How Do I Make My Garden Look Good Without Using So Much Mulch?
There is a stage almost every new garden goes through where it looks less like a garden and more like an extremely expensive mulch display.
Tiny plant.
Mulch.
Mulch.
Another tiny plant.
More mulch.
Then someone stands back, looks at the enormous brown spaces between everything and decides they obviously haven't bought enough plants.
So they head back to the nursery and buy twelve completely unrelated things to fill the gaps.
Please don't.
Those gaps aren't necessarily a problem. In a newly planted garden, they're often exactly what should be there because your plants haven't reached their mature size yet.
But there is another way to think about mulch.
Rather than treating it as the permanent finished surface of the garden, think of mulch as something that helps the garden through establishment while the plants gradually take over.
Because some of the best-looking mature gardens aren't gardens where somebody has become exceptionally good at displaying mulch.
They're gardens where you barely notice the mulch at all.
First: mulch isn't the enemy
Before the mulch industry sends us an angry email, let's make this clear.
Mulch is incredibly useful.
A suitable mulch can help reduce moisture loss from the soil surface, moderate soil temperature, suppress weeds and add organic material over time depending on what you're using.
For a newly planted garden, it's one of the easiest things you can do to help create more stable conditions around young plants.
The problem isn't mulch.
The problem is designing a garden where mulch is expected to do all the visual work forever.
If every plant remains an isolated little island surrounded by metres of brown for the next ten years, the garden can struggle to develop that lush, connected feeling most people are actually trying to create.
That's where plant choice becomes interesting.
Look at what happens in nature
Natural plant communities rarely look like a nursery display.
You don't generally see one shrub, a perfectly measured circle of bare ground, another shrub, another perfectly measured circle and then a decorative feature plant every 1.2 metres.
Plants overlap.
Groundcovers creep underneath larger plants. Grasses and strappy plants emerge through lower foliage. Leaf litter accumulates. Different layers occupy different parts of the available space.
That doesn't mean we should recreate complete wilderness around the letterbox.
But there is a design lesson in it.
Bare ground is an opportunity for another layer of planting.
Not necessarily another shrub.
Sometimes what the garden needs is something low.
Groundcovers aren't just plants for difficult spots
I think groundcovers are one of the most underestimated groups of plants in home gardens.
They're often treated as problem solvers.
Got a bank? Groundcover.
Can't mow there? Groundcover.
Retaining wall? Groundcover.
But groundcovers can also be part of the actual design.
A spreading plant can connect larger shrubs visually, soften the edge of a path, move underneath taller planting and create a living surface where we'd otherwise be looking at mulch.
That immediately gives the garden another layer.
And once you start thinking this way, the question changes from:
“What plant should I put in this gap?”
to:
“What should be happening at ground level?”
Much better question.
Zen Grass® — somewhere between lawn and groundcover
This is where Zen Grass® Zoysia gets really interesting.
We tend to divide gardens into two categories.
This bit is lawn.
This bit is garden.
Zen Grass® rather rudely ignores the rule.
It's a spreading Zoysia that can be allowed to develop into a low, undulating green carpet around 10–20cm high rather than being maintained as a conventional flat lawn.
That makes it useful in places where you want a broad green ground layer without necessarily wanting another traditional garden bed or another patch of regularly mown turf.
Think around stepping stones, through lower-use areas, beneath suitable open planting or across a courtyard garden where that soft Japanese-style rippling effect becomes part of the design.
It can even spread across mulch and root through it as it travels.
That's a very different way of thinking about ground coverage.
You're not filling individual gaps.
You're creating a living floor.
Purple Fusion™ Scaevola — let plants spill
Garden edges are another place where mulch tends to dominate.
You have a perfectly straight concrete edge, then 30cm of mulch, then the plants begin.
It's neat.
Sometimes suspiciously neat.
A spreading plant such as Purple Fusion™ Scaevola can be used to blur that boundary where conditions suit it.
Instead of stopping obediently at the imaginary line where the garden bed ends, spreading foliage can move towards the edge and flowers can sit out over the planting.
That little bit of controlled spilling makes a garden feel established.
It also changes how we perceive the size of the bed because the vegetation, rather than the mulch line, becomes what our eye notices.
There is a reason mature gardens often feel softer than brand-new ones.
The plants have stopped respecting all our straight lines.
Yareena™ Myoporum — use width deliberately
Gardeners are often frightened by the word “spreading”.
We probably shouldn't be.
We should just pay attention to how far something spreads.
There's a big difference.
Yareena™ Myoporum is a spreading groundcover that can be useful where you deliberately want a plant to occupy ground-level space.
And that mature spread isn't a flaw.
It's the thing you're buying.
If a plant will eventually cover a broad area, give it enough room to do that job rather than squeezing several plants into a tiny space because the garden looks empty today.
This comes back to one of the hardest parts of planting a new garden:
You have to imagine plants that aren't there yet.
Aussie Rambler™ — tough foliage for exposed ground
In hotter, exposed areas, Aussie Rambler™ Carpobrotus gives us a completely different foliage texture.
Those thick succulent leaves aren't just decorative. They're part of the plant's adaptation for dealing with challenging conditions.
Used where appropriate, a spreading succulent groundcover can create substantial foliage coverage while contrasting beautifully with finer foliage such as Lomandra, Dianella or Westringia.
And that's another important point.
If you're replacing visible mulch with plants, don't make every ground-level plant look identical.
Think about texture.
Fine foliage against broad foliage.
Grey against green.
Strappy against spreading.
Dense against loose.
You can create enormous visual interest without needing ten different flower colours.
Low Horizon™ Westringia — shrubs don't always have to grow upwards
Here's another habit worth breaking.
We tend to think shrubs grow up.
Some of the most useful ones grow out.
Low Horizon™ Westringia is a low-growing Westringia selection that gives you the evergreen foliage and toughness people associate with Westringia in a much lower landscape form.
That's useful when you want structure without height.
It can help cover broader sections of a bed, sit beneath taller planting or repeat along the front of a landscape without creating another wall of shrubs.
This is why buying plants by name alone doesn't tell you enough.
Two Westringias can perform completely different jobs.
Growth habit matters.
Sometimes more than flowers.
Mundi™ Westringia — make width work for you
Mundi™ Westringia takes the same idea further.
Its broader spreading habit means it can occupy substantial landscape space while remaining relatively low.
In a large garden, that's valuable.
Instead of buying dozens of small upright shrubs and surrounding every one with mulch, you can use plants whose mature forms naturally cover more ground.
This doesn't mean cramming plants together.
Quite the opposite.
You're giving fewer plants enough room to become what they were bred to become.
One broad plant in the right space can sometimes do more useful landscape work than three plants fighting each other for room.
Mini Mondo — tiny plants can make a big difference
Not every bare patch needs a metre-wide groundcover.
Sometimes you're dealing with little spaces.
Beside stepping stones. Along a path. At the base of a feature. Between larger plants.
That's where something like Mini Mondo earns its keep.
Its small scale makes it useful where larger plants would overwhelm the area, and repeated planting can create a dense green ground layer.
This is where scale becomes really important.
A successful garden doesn't just contain different heights.
It contains plants that make sense at the scale of the space they're occupying.
You wouldn't plant a three-metre shrub between two pavers.
The same logic applies in reverse.
Don't ask a tiny plant to visually fill a massive garden bed.
Dichondra — sometimes you want the garden to creep
Dichondra is another useful option where conditions suit it and you want low creeping foliage.
There's something visually different about a plant that moves across the ground rather than standing above it.
It creates continuity.
That's particularly useful around stepping stones, along edges or in spaces where you want green coverage without much height.
And again, this isn't really about eliminating mulch.
It's about deciding that the ground layer deserves as much design attention as the shrubs above it.
Native Violet — for the softer, shadier places
Not every garden bed is baking in full sun.
In softer, shadier positions, Native Violet can create a very different ground layer, with small foliage and delicate flowers spreading through suitable areas.
And this is why there isn't one “best groundcover”.
The plant that loves the hot exposed edge of a driveway may be completely wrong beneath a tree or beside a sheltered patio.
Ground level still has microclimates.
Look at sun.
Look at soil.
Look at moisture.
Look at foot traffic.
Then choose the plant.
Don't start with the plant and try to negotiate with the garden afterwards.
How much of a garden bed should plants eventually cover?
There isn't a magic percentage.
It depends on the style of garden, species you're using, climate, fire considerations, maintenance requirements and how much open space you deliberately want to retain.
But if your goal is a lush, layered garden, it makes sense to think about mature canopy coverage, not just planting-day appearance.
Imagine each plant at maturity.
Where does its foliage finish?
What happens underneath it?
What occupies the space between it and the next plant?
Some gaps should remain.
Some will disappear naturally.
Some are perfect places for a lower layer.
Design those relationships before buying another random shrub.
Don't solve bare mulch by overplanting
This is important.
The answer to too much visible mulch is not planting everything ridiculously close together.
A garden can look fantastic for twelve months and become a maintenance nightmare once every plant reaches maturity.
Crowded plants can compete for light, water and nutrients. Air movement can be reduced. Plants may lose their natural form, and suddenly you're pruning constantly just to stop everyone climbing over each other.
Instead, check mature dimensions.
Plant the structural layer at sensible spacing.
Then decide whether a genuinely lower-growing layer can occupy some of the remaining space.
That's layering.
Overplanting is just impatience with a shovel.
Mulch still has a job underneath plants
Even in a densely planted garden, mulch can continue doing useful work beneath and between foliage.
You just don't necessarily have to see as much of it.
As plants mature, leaves shade the soil. Groundcovers spread. Organic material drops naturally into the bed.
The garden begins creating some of its own ground protection.
That's when it starts feeling less installed and more established.
It's a subtle difference.
But visually, it's enormous.
What about weeds?
Dense planting and groundcovers can make it harder for some weeds to establish by occupying space and reducing light at the soil surface.
But no plant creates a magical weed-proof forcefield.
Perennial weeds, invasive grasses and existing weed problems should be dealt with properly before planting.
This is especially important when establishing spreading groundcovers because pulling established weeds out from amongst dense foliage later is considerably less enjoyable.
Do the boring preparation first.
Future you is already grateful.
A simple way to plan a fuller garden
Before buying plants, divide your planting into layers.
Start with the plants providing the main structure: trees, screening plants and larger shrubs.
Then add your middle layer: compact shrubs, grasses and strappy plants.
Finally, look at the ground.
Could part of it be covered with a low Westringia? A flowering Scaevola? Myoporum? Mini Mondo? Zen Grass®? Native Violet?
Not every square centimetre needs vegetation.
But asking the question changes the way you design.
Instead of decorating mulch with plants, you begin building a plant community.
And that's when gardens start becoming interesting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use groundcovers instead of mulch?
Groundcovers and mulch perform overlapping but different roles. Mulch is particularly useful while plants establish, while suitable groundcovers can eventually provide living foliage coverage over parts of the soil. Many gardens benefit from using both rather than treating them as alternatives.
What can I plant to cover bare soil in a garden?
The best choice depends on sunlight, soil, moisture, climate, available space and foot traffic. Options can include spreading Westringias, Myoporum, Scaevola, Carpobrotus, Mondo, Dichondra, Native Violet and Zen Grass® depending on conditions.
Do groundcovers stop weeds?
Dense groundcover planting can help suppress some weed germination by occupying space and reducing light, but it won't eliminate weeds completely. Existing perennial weeds should be controlled before planting.
Can I plant groundcovers through mulch?
Yes, many groundcovers can be planted into the soil beneath a suitable mulch layer and allowed to spread over it. Keep mulch away from plant crowns and make sure roots are planted into soil rather than the mulch itself.
What is a good low-maintenance alternative to lawn?
For suitable lower-use areas, plants such as Zen Grass® can provide green ground coverage with considerably less mowing when allowed to grow in their natural form. Other groundcovers may also work depending on whether the area needs to tolerate foot traffic.
What groundcovers can I plant between pavers?
The answer depends heavily on light, moisture and how much foot traffic the area receives. Mini Mondo, Mondo, Dichondra and other low-growing plants may suit particular situations. Choose according to the actual conditions rather than appearance alone.
How do I make a new garden look fuller?
Use plants with different mature heights and growth habits, repeat plants rather than using one of everything, include spreading and ground-level plants where appropriate and allow structural plants enough space to reach their mature size. A fuller garden isn't necessarily a more crowded garden.
Maybe the mulch isn't what's missing
When a new garden looks empty, our instinct is usually to add more plants.
Sometimes that's right.
But before you buy another shrub, look lower.
Maybe the missing piece isn't another feature plant at all.
Maybe it's Purple Fusion spilling towards the path. Zen Grass moving between stepping stones. Mundi spreading beneath taller planting. Mini Mondo quietly filling the small spaces.
Because mulch is brilliant at helping a garden get started.
It just doesn't always need to remain the star of the show.