A choice woodland creeper for the shade or partly shaded garden where it behaves like Anemone nemorosa - making a mat of ferny foliage but in this case, it has vibrant yellow flowers.  A patch of this is to be coveted.  Very hardy and goes mid to late summer dormant.

Alpine Water Fern. Found at higher elevations in Australia's New South Wales and Tasmania growing in grasslands, moist rock crevices and sphagnum bogs. A stalwart fern and go-to evergreen low groundcover because it looks great despite your prolonged attention lapses from Netflix binge-watching.

A remarkable Manzanita native to the southern Mendocino Coast which features unusually large rounded leaves for a groundcover type.  Makes a dense cover mounding to 24"-30" tall and 8' + across with white flowers and bird attractant small fruit.  The leaves seem verging on succulent giving this a uniquely appealing look.

Sweet little groundcover whose double white flowers resemble fluffy bits of white popcorn strewn on the leaves. Perfect underplanting for other shade plants to pop up through and great between stepping stones. Gently spreading and not hard to keep in bounds. Darnn near perfect.

Oyster Leaf. The leaves are edible and taste - and feel - exactly like raw oysters. This likes ample nutrition. Perennial and dormant in winter.

Gold Thread.  This is a rare native to WA but more common in BC and AK.  Great evergreen groundcover for moist shade with glossy parsley leaves and golden thin rhizomes hence the common name.  Dye plant and most likely medicinal.  This spreads well in loose moist soil.

A free-flowering, lower carpeting form of this choice species that is ideal in the rock garden and one we acquired from our friends at Rumbling Bridge Nursery in Scotland.  This Croatian native has a tidy personna, showy mauve-pink flowers and small leaves coloring well in winter.  When we say carpeting, it's more of a place mat.

From Hubei comes this smaller form of Saxifraga stolonifera which before taxonomic lumping might have been called S. veitchiana.  Found growing in moss on a shaded cliff face in Abies fargesii forest.  This will spread by strawberry-like stolons and makes a sweet little evergreen groundcover with small airy white flowers.

Our native creeping dogwood from seed collected during one of our many hikes in the Olympic Mountains.  This deciduous groundcover is such a good plant with obvious white dogwood flowers on 4"-6" stems followed by clusters of red fruit.  We like it when it climbs a bit up mossy trunks and logs.  Loose soil with a good organic content.

Nifty groundcover introduced from Taiwan by Crug Farm in Wales.  This is a good spreader though easy to keep in bounds and prefers a loose organic rich soil that doesn't get too dry.  Great under shrubs and perennials and forms a feathery dense mat with white starry flowers.  Evergreen unless very cold.

A Steve Hootman collection from China of this quite unique creeping Honeysuckle.  This is a Kinnikinnik or Arctostaphylos uva-ursi alternative making a mat of small rounded green leaves turning rich purple/red/bronze tones in winter.  Small light yellow Honeysuckle flowers are sprinkled throughout.  Very cool.

This Strawberry Saxifrage has rich colored leaves quite maroon underneath and intricately marked in silver on top.  This sends out runners like a strawberry which makes new plants at the tips & makes a great groundcover for moist shade.  Dandy & delicate white/pink flowers on 18" stems.

A choice little woodland groundcover from our collection in a high elevation coniferous forest in Yunnan where it grew not far from Primula sonchifola and Megacodon stylophorus.  Slow carpeter with white flowers and small pale orange fruit nestled in the nicely textured leaves..  Choice and not invasive by a long shot.

Our selection from the California Redwoods of a large-leafed and vigorous clone of Wild Ginger. This sports large glossy green leaves which mask the sizable brown starfish flowers hidden underneath.  We always like surprises.  A dense big groundcover in shaded rich moist soil.

One of the quiet stars of our shade garden is this cross between rich yellow Anemone ranunculoides and white Anemone nemorosa.  The result is a vigorous small scale shade loving groundcover with profuse primrose yellow flowers.  Perfect as a planting under larger plants.  Moist.

This is essentially a low evergreen groundcover - to 8" tall - and hails from a frost pocket in Mount Buffalo National Park in Victoria.  Has profuse creamy flowers with an exuberance of stamens. Cuttings received from our friend Maurits in Holland who is obsessed with cold hardy Mediterranean style plantings. Rare, choice, and a first-time offering.

Our collection from Asia of this low growing - prostrate actually - creeping Cotoneaster. It is one we admired as it crept over a rock face along the trail and we kept going, not intending to collect seed. Looking back, we saw our friend and great plantsman Peter Cox collecting seed so we scampered back to do the same.  Found in the range of C. dammeri but there are 111 species in China alone.

A very good, not scary, evergreen groundcover.  'Mariko' is a selection from a collection by Mikinori Ogisui, incredible plantsman and plant explorer, who named it for his wife.  Judging by the graceful spidery flowers with showy pink sepals and white spurs and petals plus bronzy new growth, Mariko herself has it all going on.

This sweet little New Zealand groundcover is perhaps best known by its former name of Parahebe olsenii.  Soft lavender flowers with a yellow eye rimmed in cerise feathering are held just above the small rounded evergreen leaves that have tones of green olive.  Tidy is a word that comes to mind.