Every year, about this time, I am vexed by the sight of bare soil where the spring bulbs have gone dormant. I hate bare soil as it seems such a wasted opportunity to be growing something, so I am looking for plants to form a low carpet over these areas. Ideally these should be perennial, need no care or supplementary water, form a mat over the area, but not offer any resistance to an emerging shoot, or any competition to the growing bulbs that are the most important occupants of the space. Certain Sedums are suitable, and in a rock garden setting there would be many options from the genus, but the areas I need to cover are in a 'woodland' garden with shade for part of the day. Yesterday, taking advantage of moistish ground and the forecast of two or three days of wet weather (yippee!) I put out some plants of Pratia pedunculata and Leptinella (Cotula) 'Platt's Black' over snowdrop patches. Last year I used a rather good bright green Leptinella that I had from Wayne Roderick (any suggestions for identification would be welcome!). It has tolerated the conditions quite well, but for some obscure reason I only planted it in areas where there is only a narrow fringe of 'bare' ground between thick herbaceous plants and the edge of the bed. In other areas there are several square feet of bare ground to cover in the case of the bigger patches of snowdrops, so some vigour is needed. I should be very interested to hear what other people use or could suggest. John Grimshaw Dr John M. Grimshaw Garden Manager, Colesbourne Gardens Sycamore Cottage Colesbourne Nr Cheltenham Gloucestershire GL53 9NP Website: http://www.colesbournegardens.org.uk/