More than once I’ve watched a gardener bend down to examine something growing in a pot or in one of their beds and say, “I don’t remember planting that,” or “I don’t know where that came from.” Sound familiar?

We all have a horror story or two about a plant that crept in in the dead of night, took over one small corner of our landscape and then 90 percent of it and refused to be evicted.

On the other hand, there are times of delightful serendipity when some little, appealing flower decides to take root, get busy and fill our flower beds — and our lives — with a bit of grace and joy.

When it comes to creepers — plants that start over here and end up over there — it can go either way. For those who don’t like looking at bare soil, creepers can be the answer to their prayers. For the ones who like each plant to stand in its own little circle of negative space, creepers could be a curse. Or they could at the very least set in motion a struggle to balance their place in the garden with a natural urge to take over the world.

This isn’t about the big bruisers:  the creeping ceanothus, catoneaster or kinnikinnick that are often planted to keep out weeds but end up forming a lattice of branches that make it nearly impossible to dig out the grasses and dandelions that inevitably move in anyway.

This is about the little guys, the ones that look so innocent in their four-inch pots but just keep on going, as if Energizer were in the nursery business.

One I’m fond of is blue star creeper (Pratia pedunculata) which has star-shaped blue flowers and thrives in either sun or partial shade. It travels via underground rhizomes and can pop up in unexpected places, so keep your eyes peeled with this one. It looks good in a swath or in between pavers.

Corsican mint (Mentha requienii) is one of my all-time favorites. It tends to like partial shade over full sun and prefers soil that’s not nutrient rich. For this reason, I have trouble keeping it in a pot. It isn’t a fast spreader horizontally, but it has tiny flowers that send seeds hither and yon. It invariably turns up in the gravel in my driveway. Put it where you can walk on it barefoot or run your fingers across it. The scent is divine.

Kenilworth ivy (Cymbalaria aequitrilobia) is one of those creepers that so many people recognize but don’t know what it’s called. It has little purple flowers, forms runners both under and above the soil, and easily adheres to rocks and other surfaces. It’s a good choice for a shady wall you want to cover. It’s not really an ivy, and it’s pretty easy to pull off if (when) it starts to take over.

Finally, lots of people have a love/hate relationship with creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia). In fact, there are a lot of annoying plants in the genus Lysimachia, so don’t feel bad if your feelings run on the hate side rather than the love side. It has green or yellow foliage with yellow flowers and spreads horizontally, rooting at nodes as it goes. It likes sun and partial shade and is probably coming to a yard near you sometime soon.

Then you, too, can say, “I don’t remember planting that.”