Hardiness zones
Sunset 1-9, 12-24
USDA 3-11

Landscape Use: Atrium and small scale groundcover, small shaded entryways. In higher elevation landscapes of Arizona, Ajuga serves as a lovely open-air, small-scale ground cover where close inspection of it's wonderful detail can be made.

Form & Character: Small, very diminutive and elegant. Ajuga is a real treasure of a small spreading plant. 

Growth Habit: Slow, very prostrate and spreading by stolons. Forms a dense mat.

Foliage/texture: Somewhat succulent foliage, dark green with shades of bronze to purple of various sizes to 1" long, sometimes re-curved and crenate. Looks like very small leaf lettuce, medium texture

Flowers & fruits: Small protruding blue to purple (sometimes rose or white) flowers in spikes during winter/spring 

Seasonal color: Leaf color during winter cold and flowers in spring

Temperature: Marginally heat tolerant in Phoenix. Foliage colors purple nicely though during the winter months of cooler weather. 

Light: Full shade, only indirect summer sun, can take partial shade conditions during winter

Soil: Organic and moist. Prefers slightly acidic soil, so additions of peat moss as a soil amendment is suggested for alkaline desert soils

Watering: Regular water to keep soil moist.

Pruning: None, except to divided and separate crowded mats of vegetation every 3-4 years

Propagation: Dvision of stolons (commercially most common) and seed 

Disease and pests: Crown rot is a problem if soil is not well drained (important as soil must also be moist!)

Additional comments: Ajuga is marginally hardy in Phoenix or Tucson because of summer heat. If used in the desert Southwest it must be in full shade with a organic amended soil. In Arizona, Ajuga is better suited for landscapes in the Prescott, Flagstaff, Payson, and Pinetop-Show Low areas. Ajuga has a myriad of cultivars having various leaf sizes and colors including variegated. White flowering cultivars exist also. Reported to be deer resistant. Ajuga is reported to have medicinal properties.