Part two of the ground cover special. Last week was the dry shade under the yew; this week is sun, and a plant I grow for reasons that have very little to do with gardening.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

— Greek proverb

Ground Cover, Part Two: Sun (8 min read)

Hello friends, Gary Stewart here.

Cody was up at ten to six on Sunday morning. By his body's reckoning it was ten to seven, which is still early, and nobody had told it the clocks had gone back. Olivia had been told, or had worked it out for herself, and she used every minute of the extra hour. So for a while it was just the two of us downstairs: Cody at the table with beans on toast, and me at the bi-fold doors with a cup of coffee, waiting for it to get light enough to see what the storm had done.

It had done very little. The wind came through on Friday night, leaned on the back of the house for a few hours, and moved on to give somewhere else a harder time. When the light came up, the little plants under the yew hadn't shifted. The water butts were close to full. Later, at the allotment, the two fences I don't trust were still standing, which surprised me more than anything. I had gone round on Thursday with a ball of twine and a list, braced for a long Sunday of putting things right. There was almost nothing to put right.

What there was, from the doors, was the view.

The right-hand border, looking out from the house, runs along the edge of the lawn. At the front of it, where the border is supposed to end and the grass is supposed to begin, is the alchemilla. Saturday's rain had left a drop of water on nearly every leaf. Not soaked in, not running off. Just sitting there, round and silver, catching what little light there was. The plant had flopped forward, the way it does every autumn, and spilled out over the grass, so that where the border should stop there was no line at all. Just a soft green fold where one thing became another.

I stood there longer than the storm deserved. It wasn't the storm I was thinking about.

The plant I had to have

Alchemilla mollis, lady's mantle. I didn't find it in a book or on a bench at a garden centre. My grandparents grew it.

I remember it in their garden the way I saw it on Sunday morning: water held on the leaves in beads, as if the plant had been given something and was keeping it safe. It is the leaves that do it. They are covered in fine, soft hairs that hold each drop just off the surface, so the water gathers into a ball instead of spreading out. The story goes that the alchemists who gave the plant its name used to collect those drops, believing them to be the purest water there was. I didn't know any of that then. I only knew that I liked to look at it.

When I had a garden of my own, it was one of the first things I wanted in it. I couldn't have told you why at the time. I think I can now.

Both of my grandparents have since passed away. The alchemilla is still here, at the front of the right-hand border, doing what it did in their garden. It is a strange thing, to keep a plant for a person. You water it, cut it back, pull out the seedlings that come up in the wrong places, and all the while it is holding something that has nothing to do with gardening. I have never said that out loud before. It has taken me a long time to notice it.

What it did to the edge

When I planted it, I pictured a neat line of soft green along the front of the border: tidy, contained, finishing the bed off. That is not what happened.

Alchemilla grows in a mound, and when the mound gets heavy, particularly after rain, it falls forward. Mine fell forward onto the lawn. The flower stems went first, a froth of lime green leaning out over the grass in early summer. The leaves followed. By autumn the straight edge of the border, the one I had cut in so carefully, had simply disappeared under it.

For a while I took this personally. A border edge is one of the few places in a garden where you can feel in control; it is the line that says this is lawn and this is bed, and here is where I decided they meet. The alchemilla did not respect the decision.

But I was asking it to do the wrong job. Its job was never to hold a line. Its job was to cover the ground at the front of a sunny border, which is exactly the ground that suffers most: the strip that takes the full sun, gets trodden on, and dries out first. It shades that soil. It softens the join between two parts of the garden that would otherwise just sit next to each other. It turns an edge into a threshold.

I stopped fighting it. The border looks better for it, and I like it more.

What the summer showed me

Last week I wrote about bare soil in shade. Bare soil in sun is worse.

On clay in a south-facing bed, an uncovered patch in July takes the full heat of the day straight onto its surface. It bakes, it shrinks, it cracks. The roots of anything nearby are left sitting in ground that goes from concrete to soup and back again with every change in the weather. A plant growing low across that soil does more than look pretty. It is the difference between ground that is shaded, cooler and open, and ground that is simply cooking.

The alchemilla survived the drought. I want to be honest about that word, because it did not flourish. By August the leaves had gone tired and papery at the edges, the flowers were over early, and the whole plant looked the way I felt carrying cans back and forth from the outside tap. It was not at its best. But it was there, every day, still covering that strip of soil, still keeping the sun off the ground beneath it.

We tend to judge plants, and ourselves, by the good years. By how full the border looked in June, how much there was to show for it. Nobody photographs a plant getting through a hard summer. And yet getting through is a job too, and in a summer like this one it was the only job that mattered: keeping its roots down, holding its ground, staying alive long enough for the rain to come back.

I think that is most of what we inherit from the people before us. Not their best seasons. The things that kept going.

What I'm adding to the back garden

The back garden faces south. It takes the sun for most of the day, which is a gift in April and a problem by July, and this summer there was far too much bare clay showing between the plants. I already grow Geranium 'Rozanne' there, which I would recommend to anyone, and this year I want to add more: different leaves, different seasons, plants that will cover the ground in winter as well as summer.

The timing is good. Monday and Tuesday look wet, but from Wednesday the week turns dry and mild, around fifteen or sixteen degrees, with no frost in the forecast. The soil is still warm from the summer and the rain has finally soaked down into it. Hardy plants put in now have the whole winter to root before next year's heat arrives, and on a south-facing bed that head start matters.

On clay, I have learned to plant a little differently. I dig wide rather than deep, and I mix compost into the soil across a broad area rather than filling one deep hole with it, because a hole full of soft compost in heavy clay collects water like a sump and drowns the roots sitting in it. I plant a little high, so the crown sits just above the surrounding soil. I keep off the beds when they're sticky, and if I have to step on, I stand on a plank.

I haven't decided exactly where everything goes yet. I'll stand out there with the plants in their pots first, moving them around, before I dig a single hole.

And at the front of the border on the right, the alchemilla will carry on doing what it has always done. Spilling over the lawn. Holding the rain.

On Sunday, once it was properly light, Cody came and stood next to me at the doors and asked what I was looking at. I told him to go and touch one of the leaves. He did, very carefully, and the drop of water rolled off it whole, like a marble, and disappeared into the grass.

He thought that was brilliant. So did I, once.

So do I.

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Alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle) Best for: softening the front of a border, sun or part shade

The one I have grown longest, and the one I'd keep if I could only keep one. Soft, scalloped, grey-green leaves that hold raindrops in silver beads, and a froth of lime-green flowers in early summer. Happy on clay, in sun or part shade, and tough enough to come through a drought, even if it won't thank you for it. Cut the whole plant back hard once the flowers fade, leaves and all; within a few weeks it sends up a fresh mound of new leaves and you stop it seeding everywhere.

The honest drawback: if you don't cut it back, it self-seeds into every crack and gap it can find. And in a hot, dry summer it looks tired by August.

Geranium 'Rozanne' (cranesbill) Best for: long colour across a sunny bed

The other one I already grow, and one of the hardest-working plants I own. Violet-blue flowers with pale centres from early summer right through to the first frosts, on long stems that sprawl outwards and weave through whatever is next to them, shading the soil as they go. Fine on clay, and very forgiving. Once it collapses in late autumn, cut the old growth back to the crown.

The honest drawback: it isn't evergreen. From late autumn until spring there is nothing to see but a small, tidy crown and bare soil around it, so plant something evergreen nearby.

Bergenia (elephant's ears) Best for: year-round cover on heavy clay, sun or shade

Big, leathery, glossy leaves that stay all winter, and on many varieties turn red or deep purple when the cold arrives, especially in full sun. Stout stems of pink or white flowers in early spring, when there's little else about. Extremely tough, happy on clay, and slowly spreads into a weed-smothering carpet. Exactly the evergreen I need next to the 'Rozanne'.

The honest drawback: slugs and snails love the leaves, and the old ones can look battered by spring. It has the slightly municipal look I wrote about last week, which I have decided I no longer mind.

Persicaria affinis (e.g. 'Darjeeling Red' or 'Superba') Best for: late-season colour and a low, dense mat

A low carpet of narrow leaves topped from late summer into autumn with short pink pokers that slowly deepen to red, so the plant looks two-toned for weeks. In winter the leaves turn a rusty brown and hang on, still covering the ground. Copes well with clay, and it fills the gap at the end of the season when most of the sunny border is going over.

The honest drawback: it likes soil that doesn't dry out completely. In a south-facing bed, give it the spot that holds moisture longest, and water it through its first summer.

Stachys byzantina (lamb's ears) Best for: hot, dry spots and anyone who likes to touch their plants

Thick, silver, felted leaves, soft as their name, that spread into a silvery mat in full sun. Very drought-tolerant: it is built for exactly the kind of summer we just had. Children can't walk past it without stroking it. For pure ground cover, look for 'Silver Carpet', which rarely flowers and puts all its energy into the leaves.

The honest drawback: it hates sitting wet in winter, and on heavy clay it can rot. This is the one I'll wait to plant until spring, on the highest, best-drained edge of the bed, with a little grit worked in.

Gary Stewart writes every week from a small garden on Norfolk clay.

No expertise, no ideal garden, just what the soil taught him that week.

Written slowly, at the speed of the garden, for people who read every word.