6 More Ajuga Chocolate Chip Plugs Planted - Sideyard Porch Bed For Erosion Control - September 2026

I found a six-pack of Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' plugs at Home Depot in their 50% off Fall sale and grabbed the best-looking one of the bunch.  I've had mixed results with some of these six-packs.  Most of the time, they're great and the plants get established and take-off.  Other times, I've bought some other packs that didn't work at all.  

I've planted Ajuga in the Fall before and have also had mixed results.  Some of them get established enough and come back in Spring.  Others don't.  Farmer's Almanac has October 11th as our first frost, so we're just a couple weeks away.  Eeeeek.  Time to get these into the ground.

Here's the pack below.  Looks healthy:

Over on the side of our house, we have an erosion problem.  Between a couple of downspout pop-ups, this area sees a lot of water movement.  I've been using this cobbled-together mix of bricks, stones and other blocks to try to slow things down.  Right behind it is where I'm going to plant these groundcover.

In that photo above, you can see the trug full of compost.  That's home-made Black Gold that I pulled out of the tumbler.  Don't mind if I do:

I tucked all six into this area in a staggered row:

My hope here is that these get established and come back in Spring where they can stretch out and (hopefully) create a little bit of erosion control.

These six are the latest groundcover plants that I put in the garden this year.  I consider each one of these a little down payment towards buying LESS mulch in each of the upcoming growing seasons.  The last two were Little Lamb Lamb's Ear in the Island Bed.  Those two brought me up to 45 for the season (7 sedges, 36 ajuga, 2 lamb's ear).  

These six now push me to 51 total.  7 sedges, 42 ajuga, 2 lamb's ear.

#20 on my 2026 to-do list was to "keep going with groundcover".  Earlier this month, in my check-in post, I marked it COMPLETE.  Now, with a little bit more emphasis.