When you see a plant listed as a “groundcover” you can expect practically anything, from something that will cling low to the earth and spread like spilled paint, to what’s really a sprawling shrubby thing that will form a loose mound of branches that’s several feet tall at the center. Closer to the first category is this plant that began blooming for me during the final days of July.

The plant goes by a number of common names, among them, Carmel aster, California aster, beach aster, and branching beach aster. And the number of Latin names attached to the plant doesn’t to much to simplify identifying it: Lessingia filanginifolia v. californica, Lessingia californica, Corethrogyne leucophylla, Corethrogyne filanginifolia. The last name, Corethrogyne filanginifolia, seems to be the one that’s going to stick for a while, so that’s the one I’ll be trying to train myself to use.

Plant this where you’d like a white-leaved low groundcover. It blooms from midsummer into the fall with small, pale lavender flowers with perky yellow centers. The plant will go several months without supplemental watering, but will look better with an occasional sip of water (about once per month during the summer here near the coast).

As a groundcover the foliage on Carmel aster can be a little on the sparse side, especially when grown lean and dry, as you see here. But I use the bare spots as a place to sow some late winter-flowering wildflower seeds. Plants of California poppies look great peeking through the low mat of white leaves, for instance. By this time of year, however, weeds aren’t a problem, so the occasional bare patches aren’t a weed magnet like they might be during the winter.

Last fall I planted three different groundcovers to trial. This is the one that I’ll be keeping and planting more of.