Our natural groundcover on the farm is the usual grass, weedy looking plants with plenty of brambles. We have some areas of ferns, running cedar, ivy and moss which are lovely. Just like the our efforts to increase the evergreens in our woods, I’m starting on my ground cover projects.

Running Cedar (Diphasiastrum digitatum) is touted as being ‘nearly impossible to transplant’. That’s a great challenge! We have some areas in the southern woods covered with running cedar and it reminds me of a field of sea anemones. I have dug up some stems that run flat along the ground and planted them in some spots closer to the house. So far they seem to be doing fine (evidenced by they aren’t dried up) and only time will tell if they will thrive. They are slow growers so I plan to harvest some more and pick other sites for the transplants.

Irish moss (Sagina subulata) is easy to grow, tolerant of a lot of soils and fills in quite nicely over time. I have a lot of Irish moss in Minnesota and move pieces around regularly to establish new areas. It’s usually green but flowers in the summer. Since I have a lot of area to cover, I thought I would buy some seeds. I ordered 30,000 seeds and they came in three tiny credit card sized packets. The seeds look like dark grains of salt. In fact, I would say that salt grains are larger than Irish moss seeds. We have set up a growing station in the laundry room and I’m hoping in a few weeks I’ll be putting little seedlings into the ground.