Plants for shade part eight. Groundcover plants have a valuable role in sun or shade but I find them especially useful in darker conditions. If a particular plant wants to spread so much the better. Some species are clumpers by nature, others are carpeters, both useful characteristics to fill patches of otherwise bare soil. Also useful are plants that weave in and out of other plants. 

 Case in point Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica) and Wood Spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae) increase by means of wiry underground runners. Thus the dark red flower spikes of S. sylvatica and the lime green shuttlecock flowers of E. amygdaloides proliferate in shady settings.