Major Renovations

Hello again,
This has been a year of change at Midwest Groundcovers. We have undergone some major renovations in the past month and a half that I want to share with you. Some areas had been left without change for many many years and some, like our grass area, was in need of a fixing. I don't have a great image of our grass area but I will mention it. We removed all the grasses that were there since 2004. Plants were growing into each other and it was too difficult to determine which grasses were which. A new lay out with better spacing should provide a nice display garden for the future. Of course it's small now, but next year this should be a site to see.
The first project that we completed was at the entrance to our Perennial Island. This area had previously been covered by Euonymus 'Coloratus', or Purple Leaf Wintercreeper. Now it has been developed as a trial garden for shade Midwest Solutions®. Lots of new combinations are in this garden. A sun combination flanks the front of the garden with Allium senescens glaucum mixed with Stachys minima. Please come by and watch as it progresses.

A smaller project was in front of our sign to retail. This had previously been planted with Pixie Meadowbrite™ Coneflower, but after several years, the plants reseeded themselves and the originals were crowded out. Echinacea 'Pica Bella' takes its place.

The center median as you drive in has been revamped. Formerly a mix of perennials in the front of the median, we've replaced that with a temporary display of our beautiful mums! Those will be replaced next year with something special! Two hedges of Gold Pillar™ Barberry with Buddleia 'Black Knight' in the middle replaces a very old planting of Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' that was starting to deteriorate with weedy grasses seeding themselves amongst it.

For a couple years we enjoyed Koeleria glauca at our front entrance with Allium 'Purple Sensation' a white Hyacinth. The 'Purple Sensation' will be replanted, but the Koeleria had started to decline and needed to come out. We've replaced that with a large planting of Ruellia humilis and interplanted it with Carex glauca(flacca). Once this fills in, it should look great.


Speaking of the entrance. The plantings in front of the signs have been redone. The older plantings were starting to get overrun by Nepeta faasenii. So that planting was removed and replaced by four plants. The back layer, closest to the sign is Geranium 'Max Frei'. In the middle, is Sporobolus 'Tara'. This plant I deem as the best plant ever for underneath a sign. It is the perfect height to not cover any of this sign. In front of that is Coreopsis 'Zagreb'. Interplanted with all of these plants in Veronica 'Waterperry Blue' for a spring and fall show.

Last but not least, we have expanded our prairie. That is in the background of this picture. Removed were Flower Carpet™ roses that were not performing up to expectations. I think it was a little too dry for them here. The native plants that replaced them were Cassia hebecarpa, Wild Senna, in small doses with large swathes of Liatris spicata(Blazingstar), Parthenium integrifolium(Wild Quinine) and Eryngium yuccifolium(Rattlesnake Master). A band of Sporobolus heterolepis(Prairie Dropseed) was planted in front to seperate it from the outer circle which we did not plant native. In order to show our diversity of products, we have removed a large planting of Euonymus 'Coloratus' from this area as well. It was replanted with two great groundcovers. Veronica 'Waterperry Blue' and Potentilla neumanniana 'Nana'. These two groundcovers will be seen every time you leave our facility. These are two plants that have been trialed here and have been proven to be tolerant of salting. Try them out. They look so much nicer than Polygonum!

Hopefully you will enjoy seeing all this progress. More is on the way this fall as we continue to spruce up our facility. Until next time, have a great day!