4 expert tips for growing healthy woodruff

Woodruff is both easy to grow and nice to look at. Here's some tips to help you grow healthy woodruff in your garden.

• Sweet woodruff's petite, white, starry flowers mix well with everything from white-flowered daffodils to tulips of almost any hue.
• Think of sweet woodruff as a filler, like baby's breath, in a living spring bouquet.
• With a little planning, you can spice up your sweet woodruff planting by interspersing other spring bloomers.
• Sprinkle in some woodland phlox, or plant sweet woodruff in a skirt around ferns, Solomon's seal or hellebores.
• Once established, woodruff excludes weeds.
• Be careful of overcrowding. Allow about 30 centimetres (one foot) on all sides at planting time.

• Choose a spot in partial shade, like under tall trees, carpeting a slope or filling in underneath trees and shrubs. Or, use it to pretty up a ravine or equally difficult spot.
• Plants in strong light may bleach to a lighter shade of green or turn yellow.
• Soil should be moist and enriched with peat moss or partially composted leaves.
• Space the plants 30 centimetres (one foot) apart.
• Buy flats of sweet woodruff from a garden centre in springtime. It takes quite a few plants to make an impressive initial display.

• All woodruff really requires is moderately damp soil.
• Be careful not to mire the roots in boggy ground, which can induce fatal root rot.
• Sweet woodruff doesn't give the impression of being a fast traveller, yet it does cover an impressive spread of ground in a fairly short time.
• If it grows where it's unwanted, just pull it up by the roots.

• In late fall or very early spring, fertilize dormant sweet woodruff with a five centimetres (two inches) of mulch.
• Woodruff prefers mulch made of composted manure or a commercial controlled-release fertilizer.
• Plants undergoing long droughts or high heat may go dormant in summer.
• While rarely bothered by pests or diseases, the plants can attract hungry deer. Tuck deodorant bath soap into plantings to deter them, or use commercial deer repellent.

The dainty-looking woodruff is actually a durable and vigorous ground cover. For success with sweet woodruff, let it do what it does best: cover broad areas of ground in semi-shady spots.