Wild Ginger

The best native groundcover for deep shade under trees. fragrant, handsome, and completely deer-proof.

Wild Ginger is a woodland groundcover with large, heart-shaped leaves that form a dense, slow-spreading carpet under trees and in shaded borders. Break a stem or disturb the roots and you'll immediately smell the spicy, ginger-like fragrance that gives this plant its name, not true ginger, but intensely aromatic in a way that makes you want to brush the leaves just to smell them again. The deep forest-green leaves are handsome from spring through fall and hold well into November. In spring it produces small, hidden flowers at ground level, brownish-purple cups tucked beneath the leaf canopy that are pollinated by ground-crawling insects, not flying pollinators. The flowers are easy to miss but worth looking for. As a groundcover, Wild Ginger builds soil, suppresses weeds, and spreads gradually to fill space without becoming invasive. It's the native solution for the difficult shaded area under large deciduous trees where grass won't grow.