Ground cover layer plants

With the guilds and plantings I've done, it's easy to choose and implement the tree, shrub and herbaceous layers but I'm struggling with the ground cover layer.  I've heard that grass is the thing we're trying to suppress.  Ok got it.

I often hear strawberries as a suggestion but grass loves to invade and overpower strawberries for me.  Natural to my area are a couple plants that love to invade wood chips.  One is sheep sorrel, the other is a little plant that we call Indian paint brush but it isn't.  

Panseys were planted in the community garden and they seem to spread, stay short and look pretty so those might be an option.  Violets seem to thicken up and maybe would keep out grass.  Mints can probably fight off grass but a pile of mint tends to no longer taste like mint so they lose their culinary benefit.

Are there other ground covers that I could be considering?  

I'm in zone 4a with generally sandy soils and wood chips.  Thx!

Violets are a good option, especially Viola sororia since it tolerate a range of sun to shade (unlike some that don’t like full sun). Wild strawberry has done well for me, but I don’t have a lot of grass pressure. I think the plant that gets called Indian paintbrush but isn’t, that’s probably orange hawkweed and it’s a pain. At least the sheep sorrel can be eaten, to a point. Lol maybe not all of it.

What about creeping thyme? Arctic poppy?

In shade or at least part shade, wild ginger?  

Do you want only edible suggestions?

Pansies will spread, especially if they're the wild Johnny jump ups. I'm taking a break from gardening this year (to a point). I'm letting one area mostly just do what it likes. What it likes seems to be pansies.

It's hard to tell in the second picture, but that's a pathway between two raised beds. Last year it was all grass, sedge, and sheep sorrel. This year the lamb's lettuce has spread very successfully through the grass. It's the one with the little white flowers. Actually, there's quite a bit of it in with the pansies, too.

If you're going with sorrel, I think wood sorrel is nicer tasting and much prettier than sheep sorrel. Maybe not as aggressive, though.

I took a picture of the mystery plant.  It has fuzzy leaves and the flat, daisy like flower is orange/red if I remember correctly.  

Yeah that’s hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum), considered invasive in WI but mowing it only encourages it. The only thing to do it outcompete, smother, or shade it out.

Jan asked a good question. What are your goals for the groundcover layer besides keeping grass out? Do you prefer something edible/medicinal or fine with other benefits like insectary or nitrogen fixing? There’s always white clover.

I have a ground cover (introduced, from a nursery but spreads a lot) that I guess is medicinal but I’m not sure what to do with it, a mint family plant called bugle, Ajuga reptans. I’ve moved it around and it established easily.

Also speedwell/Veronica, but that doesn’t have as dense of foliage as the bugle.

Hostas make a lovely forest garden edible plant.

There are several beautiful varieties to choose from.

By the way, my electric coop magazine gave a list of the top five forage plants.  My favorite Turk's cap was listed.  I knew the leaves were edible though the author said she liked to nibble on the berries (seed pods).  Now I can't wait to see mine bloom so I can try the berries.  That plant would be lovely in your forest.

The other top forage plants she listed: chickweed, dandelion, henbit and pink evening primrose.

Thanks for all the suggestions!  It's mostly full sun (for the next 5 years) and my goal is food or pollination.  Medicine or other uses would be fine but you only need so much sheep sorrel (I have 1/4 acre of it)

Thanks for the ID Marisa, image searches on the internet confirm it!  Luckily I have the orange version which is prettier to me than the yellow one.  They spread by runners that love to travel through wood chips.

My food forests are fenced from deer so hostas might have a chance if I ever develop some shade.

Summarizing the suggestions, at least for the non-shade plants:
Creeping thyme:  How fast does it creep?  If I put a spot somewhere, how long until it's creeped 5 feet?  For some reason I'm thinking it's pretty slow.  But it is dense.
Arctic poppy sound neat!
Violets:  We have ones that pop up in the yard that we're moving into wood chip areas and they seem to spread and fill in quite nicely
Pansies: They were planted in the community garden and have spread there.  We're pulling them out and some are mysteriously ending up in our landscape here.  They seem to be a good option so far.
Sheep sorrel: Established and it's ok.  I'd like more variety and just less of it.
Wood sorrel: Established and it doesn't seem like it will keep grass away
Lamb's lettuce:  I'll have to look into that one, it's new to me
White clover: True, I hadn't thought of clovers.  They seem wimpy but the seed is easy enough to get...
Bugle: We've learned that mints start to not taste like their parent plant when they've crossed with other mints.  So I'm leery to mix too many into my landscape.  Maybe I'm wrong on that reasoning though...
Speedwell:  That sounds interesting.  Looks like there are low growing spring blooming ones and taller growing summer blooming ones.
Turk's cap: Looks like there are some very different plants all using this name?
Pink evening primrose: Looks like it spreads aggressively (many of these groundcovers do).  I guess I need to make sure I'm not trading one problem for another.

Thanks for this topic Mike - I have the same sort of problem: turn your back for three weeks and you get a hayfield (with docks and thistles in my case)!
If you can get an area clear of grass, by woodchip and other mulch for example, then you might be able to make a grass barrier to stop it spreading back in. Except in the case of the most robust creeping grasses, something like comfrey or rhubarb can make a good border.
I quite like parsley as a temporary ground cover. I'm hoping it will seed around and remain to a certain extent, but I'm finding it growing a bit tall and is swamping out my other plants (having to cut and drop parsley!)
You're a bit colder than I, so what works well for me may not for you. I'm liking marjoram, chives, siberian purslane, bugle, good king henry, sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata), Scorzonera. Others that are promising are Turkish rocket, Angelica (has the same problem as parsley growing tall), Udo.
Things that grow happily with grass: silverweed, pignuts, docks (! well you can eat them, and they are good for biomass).
Things that might be too much of a good thing: nettles - make a lovely ground cover under my raspberries which makes picking a less pleasant chore.
I think to a certain extent this is why forest gardens do look a bit messy in the early years. The trouble is that grass takes cutting back quite well, whereas other herbacious plants just give up an let the grasses take over. Most grasses will be shaded out in time, so you may just need to be patient, grow lots of biomass and try and mulch the grass to death in the meantime!

The two I've had the most success establishing into quack grass have been Black Medick and Yellow Sweet Clover. Yellow sweet clover isn't a groundcover per se, but it is for like half the year until it shoots up. I started with just a few plants here and there, and every summer I gather the seeds and scatter them around. After a few years of doing this the population is starting to go exponential.

Three others that I've noticed don't get reinvaded by the surrounding grass are yarrow, centauria, and cerastium, they form a pretty solid clump that gets a little bigger every year.

Tossing purslane into the mix as an idea!   Yum.  

Wild blue violet is the main one in my food forest.  I didn't plant it, it just took off and it covers every inch that I haven't planted something else.  It's pretty and it stays short.  It's easy to pull or hoe if it moves into a place you don't want it and it isn't too bossy.  I use mint as well in a lot of places, and of course comfrey.  It falls down after a certain height and suppresses weeds in a circle several feet across depending on how tall you let it get before crushing it down or cutting it.  I use white clover in a lot of areas as well.  It's pretty well behaved, it stays fairly short, and I just like it.  The bees love it as well.

I'm in a pretty similar area to you and have been pondering this same question for the past 5 years. I decided that I wanted something that in addition to suppressing weeds, was either useful (food, flowers, nitrogen) or was a native plant (because "native" tends to be shorthand for exceptional wildlife value + low maintenance). Here are some things I've tried:

Pussytoes & skullcaps (full sun): native, kinda cute, good in hot dry sun. But they don't spread very fast and I am not sure about their weed-suppressing abilities.
Creeping veronica (full sun): spreads nicely, a lovely mat of flowers for a brief period, handles foot traffic, seems to be fighting off competition very well in my terrible weedy boulevard. Not especially useful other than the flowers.
Creeping thyme (full sun): There are different varieties and I think the weed-fighting abilities will vary. Nice flowers. It's edible, but will you reach for it when you have an upright thyme plant nearby that is easier to harvest and not dirty? Hasn't been 100% hardy for me.
Violets (any): I like these, because they are pretty, native with great wildlife value, edible if you care to eat them, tolerate tons of foot traffic, and show up voluntarily. I've been encouraging them but don't have them massed in any one area yet. I'm guessing they won't be great at out-competing weeds.
Canada anemone (full/part sun): I sourced this one because I was looking for more native groundcovers. It's a bit taller so not for foot traffic areas, but spreads well and nice flowers.
Poppy mallow (full/part sun): Same idea as Canada anemone, but this one hasn't spread at all for me. Pretty, not much of a groundcover.
Dutch white clover (any?): A classic, and all-around good at what it does. Not going to overcome established weeds, but good if you let it get established first.
New Zealand giant clover (any): Taller and very lush. I have been thinking this would do a good job but haven't given it a proper trial yet.
Yarrow (full/part sun): A bit taller, but can be very dense. Pretty. I'm not sure if this is a native here or not.
Dandelions (any): Not like I sought them out, but you know. Unfortunately, even if you let them get huge and dense and happy, they still don't keep out other weeds very well.
Partidge pea (full/part sun): Maybe technically the herbaceous layer, but I think it deserves a nod for being a vigorous annual that reseeds readily, is native, is gorgeous and hugely popular with bees, and fixes nitrogen. I have a big stand of this that has been expanding each year and thoroughly keeping everything else at bay.

On strawberries, the different species and common names get confusing, so it's worth asking which kind you've tried. Fragaria x ananassa is the cultivated one—I haven't tried this in a naturalized setting. Fragaria vesca, "alpine strawberry", is the one I most often see billed as "wild strawberry". It has small sweet berries, doesn't spread much (or at all?) by runners, and generally behaves itself. Nice plant, not a great weed suppressor. Fragaria virginiana is the one that's native around here. Also small sweet fruits, but spreads by runners like mad. I planted six plugs a couple years ago and they have formed a huge solid 10'x30' carpet of plants. There's a few shoots of quack grass making a go of it, but the strawberries are winning. If you're looking for a proper groundcover, Fragaria virginiana seems like the clear way to go.

Mike said, "Turk's cap: Looks like there are some very different plants all using this name?

There is some sort of lily with that name. I know nothing about that one.

The Turk's Cap that I have had for years, at different locations is a mallow.  Green leaves with red flowers that look like a Turk's hat. Hummingbirds love the red flowers as do butterflies.

When we lived in central texas it grew wild in the woods.

It is a perennial shrub that might grow as tall as 5 feet.  Not really a ground cover though more of an accent plant.

Picture here:

https://permies.com/t/165481/Creating-wildlife-friendly-hugelkultur-bed#1300024

We too are zone 4,maybe 3, Sandy soil. Lots of good suggestions already. I like to plant lingnonberries between blueberries. Both like acid soil. I've got cranberries  or Nagoon berries by the honey berries, garlic ( the kind that gets the bulblets on top like Egyptian onion) they will spread like crazy tho. I love purslane salads and you can order "improved" varieties that are a little bigger leaves, look like a jade plant.violas,violets are edible. You can tuck cucumber seed in and let it crawl. I've been reading about growing wine cap mushrooms in straw or wood chip mulch in garden beds, tolerates sun good luck let us know what works for you

Another option, especially for full sun is oregano. It doesn't spread all that fast, but it's dense and keeps grass out. I do get pansies and chives coming up in mine, but so far no grass - and there is grass in the same beds. I think mine is Greek oregano. I never really trust the labels, though. It's got fuzzy leaves and is a little more minty-tasting than some when dried.  It makes a really good tea, I think.

Hens and chicks are edible, although I don't know if I'd even eat them. They seem to keep out grass fairly well. The ones I have are actually slowly spreading into the grass and choking it out.

I love hens and chicks for rocky/ sandy soil. I have portions of my yard that have a similar soil. It blocks out grass, but doesn't spread as fast as I would like.

Things that takeover and choke out grass at my site: veronica/speedwell (works best planted next to bushes or slight shade), ground ivy /creeping charlie, a combo of violets and dandelion planted together, climbing peas planted densely with no trellis, and chickweed. I'm currently planting lambs ears because it's worked for me before.

Would you be interested in planting lowbush cranberry or some other low growing bush?

Thanks Jo, I think I'm more interested in herbaceous plants that spread on their own.  Of course if they compete with my desired plants more than grass, sheep sorrel and hawkweed, then I should stick with the weeds I have now...

Marisa Lee wrote:orange hawkweed and it’s a pain

What's bad about hawkweed? We have it in huge swathes of orange and yellow (some of the oranges are so deep I'd call them red) and they're super-pretty. I might call it a problem if I was trying to hay the field because it's pretty competitive at the ground level and doesn't send much biomass up the 18" or whatever that the blooms grow. I love that it's competitive with grass.

Also, this thread is great!

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Marisa Lee wrote:orange hawkweed and it’s a pain

What's bad about hawkweed? We have it in huge swathes of orange and yellow (some of the oranges are so deep I'd call them red) and they're super-pretty. I might call it a problem if I was trying to hay the field because it's pretty competitive at the ground level and doesn't send much biomass up the 18" or whatever that the blooms grow. I love that it's competitive with grass.

Also, this thread is great!

I guess it’s only a pain if you don’t want it. You named one reason somebody might not like it. For me, it’s because it’s an invasive species (regionally), so it competes against native flora that I want both to support other wildlife and for its own sake. Of course, I understand enjoying its ability to outcompete grass & agree it is pretty!

These are helpful ideas for ground cover AND that cucumber tip by Diane Woiak really helps my situation here. The birds ate all my very-exposed Armenian cucumber plants along a trellis. Instead of replanting a 3rd time in a tidy row like the birds expect, I'm following Diane's advice:

You can tuck cucumber seed in and let it crawl

I just tucked the last of the cucumber seeds in about 15 sunny spots with exposed soil.  Due to the exposure and moist conditions, random volunteer sunflowers are growing here and there. The cucumber "ground cover" will (hopefully) protect the soil and the sunflowers might hold up the cucumbers. Worth a try. Thanks for the tip!