Some families in our neighborhood plant ground cover in areas around their homes, like flowerbeds and parkways. One home about a quarter mile from our place uses ice plant, a common ground cover shrub in California, to decorate the parkway next to the curb on one side of their corner lot. Today, it seemed like the whole parkway was alive with colors from orange and yellow flowers.
Click on the image to enlarge.
I read that one of the reasons that California uses Ice Plant so often for roadside ground cover is that it is rather tolerant of salt. Besides making it good for coastal areas (and let’s face it, California has a lot of coastline), they can actually water it with salty water which will kill off any other plants trying to live there. Cuts way back on weeding and it still looks good.
Last summer, we took a trip to Morro Bay, CA, and stayed at a campground adjacent to Morro Dunes, a broad beach and recreational area. Ice plant grew in the sand and thrived in that area. Not only hardy in salt conditions, but sandy soil as well. I don’t recall seeing any other vegetation at that location.