Tough matt forming plants for damp shade

I have a gap about 3ft wide between my patio and my house. I built it that way on purpose, so as to always have access to the wall and drains should they ever need any repair work, but its an eyesore now. I'm thinking of filling it with gravel and some low growing plants.

Given the location, it is inevitable that they will get trampled on from time to time, as my two lads play out, and as its up against a north facing wall it is never sunny there (except for about half an hour before sunset in summer).

Any ideas?

 

Ziggy like this one, Hypericum Calycinum

@Zigs

 

Vinca Major?
Some of the hummocky Saxifrage varieties might suit but don't take a lot of wear and tear and the shade loving ones can be a bit delicate.
GG

 

A nice ivy

 

Reminds me of School Jif,it was growing all over the banks there, buds don't half smell when you crush them

 

Marram Grass

 

Possible change of plan on thinking about it. Except for the ivy idea. I might use that for a bit of ground cover.

I have two of those false castor oil plants (fatsia) in pots, which I believe take a lot of shade. I might plant both of those there, but will they do anything nasty to the house, with their roots, being so close to the wall?

 

Erm, Fatsia take a fair bit of shade yes, but in my experience to do reasonably well they need some nice deep soil with a fair bit of manure around their roots to do well. With poor soil they generally struggle. They are also quite brittle so if you have a budding little Jimmy Greaves in the family it could be damaged quite easily.
GG

 

I have Fatsia, growing well in damp shade, they are nice low maintenance plants, and great survivors. Just give it some compost and water and rest it will sort itself out. But beware that it is a tree, will grow to 10 ft leaving the ground bare again in couple of years. I hv planted hosta, lily of the valley and astllbe along with fatsia and now looking to put some perrenial ground cover like nettle...


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I presume if it gets too tall, I can just chop it down to just above a couple of side shoots?

 

Fatsia in my experience do not take to pruning at all well, it just doesn't work really, they are really meant more to be tree-like, that is where they come into their own. And if you did prune it, it would probably look pretty awful and you will be waiting a long time for it to regrow to some sort of nice shrub. That's partly why I was against it if it accidentally got clobbered by your kids. I just don't think it is ideal for your situation. Minki did suggest Astilbe which would be a good shout I think.
Not sure how long the patch is, but if you are on a bit of a budget, a few Astilbe plus a few Vinca Major would be a good temporary measure as both are cheap to buy and tough and pretty. If you don't like it later on, you haven't wasted much money. Choisya would also do well I think and is more resilient than Fatsia if you are looking for a larger bush. They are more flexible and easy to prune to the shape you require, they do get big if you let them though. Insignificant flowers but smell grand.
Tricky one though Clueless.
GG

 

The fatsias are in there now, but they are only small still, and I reckon easy enough to get back out.

I might leave them in place for now, just because I have nothing else handy to go there yet, and then replace them later in the year.

I like choisya, but I thought they needed full sun?

Astilbe is nice, but I don't think they're the right 'form' for the job. Too sort of feathery (unless I'm getting my plants mixed up).

I love the idea of hostas, but the only thing that puts me off is tales of them being slug magnets. For some reason we get an abundance of slugs in our garden. Definitely not ruling them out though.

I had another idea. I think most ferns do well in that sort of setting, so I might look into that.

I have an abundance of vinca major already in the garden, so I could move some, but I'm not sure its rambling nature is right for this particular job.

What would be really cool (and this was my lad's idea) would be too make it like a 'tidy jungle', and hide toy dinosaurs and such in it. I got that idea from watching my son play when I had a few plants in the kitchen waiting to go out. I saw my son hiding dinosaurs in amongs them, and then another dinosaur would come along, get ambushed, then there'd be a dinosaur fight

 

Could you put a row of planters along there so that you wouldn't need to dig anything up if you needed access to the drains?

 

I might just do that