Remember to choose the right one for the right spot in your garden – ask your nursery for advice or check the label to see if the plant prefers full sun or shade. Most groundcovers will cover an empty patch in your garden within one season.

Plant Guide

• Common name Carpet geranium
• Botanical name Geranium incanum
• full sun or semi-shade
• average water needs
• frost tender
• grows about 15 to 30cm tall
• perennial
• evergreen
• indigenous

The delicate carpet geranium with its small grey-green leaves is at its best from October to March, but has blooms virtually all year round. This indigenous plant grows well in sun or semi-shade, but will flower better and grow more prolifically in full sun.

Carpet geraniums grow easily from seed or cuttings. It spreads readily so even if you only put in a few plants, it will quickly fill in the gaps in-between. Cut it back hard in late summer when the plant has fewer flowers to keep it neat and to prevent it from growing too profusely, and thin it out if it starts to overgrow the flowerbed. Carpet geranium thrives in well-drained soil with plenty of water when the weather is very dry. The plant will do well virtually anywhere in the country, but doesn’t like heavy frost. It also looks good in a pot or hanging basket.

Apart from the above mentioned, try Convolvulus, Gazania, Felicia ammeloides and Verbena for sunny areas, or fairy crassula (Crassula multivaca) and strawberry saxifrage (Saxifraga stolonifera) for shade.

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