Ajuga reptans

'Bronze Beauty'

Ajuga is a ground cover which puts up blue flower spikes. It is mildly invasive. It takes sun or shade. It needs watering. The landscaper put a little in our street bed, and from there we have divided and transplanted it to where we have dozens and dozens of the plants around our lot in all kinds of soil.

Online nurseries charge $10 or more for a single Ajuga plant. When the side lot street bed was built, we dug up some ajuga from places they were growing in droves and planted them along the front of the street bed. They took root and started blooming almost immediately.

Care instructions say to dead-head it, but when you have so many dozens, that's a lot of work. It never seems to suffer from not being dead-headed.

In Southwest beds:

Close-up:

In Northwest beds:
April 13, 2010:
Click here to see Ajuga without flowers.

Grape Hyacinth flowers look very similar to the Ajuga flowers, so we planted some bulbs among them.
The Ajuga starts blooming about the time the Hyacinths are fading out.