Drought-Tolerant Ground Covers

Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County

Client's Request:  I'm redoing my back garden area this spring and will be adding additional ground cover. I'm looking for recommendations on drought-tolerant groundcovers. Would you please help me with some recommended drought-tolerant ground covers? Thank you.

MGCC's Help Desk Response:  Thank you for your inquiry about additional drought tolerant ground covers to consider for your back yard garden this spring. I don't know if you are in West, Central or East County, or are you looking for ground cover for areas of  full sun, partial shade or full shade? I am including information below on each of the three possibilities plus some guidance on other important considerations. You may need some of each or something that can cross over between full sun and shade.

The UC Davis Arboretum All Stars 
(http://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/arboretum_all_stars.aspx) is a great place to start looking for drought tolerant plants for your garden. Searching ground cover recommendations provides a number of suggestions including the following:

Shade: One recommendation only for full shade:  Ribes viburnifolium - evergreen currant. It is successful in shade and part shade. It also attracts hummingbirds and beneficial insects.

Part Shade: Five recommendations for part shade: One example is Teucrium chamaedrys 'Nanum' - dwarf germander. It is one of the few that does well in both full sun and part shade. It also attracts beneficial insects.

Full Sun: Four recommendations for full sun: One example is Ceratostigma plumbaginoides  - dwarf plumbago. It is also tolerant of part shade.

A resource for ideas and recommendations is the Contra Costa Water District (CCWD) for you to search for desired plants by category, exposure, etc. Their interactive website will assist you in finding additional plant selections. It can be accessed at http://www.ccwater.com/299/Select-Your-Plants

East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is another excellent resource for drought tolerant plant selections. They have a beautiful book, Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region, that is available for purchase or usually available at your local County branch library. On the EBMUD web page describing the book, there is a link to a searchable plant database of all the plants pictured in the book. A large number of ground covers with lovely photos are shown. This will give you even more ideas for your garden.

I have only really covered the sun/shade exposure selection. There are several other considerations that should be part of the final selection process, e.g., how easy is it to maintain? can you walk on it? and if it attracts bees, you probably won't want it where it might be an attractive nuisance (e.g. poolside, toddler play area, etc).

We wish you well with your spring project. Please do not hesitate to contact us again if you have more questions.

Help Desk of the UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (GOD)

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Note: The  UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions.  Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA  94523. We can also be reached via telephone:  (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (//ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/blogroll.cfm).