Hi all!

I posted this question to the Tennessee forum before I realized there's a separate forum for groundcovers, so please forgive the duplication. I've lurked here for a while, and I post in the Home forum, but I've only just started posting in Gardenweb. I should come clean right up front and say that I've never done any gardening at all, or ever planted a thing in my life except tomato plants, and those always died (I'm a serial murderess of tomatoes!)

Now we're in the process of building a house in East TN (Zone 6), and when we put in the driveway, we had to install a couple of culverts. Now we're trying to decide what to do to disguise them! We've pretty much decided on river rock all around the things, and I want some kind of perennial ground cover in and around the rock that will look nice as much of the year as possible. I would LOVE to have something that flowers, but it's more important that it be incredibly low-maintenance -- it's pretty far away from the house, and I know that weekly weeding and weed-eating just won't get done. And, of course, it needs to be able to grow in good old East Tn red clay!

The ground is North-facing, the part around the culverts is of course fairly steep, and it will be in full sun most of the day. So far, the candidates I've found through some research are Creeping Phlox, Ajuba, and possibly Wooly Thyme. There are a lot of deer in the area, so Sedum is out. Here are links to a few shots:

(Hopefully this is a link to the photos of the culverts)

Any comments, experience, suggestions? Any help or words of wisdom will be most appreciated!!

------------- Trilby