of the garden once established.  Some are tall (2-3 ft high) and some are small (6-12 inches high).  You can see some our our South Florida native ferns in my Fern Forest post (click here).  Though please stay away from planting invasive species like the Boston fern and certain sword ferns.  The first plant I ever had was a rabbit's foot fern growing in a ceramic horse head planter, gotta love the early 80's!  I was in the hospital for minor surgery and a close family friend gave it to me, gosh I think I was about 10 or 11 years old at that time.  Hence my love of ferns.

Here at our bank in Fort Lauderdale, shows a beautiful example of how the green wart fern, microsorum scolopendrium, should be used.  They're a perfect ground cover to take over areas that needs minimal maintenance.  They grow about 12-16 in high.

Here's the cousin to the small green wart fern, it's called a blue wart fern, phlebodium aureum, or 'blue star'.  Unlike the extremely hardy green wart fern, this one can be very picky of where it's planted.  I found that they really like more shade than sun.  How gorgeous, right!?!

A lovely small fern that I have recently added to my repertoire of ferns, the East Indian holly fern, arachnoides simplicior 'variegata'.   Or as I like to call it 'gator fern', hee hee.  Grows to about 12-14 inches high, part sun/shade, moist rich ground, deep shiny green with a light lime green striation down the center; totally looks like gator skin.

Another new favorite for me is the silver lace fern, pteris ensiformis, with it's sassy white and deep green leaf.  A total show off in the landscape that catches your eye.  Grows in a loose open manner up to about 22-24 inches high.

This is a fern that starts out small and cute but grows to be a large and stately looking fern...meet the bird's nest fern, 'Osaka' style.  This fern can grow to be about 26-30 inches high by 36-48 inches wide.  It's a beautiful emerald green color with long curved and strapping ruffled edged leaves.

Now this next one is an unusual ground cover called white shrimp, justica betonica, that can grow in full sun to part shade.  Some say it's a native to Florida but I'm not so sure.  Unlike it's red shrimp cousin, this plant is a more compact grower which grows on itself and kinda rambles outward in an organized chaos manner.  Love how well behaved this wild plant is.  I use it in areas where is can be itself without having to trim it back as it does not like being told what to do.  It will eventually loose its will to be amazing with constant beratement of hedging.   It can grow in a variety of soil types and can be fairly hardy in short dry periods.  It has a beautiful plume of white leaves and light violet flowers that pop up from the main green plant.

This client requested a beach wildflower garden so I used the shrimp as the focal point in the middle under the palm where it will get nice and full.

Here's a close up the white shrimp once it had a few months to grow along with
beach verbena, salvia, tropical sage, bulbine and simpson stoppers.

Here I used it under the michelia champaca 'gold' tree in a formal/informal woodland look in Fort Lauderdale.  This was actually about a week after hurricane Irma when we came to clean up the property.  You can see the huge piles we have built up in the back ground of the picture.  The landscape stood up like'a champ!

Another unusual plant is the wire vine, muehlenbeckia axillaris 'nana', which is actually a ground cover not a vine.  Believe or not, it looks amazing in a formal design because of its low form and compactness.  It truly is a creeping ground cover BUT and a big butt here, it can become invasive due to it's hardiness and fast growing nature.  So it's best to use it in areas you aren't going to have to chase it or in a plant bed with landscape edging.   It has little deep green leaves that grow on a dark wire-thin branch or "vine".  The wire vine has tiny white nondescript flowers that almost look like part of the plant facade rather than a prominent flower.  It grows in full sun and part shade.  Once established it can do fine without irrigation.  In too much shade it seems to be less vigorous and less full but will grow nonetheless.  The wire vine is not to picky about the soil it grows in plus it's salt tolerant.  A great ground cover for nonsensitive coastal areas of Florida and rock gardens.

Wire vine close up

The wire vine is super full and compact yet it's growing outside its pot looking to spread out and make your landscape look amazing.

The last one for today is a genus called salvia or it's common name, sage, depending on where you live in the country.  It's found all over the United States in a variety of ecosystems.  There are over 2,000 species of salvia's found all over the world though roughly only a few hundred are grown commercially.  Here in South Florida we have two climate zones, a tropical and a subtropical climate, so the list gets even smaller for us.  There are about eight salvia's that I know of that do consistently well here from season to season.  While the rest seem to grow more like an annual so I usually stay away from those even though they are absolutely beautiful.  For the most part they all grow in full sun, are fairly drought tolerant, love our summer heat, salt tolerant, bloom all year round and seem to be iguana proof.   The pink ones I have were even hurricane resistant last year!  They will reseed the area where they are planted so the following season you might see new salvia plants growing like the tropical sage does here.

At the Deerfield mall, they used the evolution salvia behind the pink begonia.  Granted they are planting them as annuals here but the evolution salvia's can surprisingly live for many years here in South Florida with very little effort.

Look at all these lovely purple/violet/blue salvia's at this Loxahatchee nursery.  The pink or salmon color flower is actually a salmon porter weed which I guess could be used as a ground cover even though it grows about 3 1/2 ft high.

This is the hot pink one I was telling you about.  It's not the best picture but you can see how gorgeous the color is of the flowers with the deep green leaves.  Best part is it never dies back though does better if it gets a good trim after blooming.

Tropical sage with its hot red flowers to brighten your day.

Well that's it for today ya'll!  Thank you for coming by and sticking around.  Much love goes out to you and make it a fantastic weekend!

Happy Gardening and Best Wishes,
Sheri B.
xoxo