Six Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' Plugs Added to Kitchen Curve Border - May 2026

Yesterday, I posted a photo showing the six new Ajuga 'Burgundy Glow' plugs that I stuck in the front of the border by the little colony of Hellebores in our backyard.  I talked about how I wanted to 'keep going' on groundcover this year mostly with a mix of Ajuga and Carex.  Why?  Because those are the two groundcovers that I've had the most success with over the years.  I also should list sedum because a few of those have worked, too.  #1 on my 2026 to-do list was to 'stop fighting nature' and #15 was focus on repetition vs net-new things and #20 was to 'keep going' on groundcover.  When you combine all three of those things what do you get?  The answer:  more Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip'.  

There's plenty of reasons to shop at your local nursery over a big box store parking lot temporary nursery, but the prices on their groundcover plugs is NOT one of them.  Thanks to the folks at the Home Depot, you can buy a tray of six Ajuga plugs for ten bucks.  Not bad, right?  They come with this easy-to-carry handle:

And they're in-bloom right now, so they look good:

I have a row of existing Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' in the backyard along the front of the 'kitchen curved' bed that has some bare spots in it.   These six plugs went in to fill in some of those gaps.  Below is a photo showing the six new ones planted:

Here, below, is an annotated version of that photo.  Green circles are existing groundcover, yellow circles are the six new plugs.  

Here, below, is a wider-view of the 'kitchen curved' bed that shows the Ajuga at the front of the border.  This is freshly-mulched, so you're seeing A LOT of brown.  That tells me that a flat of Carex plugs from Northwind Perennial Farm would help fill in some of the gaps here.

You also can see that recently-planted Globe Blue Spruce 'on standard' in the photo above peeking over the top of the peonies and to the left of the Fern Leaf (Matcha Ball) Spirea.  The Emperor 1 Japanese Maple is planted at the apex of the curve and is showing its maroon foliage as a nice contrast to all the greens.  

I'll look to add more groundcover this Spring including up front in the island bed, along the driveway IB2DWs, down in the 'hard to grow' area and along the boardwalk.  

For tracking purposes, let's put up a [12] on the 2026 groundcover planting board.  So far.