Top is Alliaria petiolata, Garlic Mustard, an alien invasive weed.

Middle is a Viola species, violets. Whether it's a weed or not is a matter of opinion depending on where it's growing and your style of gardening. The small pinkish flowers mixed in could be several things so we need a closer photo. From what I can see it might Claytonia virginica, Spring Beauty, a cutenative.

Bottom are Erythronium leaves. I can't tell you the exact species but all are gorgeous natives. Lucky you. There's also what appears to be an Impatiens species there too. Quite possibly a native too.

Thank you very much. I'd done some cursory research that quickly identified the garlic mustard; looks like I have my work cut out for me on that one. I'm quite happy with the other two - the viola works just fine for my gardening style, and I'm quite happy that I have the erythronium flourishing; it seems to particularly like my shag bark hickory.

I tried a few different ground covers last spring that are commonly offered locally (I'm in Zone 5A) - Japanese spurge and creeping phlox. The phlox has seemingly done fairly well, though the plants are still a bit small. The spurge is still alive, though a bit browned. Where I planted it, however, ended up being underwater for over a month in the early Spring, so I'm not surprised. While I'm not unhappy with either of these, I don't think that they are aggressive enough for me to make any notable progress on the areas I have to cover.

Again, the area around me is quite swampy, though in the dog days of summer, it does dry out. Where I live (central Wisconsin, US) we tend to have snow covering the ground for 4-6 months of the year, and I have hundreds of large trees that dump mountains of leaves in the fall. Depending on where you are on my property, I get everything from full shade to partial sun (very few areas of full sun).

I have a lot of ground to cover, and I think that if I'm going to get there in the next 10 years, I'm going to need a more aggressive approach. To your point about my 'gardening style', I'm really just trying to cover a lot of ground without constantly having to split plants (though I'm not completely opposed to that). I've been doing some research (I am way out of my depth here), and I'm leaning strongly toward planting Creeping Jenny, preferably a more aggressive species rather than the 'golden' version offered at most big box stores. I'd also considered some high-contrast mixing and matching, like pairing Creeping Jenny with Chocolate Chip Ajuga.

I'd love to hear thoughts and suggestions about Creeping Jenny or any other recommendations.

I’m in 5B, and have the same species in my shady woodland yard! The garlic mustard is mostly under control now, but it requires vigilance and scouting every year. It is relatively easy to pull out at the stage you have pictured—the inflorescence is easy to grab and the roots are not very deep. It is a biennial plant, low to the ground rosette during the first year and flowering in the second year. It is harder to get the first year plants out. If you keep pulling second year plants out after they flower but before they release their seed, there will be a smaller population every year. It took a few years and there are always some stragglers, but we are largely free of garlic mustard now.