Call me Susie One-Note (or -Plant Group?) but I can’t stop stopping in awe at groundcovers, like these guys that I’m trying out in my front yard.  Below, the Creeping Jenny is always pretty, and the self-seeding annual Alyssum grows wherever I let it.

Below, some just-planted Sedum kamtschaticum variegatum looking like it’s about to bloom – in red.  It’s paired with Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’, which is suddenly so popular, and for good reason.

Below, Sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’ has a very similar form, and an equally cool color.  And all of these plants are more fun to grow than the crappy turfgrass they replaced.

Over 5,000 bloggers around the world – including one White House blogger – are observing Blog Action Day today by focusing attention on a subject in need of lots more attention – water.   It’s hard for Save the Ocean appeals to compete with Save the Baby Anything messages, though the closer to home the body of water is, the more attention it gets.  So fortunately, Save the  “Chesapeake Bay” IS a popular message, and the current leadership in Annapolis and the White House have made great progress in reducing pollution.  (And Marylanders who care about the Bay, don’t forget to VOTE Nov. 2!)

Water in the Landscape
But let’s get on-topic, shall we?  Probably THE most important environmental responsibility we have as landowners and gardeners have to do with water – conserving it as a resource, and making sure the rainwater landing on our property percolates down and is cleaned before it ends up in our waters.   So there’s lots to cover, including topics like how to water efficiently and principles of xeriscaping, which are covered here so I won’t repeat them.  I’ll just recommend two interesting links about water in our gardens:

• I like the “Wise Lawn Care Prevents Water Pollution” hand-out distributed by the city of Alexandria, VA.   Most people believe that avoiding pesticides is all they need to do to protect waterways, so information like this that emphasizes wise fertilization practices is essential.  This brochure tells us to “Fertilize in the fall if at all!”
• A measure is being considered in New Jersey that would severely restrict the polluting nutrients nitrogen and phosphates in lawn fertilizers, and I recommend Tom Christopher’s account on Huffington Post.   He notes that Scotts MiracleGro and TruGreen are fighting the measure, as are some who fear their properties values will decline if their lawns are less green.  But Tom suggests that the solution to make everyone happy (except the aforementioned behemoths of the lawn industry) is to switch to the less resource-intensive fine fescue mixes that are being tested by Rutgers (see Now-Mow Lawn and Eco-Lawn.)  Tom’s also a member of the Lawn Reform Coalition.

More about Scotts
But enough about water; I thought I’d look more closely at the company fighting these clean-water measures.  You know, the company that spends $100 million a year on advertising, much of it telling us to “green-up” our lawns in the spring, the worst possible time for our waterways.  Thanks to Paul Tukey at SafeLawns, I found some interesting corporate research:

The Scotts Company is the world’s leading supplier and marketer of consumer products for do-it-yourself lawn and garden care. It also supplies a range of products for professional horticulture. Scotts owns the leading brands in every major category in virtually all of the countries where it has a significant presence.

Scotts enjoys a de facto monopoly on lawn care and garden products in the US. In the year ending September 2002, the company enjoyed a market share of 52%, controlling 62% of the consumer market for lawn fertilizers, 59% of the market for growing media/plant food, 43% of the market for grass seed and 41% of the market for controls (i.e. herbicides and pesticides). In addition, Scotts LawnService has now become the 2nd largest competitor in the American lawn service industry.

In 2002 the company’s market share, for lawn care and garden products, in Europe was approximately 25 percent. The company also has a presence in Australia, the Far East, Latin America and South America.

Scotts relies heavily on advertising to create demand for its products. According to the company’s annual report, Scotts’ brands are supported by an annual investment of approximately $100 million in advertising. In the US nearly 4 out of 5 advertising messages in the lawn and garden industry come from Scotts. For 2003, Scotts plans to increase its media spending by another 20%.

There’s more about Scotts here on Corporate Watch – their record on work conditions and environmental issues.   I think this bigger picture helps us better understand the Scotts “sustainability” efforts, including their alarmingly successful outreach to (and feeding of) garden writers.

For the story of my lawn removal, including all the plants I’ve tried here – and lots of photos -  click here.

Below is what the back looked like in May of this year, before the clover killed the Sedum, then expired.  I just recently finished removing the remaining clover and trying to cover empty soil with Sedum.  Then 6 inches of rain fell in a couple of hours, my stormwater system was loaded (the levy broke!) and a MUD SLIDE  ensued.   I spent yesterday moving topsoil back up the hillside.  Ah, gardening.

I’ve already covered the ultimate failure of clover as a groundcover in my garden, and now it’s time to dish the dirt on two more plants I’ve tried as lawn replacements and recently ripped out.  Yes, I’m ready to name names.

Thyme
All five of the types of thymes that I received as samples from Stepables ultimately failed in my garden.  Maybe because they don’t like our humidity, or I didn’t give them the right type of soil – I don’t know, but for their crimes of wimpy performance or outright death, they’ve been banished from my garden.   But can you blame me?  Look at this photo of thyme death, the type that slowly spreads until – well, I actually couldn’t stand waiting any longer, so it’s a goner.

Creeping Cinquefoil

Another sample from Stepables is Potentilla or creeping cinquefoil, and look how pretty it used to be, mixing nicely with Creeping Jenny in my front yard.  Well, I’ve learned the hard way that these groundcovers can suddenly go bad, as evidenced by the photo on the right.  Bad as in dead, for no known reason, but not before it killed off most of the Creeping Jenny.  So, back to square one, with bare earth to cover.

Lessons Learned

Lawn replacement  mistakes can be HUGE MISTAKES!  Removing large quantities of failed groundcovers and starting over – that’s a big headache for any gardener.  Or to be more precise, a big backache.

And while books and articles often recommend selecting several groundcovers that get along well together, finding ones that don’t devour their neighbors is much harder than those authors let on.  So I’m experimenting and reporting my results, but who can know for sure that the plants I’m trying will perform the same way in their garden?

I’ve gotta admit, the more I explore alternatives to lawn, the more I appreciate why turfgrass is so damn popular.   It’s cheap, relatively easy to grow, and caring for it does NOT require gardening knowledge or bending over.

Have I mentioned that creeping sedums, the super-drought-tolerant, super-short groundcovers, are turning out to be my top pick to replace lawn?  Out with the clover, the thymes and the Potentilla, and in with more and more types of sedums.   And really, I’m glad those other groundcovers failed for me because I’m so gobsmacked with these plants.  Click here to see the ones that are succeeding for me and some others that have been recommended by the experts.   I’ll keep updating that page with more great examples, and the results of the newest additions to my garden.

So who ARE these experts?  Ed Snodgrass, grower of Green Roof Plants, gave me the benefit of his observations from growing dozens of sedums and other super-tough plants that do well on roofs.  (I profiled him here on GardenRant.) Last week I revisited Ed last week, and here is he snacking on a carrot he grew in those gorgeous metal tanks.

Now check out how Ed weeds around Sedums – not spraying with herbicide, not bent over digging, but walking around with a flame weeding tool on a 3-foot extension.  Because Sedums are so succulent, they’re unharmed by nearby flames, which burn the weeds to a crisp.  I’m SO going to get me one of these, even if I have to pay for it!

And the last photo shows you the whole tray of Sedum takesimense that Ed gave me to add to my collection, sitting on top of the Sedum sarmentosum that cover my back yard.  These greener, taller sedums are now planted in a river through the sarmentosum.  That’s the idea, anyway, and we’ll see how that turns out.

The other experts who contributed recommendations to this compilation are Sandy McDougal of Sandy’s Plants in Virginia (profiled here), and Paul Mancuso of Mahoney’s in Massachusetts.  Thanks to all of them.

Top photo: green roof at Eastern Village.

It was fun driving WSJ garden writer Anne Marie Chaker around to show her my favorite curbside gardens, but was surprised to see her one snapshot of my garden (and me) appear in the accompanying slide show.   Here’s the article, and while that link won’t work for nonsubscribers a week from now, you can always reach the article by putting “the hellstrip” into Google.  It’s a back-door way to access the Journal online, and they don’t care because not too many people use it.   One small victory for the little people, I guess.