In article m,
says...
I have an important area in the garden near the back door, that is
north-facing, shaded from the south by a fence and tends to be damp. It
contains some shrub roses, a chinese virginia creeper, hellebores and lesser
periwinkles. I have had to remove one hellebore as it showed distorted leaves
strongly suggesting virus infection. The same thing is happening to the
periwinkles and I will remove them too. The roses and virginia creeper seem
unaffected.

Given this information, can anyone suggest some ground cover planting to
replace the periwinkles (they were purple and I was looking forward to them
dammit) that would be ideally all of the following- evergreen, suited to
damper shadier areas but not minding drying out too much, and with pink or
purple flowers?

I could try one or two small euonymus there maybe- I'd settle for foliage
only if I had to. I suppose Icould even have nothing but bark chips around
the roses if all else fails.

[I have had geraniums picking up viruses here too, though not in this exact
location, so I want to avoid them for this area. Belatedly, it is obvious I
should only be gardening the virus-free areas with my usual gardening tools,
and being very careful with potential contamination of tools, soil, etc,
anywhere else- maybe the bark chips idea would save me trouble in the long
run...]


unless you have had the material tested it is not likely to be virus,
much more likely to be aphids or some other sap sucker that has moved on
before you saw the leaves, even if it was virus they are all plant
specific and each virus will only affect a narrow group of plants.
Try Geranium maccrorhizum types
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea