How to Use Culinary Herbs as Ground Cover

Sometimes it can be tricky to identify the right groundcover for a particular area of your garden.

This plant needs too much sun. That one likes shade. And this other one you’ve used all over the place — and you want something new.

Have you considered using culinary herbs as groundcover? Adding these multipurpose edibles to your garden solves not only the problem of filling an empty space, but also enables you to liven up dinner!

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Judith Craft, primary gardener for the herb garden for the Austin Herb Society in Austin, Texas, likes herbs because many of them will bloom in the shade.

She says, “Herbs offer much more variety and texture in the garden than some of the other groundcovers.” She adds that some herbs — such as trailing rosemary — are useful as erosion prevention tools. Plant them on a bank or near a retaining wall to keep soil in place, she suggests.

Use groundcover herbs between stones on a walkway, so when you step on them, you get a little fragrance boost in the air, says Skip Richter, County Extension Agent in Horticulture with Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service.

With a large range of growing habits, colors, shapes, sizes, and flowering available, choosing a groundcover herb can be fun.

Some considerations before you make a selection:

Now, glorious as they are, there is one caveat to using culinary herbs as groundcover.

We’ll share this later in the article, but for now,