If you are planning to grow some plants on the shade area under the trees in your garden, you can choose some ground cover plants. Compared with other plants, most ground cover plants need very little maintenance and they can effectively suppress the growth of weeds. Some of them have attractive flowers which can add extra beauty for your backyard.
There are some shade tolerant options you can choose for your garden. The Japanese spurge is a common evergreen ground cover plant growing in many gardens. It can grow up to 12 inches in height. It has very beautiful green foliage and beautiful flowers. They can grow happily in shady areas with well-drained damp soil.
Periwinkle is another type of evergreen ground cover plant for shady areas. Nearly all species of periwinkle plants have green leaves and colorful flowers. The flowering season is usually in spring and can last for the whole summer. If maintained carefully, you can easily get a blue carpet under the tree shading areas.
Goutweed is an aggressive ground cover plant which can grow easily under the trees. It can tolerate most soil types including the clay soil. It can grow up to 10 inches in height with green leaves. It spread rapidly and you should have the ability to control the spreading speed if you are about to plant it in your garden.
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Image provided By Selena N. B. H. (Flickr: Periwinkle) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
