(Photography: Julie Crespel, aremedia.com.au)
Whether you’re creating beautiful planted containers, or want to soften the edges of raised garden beds and retaining walls, cascading plants are fabulously useful. With their long trailing stems, these are plants that grow naturally as groundcovers. But, given a little height, they can attractively cover a vertical area rather than a horizontal one. And they’re perfect choices for hanging baskets too.
There are plenty of different cascading plants to choose from. So, we’ve rounded up a list of some of our favourites.
Top cascading plants for your garden or indoors
01
Maidenhair fern
Maidenhair ferns are a popular choice when it comes to cascading plants, with beautiful, delicate green leaf structures that vary between the different varieties.
02
Convolvulus sabatius
This one makes a delightful hanging basket, pot plant or spillover plant for sunny parts of the garden. The lovely lilac-blue trumpet shaped flowers appear through spring and summer.
03
Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’
Silver Falls has long trailing stems with tiny leaves of the most iridescent silver. It’s very hardy and tolerant of both sun and light shade.
04
Helichrysum petiolare
Also known as licorice plant thanks to its slight scent, this is a shrubby perennial plant that sends out long stems covered in small felty leaves, which can be either silver-grey or lime-green, depending on the variety. It’s happy in both sun and light shade.
05
Bacopa
Also known as Sutera cordata, Bacopa has trailing stems and small single flowers in white, pink or mauve which appear through summer and beyond. A very compact grower, it suits sun or light shade and is extra handy as an edging plant for large pots.
06
Golden creeping Jenny
Golden creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) is a low-growing trailing plant with leaves of golden green. It’s a vigorous grower and looks great cascading out of pots or over rocks. Plant it in sun or shade and keep well watered during hot weather.
07
Scaevola
Known commonly as the fan flower, this cascading plant is an Australian native groundcover that bears pretty little blooms, mainly in shades of mauve, blue and purple. Blooming on and off between spring and autumn, it does best in full sun and well-drained soil, with good watering through dry weather.
How do you plant cascading or trailing plants?
If you want a cascading effect, choose a pot, basket or area close to the edge of a raised garden area for planting. The key is to give your plant some height so it can trail down vertically. If you want more of a groundcover, make sure your trailing plant has space around it to spread out as it grows.
