02/02-09 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information contact: Christine Kelleher, 800-232-9557, Ext. 512 or Gary Doerr, 916-716-1889 Lorraine Flanigan is a freelance garden writer living in Toronto. She is contributing editor for suite101.com's Gardening in Southern Ontario web site and her City Gardening column appears in Toronto's Town Crier newspaper. Feel free to use this release in its entirety or in part, with or without the author's byline.

Dressed in flounces of colorful petals, Roses, Delphiniums and Phlox preen in the garden, commanding our attention while the lowly groundcover remains downtrodden at their feet. Regarded as the problem-solvers of the garden, groundcovers are used as blankets of green in spots too shady for grass, as tenacious troopers holding back the banks of a steep slope or as tireless workhorses stamping out weeds. Always helpful, groundcovers are rarely the belles of the border.

Blooms of Bressingham is changing the way gardeners look at groundcovers. More than plants for problem areas, groundcovers like Primula 'Katy McSparron', Geranium 'Ann Folkard', Helianthemum 'Annabel' and Persicaria 'Dimity' stand their ground, coloring the garden with their abundant flowers and striking foliage, forming an integral part of the garden tapestry.

Spring is when Primula 'Katy McSparron' blossoms, ushering in the gardening season with golden yellow clusters of fragrant, double flowers. Blooming for weeks throughout the spring, 'Katy McSparron' is happy to share the limelight with spring bulbs like Crocus and Muscari or to flutter by the side of feathery Ferns. Growing best in moist, organic soils, 'Katy McSparron' soon forms crowded clumps of lush, oval leaves that are easily divided and transplanted, creating colonies of Primulas that dance in shady dells and woodlands at the feet of towering oaks, ashes and birches.

A stunning accent to blue-hued evergreen shrubs, hedges and trees, Geranium 'Ann Folkard' scrambles along the ground flashing black-eyed magenta flowers while tendrils of golden foliage reach up to the furry branches of blue spruce or junipers. Planted three to four plants per square meter (yard), 'Ann Folkard' soon forms a mature groundcover of 30 centimeter (12") high and wide mounds that love to be rewarded after they flower with a refreshing shearing.

The steel magnolia of groundcovers, Helianthemum 'Annabel' takes root in dry, poor soils, forming a dense carpet of tiny double soft rosy-pink flowers that bloom over grey-green foliage from late spring until the middle of summer. An indispensable groundcover for sunny sites, 'Annabel's' best friends in the border are Scabiosa columbaria 'Butterfly Blue' and Campanula carpatica 'White Clips'. Blooming as long as any annual, Persicaria affinis 'Dimity' colors the garden from early summer to late fall. Stippling the ground in pastel shades, its dainty spikes of deep pink flowers blush to pale pink as they mature, the leathery leaves burnished bronze during the cool days of autumn. In full sun or part shade, the diminutive 'Dimity' is a dwarf groundcover that forms a magical carpet along the banks of a stream or over the craggy rocks of a rock garden.

Blooms of Bressingham, covering ground with fine perennials.

Pictures available.