Ground cover for our Texas garden Question?

Question

Last year we put Preen mulch on our garden where my gardenias and roses are..I have never seen such growth of fungus and mold and foam looking stuff so fast in my life..It was horrible..

The second I saw the stuff I raked the garden clean of all the preen mulch...My gardenias and roses survived except for one...

This year i decide to just cover the ground with coffee grounds which in Texas my gardenias love..The weeds still grow in certain spots..

A relative with a green thumb suggested something called ground cover..I am again concerned with the ground not being able to breath and end up with yet another round of that foam looking fungus in my garden.

.I don't mind pulling up a few break through weeds...I feel the coffee grounds is enough plus it puts the added acid in the ground the gardenias ands roses seem to love as well and ground cover fairly well..

Question: Coffee Grounds or the fabric ground cover for the garden??

Answer 1

Ground covers are usually low covering plants that cover the ground.  Fabrics such as weed mat are not recommended anymore because the soil can't breath properly and the water doesn't penetrate the soil properly causing stunted plants.  Plant roots spread out from the plants, they just don't grow under the stem where the hole in the weed mat is, therefore, with weed mat limited water availablility.

Roses don't like too much digging around their roots, so if you want to plant a ground cover use something that doesn't need maintenance.  Good choices would be Veronica 'Oxford Blue', and Catmint (Nepeta).  Both have blue flowers and contrast with the rose colours.  Catmint has been used for centuries.

As roses don't like too much competion and like heavy fertilizing with manures etc you may be best to keep up the coffee ground and mulch heavily with hay.  Breaks down, lets soil breath and therefore no fungus etc, keeps roots moist and cool in summer, warm in winter and beats the weeds.  

Alot of rose diseases like black spot are harboured in the soil so covering with a mulch like hay makes good sense.

Answer 2

For years I've been using coffee grounds for my roses ,azaleas ,jasmines and pretty much everything else .I put mulch twice because I was told it would keep the moist in the ground to avoid watering so much ,but my flowers definitely did not like it ,so I'd stick with the coffee grounds.