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Low plants for the front of a border

Plants up to 1 ft (30 cm) tall for the front edge of a bed, where nothing taller should stand.

The front edge is where a bed meets the lawn or the path, and it is seen closer than anything else. The planner's rule is that nothing over 30 cm (a foot) stands on it, and lower is usually better: a tall plant at the front hides the bed behind it and leans over the path.

The front edge is the one place where a run of one plant works: a ribbon of dwarf lady's mantle, creeping thyme or a low hardy geranium such as 'Biokovo' along the whole edge ties a busy bed together. Choose plants that look good for months, because they are always in view: neat mounds, evergreen or long-flowering, that soften the edge without flopping onto the grass.

231 plants: 195 perennials, 6 ferns, 17 grasses and 13 shrubs.

The dozen to start with

  • Hens and chicks

    Hens and chicks

    4 in · grown for its leaves

    Tight, fleshy rosettes, green or flushed with burgundy, surrounded by a crowd of smaller offsets.

  • Bugleweed

    Bugleweed

    6 in · early May to late May

    Glossy, dark rosettes knit into a dense carpet that smothers weeds in shade.

  • Sweet woodruff

    Sweet woodruff

    8 in · early May to early June

    Whorls of bright green leaves make a soft, even carpet under shrubs and trees.

  • Lily of the valley

    Lily of the valley

    8 in · early May to late May

    Arching sprays of small, white, intensely scented bells in May, between pairs of broad green leaves.

  • Blue fescue

    Blue fescue

    10 in · grown for its leaves

    A compact ornamental grass that forms neat tufts of striking blue-silver blades.

  • Creeping juniper 'Blue Rug'

    Creeping juniper 'Blue Rug'

    6 in · grown for its leaves

    The flattest juniper: a silver-blue carpet only a hand high that spreads two metres wide and turns plum-purple in winter.

  • Wintergreen

    Wintergreen

    5 in · late June to late July

    A tiny, creeping evergreen with glossy leaves that smell of wintergreen when crushed, small white bells in summer and bright red berries that last all winter.

  • Bearberry

    Bearberry

    8 in · early May to late May · host plant

    A flat, trailing evergreen with small, glossy, leathery leaves that turn bronze-red in winter, tiny pink-white bells in spring and red berries in autumn.

  • Bearberry cotoneaster

    Bearberry cotoneaster

    12 in · late May to mid June

    A flat, fast, trailing evergreen with small, glossy leaves, white flowers in late spring and red berries in autumn.

  • Blue moor grass

    Blue moor grass

    10 in · mid April to mid May

    A low, evergreen tuft of leaves that are blue-grey on top and dark green beneath, so it looks two-toned.

  • Seersucker sedge

    Seersucker sedge

    12 in · grown for its leaves

    Broad, lime-green, evergreen leaves, puckered like seersucker cloth, in a neat rosette.

  • Common polypody

    Common polypody

    12 in · grown for its leaves

    Leathery, ladder-like, evergreen fronds rise from creeping rhizomes that run over rocks, logs and mossy walls.

All 231 plants

Show all 231, by where they go in a bed

Front of a bed 231

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