Six Colorful Zone 5 Flowering Ground Covers

Cold winters cry out for the warmth of spring. What better way is there to warm things up than with a shout of color you see whenever you look out of your living room window or step outside your front door?

What grounds covers-particularly perennials-are low-growing and add such a shout of color to a zone 5 growing region such as Rochester, New York?

Below are six beautiful flowering plants to accomplish such a noble task. To see what each of these treats looks like in their full glory, click on the links-each of which takes you to a photograph of these lovely plants.

Want a rich red to contrast with your gray rocks? Sedum and sweet soil go together. Providing a kind of desert-in-bloom appeal, it can be used in small areas as a lovely ground cover.

Dragon's Blood Sedum Height: 4" (Zones 3 - 9) Deep Red Sedum spurium 'Fuldaglut'

Even herbs can be beautiful. Take time to appreciate thyme.

Magic Carpet Thyme Height: 3" (Zones 4 - 9) Thymus serpyllum

Bright like the sun, Basket of Gold perennial Alyssum warms up any garden.

Basket of Gold (Perennial Alyssum) Height: 7 - 9" (Zones 3 - 7) Aurinia saxatilis 'Summit'

It's clear spring is here to stay when blankets of phlox are seen gracing your neighbor's lawn. Why not plant a beautiful blanket of color yourself. It adds a distinctive touch to rocky areas.

Creeping Phlox Height 4 - 8" (Zones 3 - 9) Phlox subulata

Flowers your grandmother planted-portulacas, wiith their large blooms and understated foliage-can do much to improve even a poor quality growing area.

Portulacas Height: 4 - 8" (Zones All) Portulaca grandiflora Multi-colored Portulacas are annuals, but they often re-seed.

Although it might be viewed as a stretch of the imagination to call pansies a ground cover, if planted sufficiently thickly, they can certainly fulfill what is expected of most groundcovers and provide dazzling color between other, larger plants.

Pansies Height: 3 - 4" (Zones 4 - 8) Viola wittrockiana Pansies are biennials, but can sometimes be planted as short-lived perennials.