Sweet Woodruff: A Field Guide

With starry, white flowers and a well-behaved habit of spreading slowly in sheltered, woodland settings, sweet woodruff is a good-natured perennial ground cover for a shade garden.

Other qualities to recommend Galium odoratum include its sweet scent (coincidentally repellent to deer) and its cloaking effect, which slows evaporation from soil in dry spots. Be careful to keep it out of direct sunlight, which can damage sweet woodruff’s pinwheel leaves, and don’t confuse it with its weedy, invasive cousin, the eponymously named “sticky weed” (G. aparine).

If you’re looking for a perennial ground cover to complement silvery or gray foliage in a shady spot, sweet woodruff should be at the top of your list; for more choices, see our design and growing guides to Lungwort, Coral Bells, and Bugleweed.